Mama Natural has done it again! And, she used quite a few of my suggestions for part 2 – watch it now 😀
Monthly Archives: February 2012
Valentine Love ‘Potions’
Oh, Valentines day! The day of love! Herbs have been used throughout the centuries to not only attract members of 
the opposite sex, but also to enhance intimate relationships. Now, herbals certainly can’t make you fall in love, or even trap someone into loving you, but you can certainly enhance the love relationship that already have with your spouse, and how can that be a bad thing? What better way to attract your valentine than by creating a romantic massage oil or using a blend of oils to help guide cupids arrow? One of our most primal senses is the sense of smell, and aromatic herbs can certainly assist with attraction. Just take a nice carrier oil, like almond oil, grapeseed oil, or apricot kernel oil and add about 15 drops of essential oils for every ounce of carrier oil. You can experiment by combining oils that you and your partner both enjoy. Scents are categorized as base, middle and top notes. For the best results when creating a mixture, you will want to include a top, middle, and base note oil to create harmony, just like in a musical chord. Some romantic essential oils and their properties are listed below:
Top Note Oils
- Cardamon: Elletaria cardamomum: A warm, spicy oil increases circulation. Aphrodisiac and stimulant.
- Black Pepper: Piper nigrum: Promotes circulation, aphrodisiac, stimulant, and promotes stamina.
- Ginger: Zingiber officinale: A warming oil, and stimulating aphrodisiac. It increases local circulation.
Middle Note Oils
- Jasmine: Jasminum sambac: Narcotic, floral, and aphrodisiac. Contains a chemical constituent known as indol that has a distinct animal earthiness.
- Rose: Rosa damascena: The rose has traditionally been associated with love and is an intensely floral aphrodisiac.
- Neroli: Citrus aurantium: Distilled from the flowers of the bitter orange tree, this oil is calming to the central nervous system and nourishes the heart.
- Ylang Ylang: Canaga odorata: Highly narcotic and aphrodisiac. In Indonesia ylang ylang flowers are spread on the beds of newly married couples.
- Clary Sage: Salvia sclarea: Aphrodisiac, antidepressant, euphoric, and sedative.
Base Note Oils
- Vetiver: Vetiveria zizanioides: Distilled from the root of a grass this oil is grounding and nourishing. It is a circulatory stimulant yet sedative to the central nervous system.
- Patchouli: Pogostemon cablin: Aphrodisiac, antidepressant, grounding and balancing.
- Sandalwood: Santalum album: Aphrodisiac, antidepressant, and sedative. Contains sesquiterpenes, which are known to be calming to the nervous system.
A sample mixture for a romantic massage oil would be something like this:
Cardamon (Top) 7 drops + Ylang Ylang (Middle) 3 drops + Patchouli (Base) 5 drops for a total of 15 drops of essential oil mixed 1 drop at a time into 1 ounce of apricot kernel oil, then tip bottle gently up and down to mix.
Don’t be afraid to experiment with different oils until you find a scent that you and your spouse really enjoy!
This post is part of the 26th Edition of Wildcrafting Wednesday at Mind Body and Sole
Vitamins, Minerals, Probiotics, & Enzymes
A healthy diet requires a mixture of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and probiotic bacteria for your body to break down and absorb the nutrients in your food. For these essential elements to be most effective, they should be eaten in their whole natural forms: Whole grains, meat with the fat, whole milk dairy products, etc.
Vitamins:
Any of a group of substances that are essential in small quantities for the normal functioning of metabolism in the body. They cannot usually be created in the body but they occur naturally in certain foods: insufficient supply of any particular vitamin results in a deficiency disease.
Minerals:
Minerals are chemical elements required by living organisms for normal functioning of metabolism, other than the four elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen which are naturally present in the body. Minerals enter the food chain when they are absorbed by plants, which are then eaten. Plant and animal foods both contain minerals. Bacteria play an essential role in breaking down these minerals to release the nutrients and make minerals available for use at a cellular level in the body.
Enzymes:
Enzymes are molecules in food that speed up the chemical reactions that break down large molecules of food in the digestive system so that they can be absorbed and used by the body. Enzymes are found in both plant and animal food sources. All enzymes are deactivated at a wet-heat temperature of 118 degrees Fahrenheit, and a dry-heat temperature of about 150 degrees, so it is important to eat a good amount of raw foods, and to not cook foods at extremely high temperatures.
Probiotic Bacteria:
Probiotic bacteria are a group of live microorganisms living in the body which improve the intestinal microbial balance, and inhibiting pathogens and toxin producing bacteria. The most common of these microbes are lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and bifidobacteria; but certain yeasts and bacilli, such as those found in yogurt and kefir are also a part of this group. Heating milk over 110° kills any probiotic bacteria that was in the milk and removes any of the benefits that you may have otherwise received.
Crunchy Talk
It’s funny how when you start getting involved in alternative health, there seems to be a whole new dialect that we learn, even if we are not around a lot of other “crunchy” folks! I laughed when I saw this video, because I think I have said almost all of these things, and more . . . And when we get around each other, I wonder sometimes if regular people even know what we are talking about.
If I could have added to this, there would have been a few more things that they could have said:
1. “Can you hold on a second? I need to pee my baby.” (infant potty training/elimination communication)
2. Raw Milk (in the two words part)
3. Cold sheet treatment
4. “Sure you can have a green avocado kefir smoothie”
5. “We chose not to participate in the barf fest this year” (referring to the chronic overdose of sugary treats which tend to induce flu every holiday)
6. “Are you picking up milk this week?”
7. Cod Liver Oil
8. “have you watched _________________ yet?” (fill in your food/childbirth/breastfeeding related documentary)
9. “I was so devastated, he self weaned when he was only 12 months old!”
10. Essential Oils (added to two words)
11. “Honey, can you stop and pick up some vodka from the liquor store? I’m out of __________.” (Fill in your tincture)
12. Weston A. Price
13. Vaccination waivers (two words)
14. soaked grains (two words)
15. “We don’t have an infant carrier”
16. “Just sneak into the barn at night, pick up a couple of gallons and leave your money in the box.”
17. “We don’t eat cold breakfast cereal”
18. “We would like to skip the fluoride treatments.” (To the dental assistant)
19. lacto-fermentation
20. Grass fed (two words)
21. “Have some more pastured bacon!”
22. Farm Raids (two words)
23. “Check the label for GMO’s/HFCS/MSG/Red Dye #40/etc.”
24. Monsanto
25. “Keep the government out of my food!”
26. quoting CDC stats on raw milk/spinach/herbal supplements
27. Pastured eggs (two words)
28. “Please don’t trim the fat, and can you throw in all of the organ meats and soup bones, please?” (to the butcher)
29. Are you going to ride with the raw milk freedom riders?
30. Namaste!
A visual of the mother chewing up something and putting it in baby’s mouth would have been too funny as well. I could go on and on, so feel free to leave your additions in the comments!
