I am NOT a "Weed"!

Mullein

Adam's flannel, old man's flannel, woolen, rag paper, candlewick plant, wild ice leaf, Jupiter's staff, Jacob's staff, Flannel Plant, Hag's Taper are all common names for Mullein

Expectorant
Anti-viral
Mild diuretic
Relaxing Expectorant
Mild Laxative
Emollient

Mild Sedative

Mullein is found roadside, in yards and woodlands all over the USA. The hole plant is covered with fine, downy hairs. This gives Mullein its features of soft, velvety texture and appearance, and help the plant retain moisture. Mullein is well-known as a medicinal herb which has been used for centuries. The Greek physician's benefit Mullein for "old coughs."

Mullein also contains coumarin and rote-none, a natural insecticide and fish poison, which is supposed to be non-toxic to mammals.

Mullein tea is traditionally an effective treatment for coughs and lung disorders. Flowers and leaves from mullein are used for their strong mucilaginous (sticky and viscous) content against all forms of throat and lung irritation

Mullein is used as a following:

• Analgesic.
  
• Antihistamine.
  
• Anti inflammatory.
  
• Anticancer.
  
• Antioxidant.
  
• Antiviral.
  
• Bactericide.
  
• Cardio depressant.
  
• Estrogen.
  
• Fungicide.
  
• Hypnotic.
  
• Pesticide.

It is beneficial to tones the mucous membranes, reducing inflammation and stimulating fluid production, thus facilitating expectoration. Mullein has anti-inflammatory and demulcent properties which give it a useful role in tracheal and associated conditions. Due to its relaxing feature it act as expectorant for dry, chronic, hard coughs such as in whooping cough,asthma ,bronchitis & tuberculosis. Cure's eczema of the ear . Mullein has powerful narcotic properties, but is nontoxic and safe to ingest in large quantities. Can drink it all day. Mullein is use as a treatment for bladder or urinary tract irritations, including bloody urine.

Its also use as yellow dye which is made from the flowers by boiling them in water & produce permanent green dye when used with dilute sulfuric acid

It is use to covers and protects scraped tissues, Softens and soothes irritated skin, Shrinks tissues, prevents secretion of fluids.It relieve from ease coughs ,sore throats, Soothe minor abrasions and hemorrhoid pain.

Side Effects

Mullein is generally safe to use but there are rare reports of skin irritation.

If following side effects occurs then consult to your doctor.

• Breathing problems
  
• Tightness in your throat 
  
• Tightness in your chest 
  
• Chest pain 
  
• Skin hives
  
• Rash
  
• Itchy  
  
• Swollen skin 

• Tiredness

Dosage

As a Tea :

Pour 1 cup of boiling water over 1 heaping tablespoon of Mullein flowers. Let steep 10 minutes, strain, and sweeten with honey if desired.

As a preventative treatment:

1/2 - 1 oz per day. To help combat cough and reduce throat irritation take 1 - 2 table spoons oz every 2 - 4 h. To help relieve night cough take 1 - 2 fl oz before sleep. Contain 24 -26 % grain alcohol by volume.

In case of ear infection :

Squeeze several drops of room-temperature mullein oil into the ear canal, so long as you are sure that the eardrum isn't punctured. it only relieves the symptoms not to heal an ear infection.

Other pieces of information

Smoking leaves is a treatment for asthma and bronchial problems and is an expectorant.

Mullein also contains Steroids which hinders pain and bleeding in wounds.

According to another old authority, Alexander Trallianus, the ashes of the plant made into a soap will restore hair which has become Grey to its original color.

The seeds are said to intoxicate fish when thrown into the water, and are used by poachers for that purpose, being slightly narcotic.

A decoction of its roots was held to be an alleviation for toothache, and also good for cramps and convulsions, and an early morning drank of the distilled water of the flowers to be good for gout.

Mullein juice and powder made from the dried roots rubbed on rough warts was said to quickly remove them, though it was not recommended as equally effective for smooth warts. A poultice made of the seeds and leaves, boiled in hot wine, was also considered an excellent means to 'draw forth speedily thorns or splinters gotten into the flesh.' We also hear of the woolly leaves being worn in the stockings to promote circulation and keep the feet warm.

For use magickially pick especially the leaves of the plant which have not yet borne flowers, and gathered when the sun is in Virgo and the moon in Aries.

Drug Interactions

There were no well-known drug interactions with mullein

What to do with unused lotions and creams

So often we buy a product either becase it smells or looks good or becaudse someone recomended it. So there we sit with more and more partly used lotions and fcreams that really do not do what they were intended to do. Sometimes even promised to do, but lets face it just plain didn't. Well gather them up and here is a recipe to use them up while being both frugal and savy at the same time. While you are at it you can add esssential oils for help in a troubled area or a scent to make the lotion a wonderful joy to wear.

