Mama's Home Remedies: Discover Time-Tested Secrets of Good Health and the Pleasures of Natural Living (2 page)

We can change the course of our future, either making it a pathway of fulfillment and abundant joy or an excruciating voyage through the misery of irresponsibility. In your hands, you hold an important key to the place where all of us wish to reside. This special space is free from suffering and filled with health. Do not allow commercial interests to rob you of inherent strength by selling you inferior and destructive products and ideas. Help yourself by increasing your know-how and succeeding with your conquest. This accumulating character-building continuum gives you the wherewithal to engage wholeness. When you have achieved this crucial plateau, the insight and tools will be available so that you can build the necessary health that is required to live a full and successful life. Ms. Konnikova should be congratulated for her laborious efforts to offer us an outline to happiness and health. Everyone will benefit from these jewels of understanding and I am sure that you will be as rewarded as I was after embracing many of these natural prescriptions.
Anna Maria Clement, PhD, NMD

Codirector and Chief Health Administrator

of Hippocrates Health Institute, West Palm Beach, Florida

\

Foreword @ xi

INTRODUCTION

If I were to name the three most precious resources of life,
I should say books, friends, and nature. Nature we have always
with us, an inexhaustible storehouse of that which moves the heart,
appeals to the mind, and fires the imagination—health to the body,
a stimulus to the intellect, and joy to the soul.

—John Burroughs (1837–1921), American writer and naturalist
My interest in herbs and nature began long ago. I remember my first impression: a bunch of small chamomile flowers in a crystal vase standing on a side table near my bed. They held a delicate aroma that I memorized forever. I feel that it blends perfectly with my body chemistry.

Chamomile was the first of Nature’s greetings to me from the unknown, miraculous world outside. I grew up in a home filled with dried herbs, potted plants, and fragrant sachets everywhere to keep the air fresh with an energizing scent. Our kitchen was filled with numerous packets and glass jars of mixed herbs,
nastoykas
(infusions), juices, teas, and elixirs. Beginning with my great-great-grandmother, several generations of women in our family were fascinated with herbs and everything that Nature could provide us. Grandma planted herbs, flowers, and trees in her gardens and used them as natural healers in the preparation of homemade green medicines; as cosmetics; and in cooking delicious vegetable meals, preserves, and jams. All the women in our family, except my mother, were homemakers, but they learned how to use a green pharmacy. They acquired a broad range of knowledge of plants and used it to prevent and heal various ailments in their family members.

xii ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

Generation after generation accepted the importance of herbs in healing naturally, in eating healthy foods, and in keeping themselves at their best. They also explored the incredible world of Nature in another part of our house. Our family library contained hundreds of books. My grandmother and grandfather, and then my parents, created an exciting atmosphere there where my aunts and uncles, cousins, good friends, and neighbors were welcomed to tea parties and

“green” dinners, where candlelight and stimulating conversations abounded. My sister and I grew up without extensive use of antibiotics and other drugs. Instead we were surrounded with great books, good friends, a beautiful natural environment, Grandma’s fairy tales, and her green-blue garden. We also had Grandpa’s wisdom and his vineyards with ripe grapes, Papa’s home library with hundreds of great books and lessons on how to reach your dreams, and Mama’s motivational discussions on self-esteem and treatment with her homemade healing remedies.

I read many medical books from Mama’s library and she shared with me her knowledge. She often told me, “You are a doctor by nature. It is a gift from God. You understand and feel the nature of disease. Why won’t you continue to study medicine?”

“Mama, my first love is journalism,” I would tell her.

Although I felt a strong desire to devote my life to becoming a doctor, I dreamed also of being a journalist. I was torn between the two paths and had such a difficult time making one “right” choice that I chose a “gold middle.”

I became a writer and a broadcast journalist, an educator, and the family

“doctor” for my husband and two sons. I feel comfortable sharing the knowledge I’ve garnered from Grandma and Mama’s wisdom combined with my own research and formal education, including the study of natural remedies from fifteenth-century herbal books through current advances. Many of the hundreds of Mama’s recipes have been used widely in Russia and Europe for centuries. I am happy now to share with you my knowledge and show you how you can treat illnesses in a wise way without polluting your body with an endless flow of chemicals.

Svetlana Konnikova

\

Introduction @ xiii

A. K.

xiv ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

A Fine Mood

Who was silent by the window?

Fog quarreled with rain

and it was a long, long evening…

about something far away, unearthly,

about something close and kindred.

The weeping candles burn down.

And what is there to cry about?

All in all, we are in fact alive,

but sometimes toward evening

suddenly we feel sorry for ourselves.

It’s always toward evening

and we sit down at the grand piano,

lift a veil from the keyboard,

and bring the candles back to life.

These candles weep for the people –

now softly, now intense,

unable to quench their tears

in time.

It’s very important for me

that we have no fear of fire,

that the candles cry for the people,

burn down and, soundless, melt away.

Tomorrow daylight comes again,

and we’ll hear a tune again,

like Mama’s song.

