Natural Herbal Beauty

Hawthorn Crataegus oxycantha

Description: a common deciduous shrub or small tree, often used in hedging, with deeply lobed obovate leaves and pink or white scented flowers in late spring. Dark red oval fruits form in early autumn and are usually eaten by birds.

Parts used: flowering tops, collected in spring, and berries, collected when ripe in autumn

Actions: antispasmodic, astringent, heart tonic and restorative, normalises blood pressure, peripheral vasodilator, sedative (more…)

Today, thanks to modern science, we generally regard the heart simply as a powerful muscle to pump blood around the body. Traditional medicine has a rather different view: to the Chinese the heart controls the life process, co-ordinates the activities of all the other organs and manages mental activities and consciousness. It stores Shen — a sense of appropriateness and right behaviour — so that what we term mental illness is often seen in Chinese medicine as due to disharmonies in the heart upsetting Shen.

Ayurvedic medicine puts the heart in a similar central role: it is the dwelling place of the atman — the divine self or spirit of immortal life — controlling consciousness and affected by spiritual weakness. Western Ayurvedic experts like David Frawley argue that the high level of heart disease in Western society is due to our over-preoccupation with personal achievement and material wealth — we die of “spiritual starvation”, causing a broken heart. (more…)

Worldwide, more people take tea than any other beverage, except water. Green tea is one of the sipping teas, so ancient its use as a refreshing drink dates back 5,000 years. If your primary interest is in the simple drinking of green tea for the pleasure it offers, please refer to Traditional Sipping Teas. It’s true that green tea is traditionally taken as a beverage, not as a medicinal tea, but times are changing.

Today, green tea is heralded as highly beneficial. The latest research shows that drinking green tea not only wards off heart disease, lowers the incidence of stroke, reduces the risk of cancer, brings down high blood pressure, and combats cold and flu symptoms, it even fights dental decay and bad breath. (more…)