Note the * by some of the products. These are family Dollar or dollar general items. Very cheap and perfect for this and many other lotions and creams. Stock up if you are going to follow this blog as I use them in an assortment of products.

Getting ready to start. I found very early in that I needed 1 sauce pan, a large and small glass bowl and a hand mixer. You should not use the same ones you use to make food items. But for now it you started with just a spoon and a large plastic throw away container you have all you need for this recipe.

Added Notes.

Essential oils- is a concentrated hydrophobic liquid dirived from plants. and are usually extracted by disillation. They are the ones that have medicinal use. You use these for their healing value.

Fragrance oils- they are for scent alone. There are fragrance oils for about every scent amaginable, from Monkey farts to rain forrest, from autum wreath to cookies and cream. You use these when you just need a scent.



Redo Store Bought Lotion

2 cups assorted of lotions (1 kind or 20 it makes no difference)
1 (4 oz) Nadinola Cocoa Butter Cream (* Look inside and make sure it is cream and not a solid)
4 oz Vitamin E oil (*in a bottle)
4 teaspoon vitamin A&D oitment
10-15 drops of a essential or fragrance oil (Optional)

In a glass bowl or a throw away plastic container empty all your assorted lotions or creams. Add the other ingredients using the stated amounts for every two cups of lotions. Mix well making sure it is totally blended. You can add a little water if you need to.  Then store in either a pump bottle or a jar.  How many will depend on what you use, the size of the bottle and how many sets of two cups you have in leftover lotion.

I save the old Nadinola jars for salves. So wash it and save. I also use old pump bottle soap dispensers for my lotions. So start saving them as well.

I usually use peppermint essential oil)~ it had antibiotic, used for painrelief and has methol in it so it has a cooling action adding life to dull dry skin and helps with skin that is too oily as well.

a bit about me and what I plan for this blog!

I started out accustomed to spirits visiting. It wasn't until about age 5 that I understood that some of the people I talked to had died long ago. My mother didn't really discuss much of her abilities until I was around 7 and she had not taken precautions with a Ouija board. It was my first look at a what I call a shadow entity. A small energy feeder that sucks it's life from the living. They will not kill you and are quite shy but will leave you feeling drained. Once they find out I know of no way to release yourself. You can only find them by staring at a shadow in a room for 5 or more minutes. At some point it will stretch and go back into it's shadow mocking state to hide again. The one I saw tried to hide as a TV shadow. It seamed to (When stretching) turn into a rounded headed creature with arms and some sort of fingers or claws. As I said it was all shadow and no real form. I have later heard them described as a Energy vampire consciousness without form. There are thing that go bump in the night and they are real. Many can not hurt creatures that can't see them. So the more you can see the more protection you need to in list all the time.

My fathers love of rocks and crafts were also a part of my life quite young.

As was my mother love of flowers and colognes that they could make. I was making my first cologne at age 6.

Both parents made jewelry as do I now . My mother loving shells and my father liking rocks. They owned a jewelry company out of their home after retiring.

My aunt Pat started me on a love of yarn. She taught me knitting. My first ex hubbies mom taught me crochet. I learned macrame at a craft summer school at age 7 that my aunt Kathleen sent us to while she baby sat us.

I carried their loves a little further and started making lotions and ointments about 6 years ago. I now make lotions, perfumes, aftershaves, tooth paste, skin products and medicine chest items.

This site will be a collection of crafts, lotions and herbal remedies. Plus talks about how to find herbs in the wild as well as how to use them, Now that the intro stuff is done, Please stay tuned. I want this info shared, so please use all the recipes and maybe even link this site when you can to others who want a more natural back to older times life.

Blessings to all who enter!

And on to my mother.

My mother was a remarkable woman. Very liberated for her time. I feel she was a very old soul. She was born with a defective heart valve. It was so bad that the Doctors insisted she would not make it past her teens. But to live that long she had to not go to school or indulge in any other type Strain on her heart. The doctor advised against marrying, having kids or a job.

When she was 16, her father went into the hospital, he was dieing. Not sure I ever heard why. Anyway, there they are in the hospital. My grandmother in with her hubby, my grandfather and my Mother was talking to the Doctor in the hall. During that conversation my mother collapsed. The doctor pronounced her dead, no heart beat at all. From my understand she was taken to the morgue. She believed she was gone somewhere between 10-15 minutes when she Woke up. This is what she remembers.