And a musician will be playing

to make the people glad again.

And like a song it comes back to you

that fine mood.

\

S. K.

A Fine Mood @ 1

2 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

Rose Hips Tea Party

To live we need sun, freedom and a small flower.

—Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875), Danish writer

Tea parties were a Friday tradition and always a perfect get-together at our home. The “girls” would meet as usual in our garden. They were my mother’s girlfriends, medical professionals, doctors, and nurses. They worked together many years and shared one love, an obsession with their medical profession.

During these years they accumulated a rich experience in healing people from different diseases. They were a team of courageous and noble people whom I observed and from whom I learned. I listened to their long conversations about natural healing and alternative medicine and their humorous stories with unabated attention. I was 12 when I began to keep a journal in which I wrote my observations and collected valuable information that I gleaned from Mama and her friends.

They told me that whenever they began to work with any patient, they would recite to them this ancient parable:

There are three of us: me, you, and a disease. If you, my patient,
will be on the side of illness, I will not overcome you as a doctor.
If you will be on my side, together we will conquer your illness.
Rose Hips Tea Party @ 3

Mama’s and her friends’ practice was evidence that this psychological approach worked. It was motivation for the people to fight their illnesses. It was a clear direction to health and life. The “girls” gathered these miraculous remedies from centuries of wisdom and expertise including their own mothers, grandmothers, and Mother Nature. They combined the natural method of physical therapy with electro-physiology. They prescribed well-known antibiotics and other drugs, but their first attempt to heal a patient was always with the sole use of herbal remedies.

Tea was considered to be an essential part of
l’ art de vivre.
They sat down to tea many times—the same party around the same table on our patio, overlooking Grandma’s multicolored garden with an array of flowers that greeted them with sweet and pungent aromas while the strains of Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers” filled the air.

\

4 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

To live happily is an inward power of the soul.

—Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161-180), Roman emperor

Mama’s Philosophy for Your Motivation

^ Life is a beautiful gift given to al of us. We should use it properly.

^ Be kind and try to do something good for somebody right now. Don’t delay because we will not pass the same way again.

^ Be an attentive listener and motivator if family members or your friends share their ultimate secrets, goals, and dreams with you. Never put them down. The consequences can be unpredictable.

^ Be positive and constructive. Be straightforward and encouraging. As a result, something great can come out of it.

^ Look at the sunny side of everything in your life and be optimistic. Your optimism will become reality.

^ Make your life an example of health, happiness, and prosperity. This will give you an opportunity to become a knowledgeable advisor and expert.

^ Be generous. Share your rich experience with those who would like to take advantage of it.

^ Be really responsible for your life and follow your heart. Rose Hips Tea Party @ 5

^ Our life is a gift twice: once for ourselves and once for others.

^ Our life is a mirror in which we can see good and bad. Our health is a shield—physical and mental. Our physical health has an influence on our spiritual life, but our spiritual power gives us the discipline required to maintain our health.

^ Our health and our well-being rest in our hands.

^ Think only of the best and build your long and happy life, based on the laws of Nature.

^ Chase your goals and perform good deeds.

^ Be strong and have the guts to say “No” when you feel that something is not right. The world will not change to suit your preferences.

^ Be a very good sport to your family and friends. Love, inspire, amuse, and believe in them. It is mutual. You’ll get the same treatment back.

^ Consider every day as a small life and each day as full and perfect.

^ Be confident that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Be strong against fear.

^ Be noble and mighty against jealousy and anger.

^ Help others in need of your help, and just do it!

^ To live a long, healthy, and happy life is an art—
l’ art de vivre.
6 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

“Even the Badger Knows . . .”

Nature is to be found in her entirety nowhere more than
in her smallest creatures.

—Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23-79), Roman scholar

FACTS:

More than one-third of U.S. citizens use natural medicine today. The government has suggested that more and more people became interested in herbs, meditation, yoga, and other forms of alternative medicine because they don’t see positive results very often with conventional care. One of the largest U.S. studies conducted on alternative medicine found that over ⅓ of American adults practiced some type of alternative medicine in 2002. The report was based on information from 31,044 interviews with adults age 18 or older.

Researchers believe that results of the study point to the fact that more people are using alternative medicine and an increasing number of people have turned to natural products like herbs, fruits, vegetables, or enzymes to help treat chronic or recurring pain.

Experts suggest that people should not neglect conventional medicine in those cases where it has been proven to help certain conditions. They also recommend consulting a doctor before practicing alternative medicine. Experts express concern about the number of people turning to alternative medicine because they felt they were no longer able to pay the costs of conventional care. Experts also caution people to be careful before they use a natural product and

“Even the Badger Knows…” @ 7

not assume that it is automatically safe to consume only because it is natural. The study cited an example that 6.6 percent of people in the study used the supplement kava kava, which has been linked to liver disease. The study found that 62 percent of the participants used some form of complimentary or alternative medicine over the past year for a specific medical condition: