WHEN THE GLASS FALLS...
on trusting your body to know the way
It was actually a small glass bowl that crunched like cardboard between me and the counter on what would have been its straight-line drop to the floor - but we all know crashing glass knows nothing of straight lines.
Besides, my kitchen floor is porcelain, and even with throw rugs, glass always heads for the naked gap between the squares to explode.
As this innocuous little bowl hit the counter, the smaller half of flew over and gashed my hand before i could blink; and by then, blood was voluminously pouring out.
pouring but not spurting, so i probably didn’t snip the radial artery. good to know. i got this!
…Grabbing my soft cotton kitchen towel fast, i pressed and wrapped and wrapped, tying my thumb to my wrist to stabilize the open gash.
…swabbing up red streams from somewhere…why was my thumb also spilling blood?
It took an hour to stop the gushing blood, leaving me to wonder how deep the slash had gone. It was, one might say, sharp and swift - razor sharp in fact - and somehow destined to just miss slitting the radial artery in my wrist.
friday early am:
how’s that for a creative morning script? what can one possibly say to this???
(yes, i had to go to work, and blood kept dripping on my shirt; and yes one-handed is a real life skill you can master so nobody notices - like my Friday client did not)
DON’T BE AFRAID WHEN IT HAPPENS TO YOU. TAKE MY WORD FOR IT - I’VE SIGNED THIS PACT IN RED BEFORE…AND LIVED TO TELL
Remember my broken hand story touting regenerative herbalism as a lifestyle?
it absolutely is a lifestyle - my home space is a packed apothecary, and i’ve been making medicine for 12 years.
i haven’t thought about allopathic medicine in 40 years - except to stay far far away.
As a very young girl i easily deduced that doctors (not all, but most) don’t treat people in pain - they shuffle diagnoses for profit, while people get sicker all the time.
My relentless passion as a healer was seeded in reaction to this egregious truth.
AT 20 I WAS LEFT DISABLED WITH A PSYCHIATRIC DIAGNOSIS; THAT WAS THE LAST CARD WESTERN MEDICINE EVER GOT TO PLAY IN MY GAME!
i didn’t yet know the “how” of self-repair - but i knew the “why”…
Diagnoses are labels we end up wearing our entire lives; that’s essentially how big pharma slips in and takes control of your life.
Now’s a bad time to wake up to this…because every visit, every drug, every test, every note on that chart, that puts “them” in the driver seat. Nope, no medical records on me…
Seems i was born convinced that bodies heal themselves. Herbalism always made sense, and i studied on my own for 30 years before finally starting medicine making courses in 2010 - the year i broke my right hand.
As my herbal teachers warned us, the plants just kept moving in - to all my drawers, closets, and shelves - a living pharmacy which includes many pounds of bulk stock and a boxes of duplicate kitchen tools - like blenders, funnels, sieves, and wooden spoons. and hootch. big bottles of hootch for tincturing - because tinctures (unlike salves) don’t spoil, and stay fresh for at least ten years.
It took three full carloads to move the apothecary last time…
HOW TO STOP THE BLOOD AND DISINFECT
direct pressure, elevation above the heart, and plants - like plantain (plantago species, not bananas) - plantain tincture is my go-to-first aide choice; i keep big bottles at home and small ones in the car, and am always ready to provide first aide and send this medicine home with them.
Here’s an insert i used to provide with my medicines, deifying the humble plantain leaf (a wild weed, may i add!) from when i lived up north where the forests and ravines are groves of medicinal weeds. i will be crooning of plantain’s many merits here; including rattlesnake bites so please read on…
Never underestimate a humble weed. All the survival secrets of eternity are hidden in each speck of pollen and each seed…
True confession: that time my ear ruptured, i doused the lymph glands behind my ears with plantain and lomatium tinctures, and also took a few drops in water here and there. The medicine told me what to do, and within three days all signs of infection were gone. How do you know? That bitterness dripping into my throat from behind my ears was gone, and the glands under my chin were not swollen any more.
*Keep in mind, when the ear membrane ruptures, in a very real sense your brain fluids are leaking out - membranes are neural tissue’s protective skin! It still took a few months to seal mine up and get my hearing back. The world sounded like an angry punk rock concert that wouldn’t stop…
**Other styptic plants: cayenne powder, yarrow flowers and leaves; and even more
TREATING THE WOUND: BACK TO THE BLOODY HAND
PACK IT WITH SALVE several times a day - a big scoop - then bandage with clean gauze. Do not skimp.
Deep gashes can knit quickly, and i challenged mine to three days. i expect when i remove the bandage today, i will see all new skin.
here’s 72 hours after the fact:
You can see the puckering of new skin pushing up, and residual bruising from the force of the “blow”. The hardest part has been not using the hand - keeping it still enough for the skin to begin to knit. Yes, i went to work yesterday, and one patient did notice my bandaged hand; and all were concerned for me until they lied down.
Involve your body’s brilliance in the game! Ditch the fear!
Then be patient - and faithful. You rbody knows how.
i make one salve at a time for freshness, and what i have now is Canna-Lav; both cannabis and lavender disinfect and regenerate skin, among their many other master skills.
In fact, my skin cancer case study circa 2012 proved exactly what i had heard: cannabis pushes up healthy new skin cells from beneath the melanoma - so red alert: it looks really ugly and scary while the necrotic tissue is being dissolved - but then after a few weeks there was not a mark left on his skin.
Thus ends today’s wandering tale of plant magic, courage, and showing up for your body. May each section flow for you into threads of knowledge and glimpses of hope.
PLEASE COMMENT; ASK QUESTIONS.
and when you really fear for your life, please do go for emergency medical services. i’m not saying you shouldn’t - but propaganda has caused us to forget our true potential and inner power. The natural world and our connection to it have been minimized, poisoned, and demeaned. Yet we are Nature itself, all four essential elements of life.
Courage comes in endless forms…
and i can only show you mine.
…and my hands are here for you as well, as is regenerative herbalism, for i will never live in a touchless world, and nor should you!
For sister and to all: "without Love where would you be right now"
Hay wannah.
Great stuff Yolanda. This article is going into my Prepper's File.
Also, it seems that the increased vibrational frequency is a cause of "distraction" from the moment causing the mishap that occurred to you. Similarily I was not paying attention for a moment and stumbled wrenching my arm and scraping myself really good. Being older it takes a bit longer to stabilize and having tips on speeding up the healing is a real blessing..