She was laying down on the floor so she got up. Realizing as she turned that she was still laying on the floor. There was a light, faint at first then as she started towards it, it grew in brightness. She was drawn into it like a moth to a flame. (her words) She floated upward as the light grew in brightness. It was like no other light she had ever seen. Like a living entity. Consuming, loving, nurturing. It encased her in a presence of such love that she said we would have no concept of how all encompassing pure love is. It encircled and was also a part of her, no beginning and no end. She fought to get to the point of the lights origin. As she reached her destination she was told she had more to do and must return. My mother didn't want to leave. But as the last word was sent her way, she was hurled back to earth and into her body. Then, with a breath she woke up.

My mother has always saw spirits and faeries. She communicated with them. She was at home there. She however wasn't at home with children. Not sure why. She loved working. She was very smart and finished high school at age 15. She was told she could jump 4 grades but her parents didn't want her out of school at such a young age. So she only jumped two grades. My grandparents were very old fashioned. disliking anyone not like them. Women were to be house wives, nurses or secretaries. Although my mother became a housewife she wasn't comfortable there. She also got a job as a secretary at GM. There she worked as long as she could each day. She dropped us at a sitters at 6AM and usually came back at 6:00 to 6:30 PM. 5-7 days a week. She loved working or maybe she just loved not being a mother during those hours. Later in life she commented to me how proud she was that I was such a good mother and was so domestic, stating I didn't get it from her.

My mom came from old school thoughts, dislike for those not like themselves. Her dad I think was the one behind that, as my grandmother was a nature creature and a hedge witch, he wasn't. But my mother took a different path she was not prestigious, nor did she feel women should be stifled in schooling or work choices. Her words to us girls were, “Don't let anyone hold you down, you can be anything you want to be.”

From my mother I got:

Stand up for what you believe in.

Never take a place as a back seat anything.

Become what you are not what others what you to be.

And the last most important is Dying is not an end, it is a beautiful beginning. And, I can hardly wait!

Lessons From my Father Part 2

The second memorable lesson was around his time of death. I had come to pick Dad up to join my mother when we found he had an heart attack. He was then  rushed to the hospital. The Doctor was there when he arrived, as was I. He was still speaking. In fact it was his last words ever on this earth.

When I saw him coming in I told him "everyone is on the way. Please don't  go Dad, I still want more time. "

The heart felt words from a woman who after being a CNA long enough should of known better. Never, never pressure someone to stay.

Anyway his words were simple

"Just fucking deal with it, You have no idea how much I hurt."

I cried. I still cry thinking about it.

But he was right. I had no idea what he was going through as far as pain. I found out later from the Doctor that he had been in horrible pain for over 20 years at that time. He never let on. We come in alone and we go out alone. We have no rights on another. We have no excuse for trying to hold captive another for our own selfish needs. I just didn't want to loose him. I personally was not ready.


So my  Lessons from my father were

Give space and if needed a way to leave without feeling guilty.
Never strike without first weighing the consequences.
Think, no one is perfect but don't settle for less than everything you want in a mate.

I found that perfect man two and a half years ago. But work on the other two everyday. I am not perfect but I am trying to be better each and every day

Lessons from my Father part 1

My family was never what you would call normal, nor did any of us think that was bad. We were and are a conglomerate of unique people forging forward all in different directions. From my Father I received the love of Rocks (Got my first tumbler at age 6), The love of Indian Jewelry, and the ability to find something to do in order to allow my hubby to do his thing. His Two important  message's to me during times of trouble may to others seam heartless but they carry great insight.  These were the messages

"If you feel you are ready to kill yourself, Go ahead, who am I to stop you. I ask just one thing, wait two weeks."

 Harsh! Cold! You might think so from an outsiders view. But he wasn't. He was a loving misunderstood man. Only in the last few years have I realized what I had taken as mean was in fact quite enlightened. Anyway, how he and I had gotten to this statement is this.

I was in an abusive marriage (My first Marriage of seven) Dan During that relationship I was punched, held at gun point, Locked in closets, thrown from a car and thrown into a window. Any way He was on a rampage and I was running. Both in cars. I was headed to my parents house with him directly behind. The car barely stopped and I was running for the house with my youngest in my arms. She was about a year old. My dad heard me screaming as I ran towards the door, He was coming out shot gun in hand. Mind you my father was always a peaceful man. He had warned me this man wasn't for me before I married but of course I knew better. Any way He cocked the gun and aimed it at Dan's head. He simply said, "Don't make me son."   Dan Ran. After calming down he told me this had  to quit. I looked hopelessly into his eyes crying I said, "Maybe I should just Kill myself, I'd be better off dead." God, even now that time in my life has a great charge to it. I cry whenever I think of it.

This is where his sentence came it. I then told him he was heartless. He looked at me and said let me explain. I had a friend who said he was going to kill himself, things were that bad for him . he was loosing his wife, his house, his kids, and his car was already repo'ed. He asked me if I saw any lining, frankly I didn't see any hope at all. Later that day he hung himself. Well tow weeks later he received a letter, in it it stated he is grandfather had died and left him his money and property. This man would of never had to work again. So wait two weeks if you still feel that way then do what your heart tells you. Just think of yourself, don't worry about your little girl who would be left with then man who was hurting you. Heavy!

The picture is from that time and it is me at the Detroit Zoo early 1970's

Where we come from answers a few questions as to who we are

My last picture of my Grandmother on my fathers side Dorothy "Anglin" Duke

Looking back further to my parents. Well I was brought up in a very easy going household. Without the usual taboos. My parents were always wondering the house in underwear or less. Sexual differences were a given not a curse. Cloths were an option. No one cared. I was never spanked and only once did my father ever hit me, a slap on the face. I deserved it. It hurt only a second. But the mark lasted as a hand print most of the day. The effect of it about killed my father. I don't think he ever forgave himself. For the most part they were hippies before hippies came to be. But with one big difference no drugs. They didn't drink either.

My dad's parents came from England. My grandmother was from a very well to do family and my grandfather was about as poor as they get there. From what I understand there were two classes in England rich and poor. My grand parents were one of each. My grandfather worked for Cunard cruise lines. My grandmother never worked. Her parents disowned her when she married my grandfather. So they set out for the America's.

To do that my grandfather signed on with a new cruise ship The Titanic. My grandmother was pregnant with my father. Well at the departure plank they lost their place on the ship to a couple who could pay $5.00 more. It was another few months before they would make that trip here, but thinking about that makes me thankful someone else had more money. I would never of been born. My grand parents would have been with those locked below until the rich had boarded the life boats. And we all know there were not enough boats for everyone. Thus that movie holds a lot of emotions for me.

On to my Mothers family. Her parents were from Canada . My grandmother side was a Heinz variety . My grandfathers side was French Canadian. They settled here in Michigan in Royal oak with her mother Anna and his sister Jean.

Now back to my parents. My father was someone who didn't like differences. My mother was different. She came from a long line of what you would call hedge witches. She turned her back on that for my father or at least for the most part. My father was afraid of old people, my mother afraid she would be burned at the stake. So both were handy capped in different ways. My mother having given up her history and my father to consumed in being normal to ever be. My father was highly prestigious. My mother memorized with fire.

Enter me. I was not what they had bargained for By age 7 I had made them both reevaluate The power and wonder of family. No more was the fact that we were part American Indian on my mothers side hidden. Later my father started making Indian jewelry. I took up my grandmother legacy, Herbs. I have been hooked ever since. There is always more to learn.

In found this on the name Anglin in England and where they originated
http://anglin-surname.com/diaspora/chapter-12.html

Just starting out

As we look forward we see possibilities as there is only possibilities, nothing is written. But in looking backward we see who we are by exploring who our family was, and their family and their family.....
This blog will be a weekly account of past vs present as I feel my way through life.

Five years ago "2007"  I came out of the broom closet. No guys not "the closet" but the BROOM CLOSET!  A far worse thing could be wished on no man. I lost my job at a 100 hospital that assures every applicant that they DO NOT discriminate. Because I was Pagan. The whispers were I was a witch and I had hexed some people. Oh my! Can't they do any better than that. Really!

Anyway, long story short I had just divorced and loosing my Job in such a small town also cost me my house as I could not pay for any longer. So in the end of  "2009"  I put it up for sale. a little hockus pokus and second month on the market it sold.  So I escaped the clutches of the repo faery.

Now in January of 2010 I moved to a place he had remembered fondly. Long story short we moved again. This time the house was on the market 3 weeks. THREE WEEKS in today's housing market, not bad at all! I remarried in June 2010.

That brings us to this house and a time of transition. We bought this house because of it's spa like feeling and quiet recessed yard. People are not overly friendly though, that makes me sad. Still It suits our purpose. Still working at a low paying job My husband had said enough and we both set out   on a job we would like to do. Mine was writing. So Dec 31th 2012, I quit to start on a writing adventure.

I have so many books going through my head daily that I will never get them all out. My inspiration comes from life and at times dreams. I just adore dreams as they can mold themselves in ways we don't think of.

My first book is now in the process of having proof readers have their say. Yes in less just about 4 months. I hear other writers saying their first took 5-15 years. It started as a beware type book but soon took on a life of it's own. I am so proud. Being a Gemini I pack more than I can do in everyday and pray a lot. I will be going to press soon will keep you posted on it's debut.