Hillside Meditations

The UnMuseum gives a look at “Science over the Edge”, interesting information on “truths out there”. Have a look!

Unmuseum, Science, Edge, X-Files

• ttaglist: Unmuseum Science Edge X-Files

Somehow I am a bit spent right now - feeling tired and listless, even with regard to my blog: no real tpics to blog upon these days. Perhaps heat and dampness play a role, don´t know. If you are a regular visitor please take my apologies. I am going to have a busy week (Spanish course tonight, homoeopathy group tomorrow and lots of other things), but please stay tuned, will you?

writer´s, bloc, spent, exhausted, exhaustion, lack

• ttaglist: writer´s bloc spent exhausted exhaustion lack

Via Incoming Signals:
How to throw a knife - I always wondered - and never figured out how to.

I am not sure that you can really learn it from the link, though - maybe you just have to practice and practice and practice (and have the right kind of knife).

throw, knife, knife-throwing

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I knew you wanted to hear more about these “Hollerkuechel” (fried elder blossoms), we had yesterday.

Just wanted to keep up the suspense

Well, here are recipes:
Medicines in our Backyard
Tigris


And, yes, being so keen on eating them I totally forgot to take a photo (although I had brought the camera to the table). It is a pity for my mother prepares them so seldom (fried elder blossoms really being full of fat and calories, no doubt).

midsummer, bonfire, fireplace, embers, elder, solstice, summer

• ttaglist: midsummer bonfire, fireplace embers elder solstice summer

So it is Midsummer - time passes by so quickly, doesn´t it?



The beautiful, somewhat misty, full moon yesterday had an almost mystic quality (well, I do have a tendency to the esoteric, I know) - but even to the most prosaic mind this is an enchanted time of the year, isn´t it?

Organic Shadows has an entry on midsummer: “People thought that midsummer was a time of magic and wonder-working. Evil spirits were said to appear, and people gathered herbs and flowers to protect themselves.” and points to Conkers and Ghosts, where traditional (celtic-british-germanic) customs for midsummer are described.

I also liked Angel´s giving her Midsummer Night’s Lore.

Murky.org gives us the astronomical facts about Midsummer.

A book to read around the time of midsummer: Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies - one of the discworld novels I like best.

midsummer, bonfire, fireplace, embers, elder, solstice, summer

• ttaglist: midsummer bonfire, fireplace embers elder solstice summer

So we had a Midsummer bonfire yesterday (complete with throwing in a twig of St.John´s wort that I had brought) - very nice. It was only a small fire in the fireplace on my parent´ s terrace and there were only the three of us.

But we had fun and some grilled sausages and afterwards some “Hollerkuechel” (elder umbels fried after soaking them in pancake dough). Just what you have to do at midsummer, isn´t it?

When the fire had burnt down a little, my mother was astonished to discover a face in the flames - no, no large amounts of alcohol were consumed by any of us - see for yourself:



The face-like form was there for quite a while - but then my mother started detecting horses and dragons and a king with a beard and then I thought that perhaps there had been some alcohol after all???

No, it really is fun trying to make out forms in a fire or in embers. Try it out!

And I like my photo ….

What did you do on Midsummer? Tell me, will you?

midsummer, bonfire, fireplace, embers, elder, apparition

• ttaglist: midsummer bonfire fireplace embers elder apparition

Via Incoming Signals:
Interesting information on the medical history of American Presidents. Very well presented! From the long list of his illnesses and diseases it seems a miracle that Lincoln survived to meet his assassin…

medical, history, American, presidents, illness, disease

• ttaglist: medical history American presidents illness disease

This afternoon I had the idea to get a photo of the typical Midsummer plant: St. John´ s Wort or Hypericum perforatum. I am going to tell the story of my quest for Hypericum in another post - anyway, above is one of the photos I took.

What you see is the typical aspect of the flowers: bright, cheery yellow, marked with black dots and lines, the five petals slightly serrated, the stamens in three bundles joined by their bases only, blooming June to August. Hypericum is a perennial plant of about one to three feet that usually lives in uncultivated ground, woods, meadows and roadsides. The plant is erect and its round stems chacteristically show two raised, lenghtwise ridges each. The plant smells terebentically, tastes bitter and of balsam. It is quite common in Europe and naturalized in North America, a rampant weed in Australia.

Cunningham´ s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs (ISBN 0-87542-122-9) tells about Scare-Devil or Foga daemonum, as the Klamath Weed or Tipton Weed is also called : “…wards off fevers and colds, makes soldiers invincible (according to Frans Vermeulen, Prisma, ISBN 90-76189-07-2, medieval knights were allowed into tournaments only after swearing they carried no hypericum , as this would give them an unfair advantage), attracts love. If it is gathered on Midsummer or on a Friday and worn it will keep mental illness at bay and will also cure melancholy.”"…hung by a window …protects against thunderbolts, fire and evil spirits” and keeps ghosts, necromancers, as well as spirits and demons and other evil-doers from the house. Cunningham further describes that by placing the herb underneath her pillow a woman will dream of her future husband. And St.John´s Wort was held to the mouth of accused witches to force them to confess.

Your Home Remedies Blog gives a more detailed description of the folklore surrounding StJohnswort.

In Mrs. M. Grieve´ s A Modern Herbal (ISBN 0486227995) I found that the botanical name “Hypericum” is derived from Greek and means “over an apparition” because it was believed that even a whiff only of the plant was enough to make evil spirits fly. Ancient Assyrians, as well, hung “piri” on doorways as a prophylactic against demons. Mrs. Grieve gives its medicinal actions and uses as follows: “Aromatic, astringent, resolvent, expectorant and nervine. Used in pulmonary complaints, bladder troubles, in supression of urine, dysentery, worms, diarrhoea, hysteria and nervous depression”, hemorrhages and jaundice, children´ s incontinence at night (I have seen good results from Hypericum-preparations in some cases!).
Hypericum perforatum also is said to be remedy in shingles.

Today Hypericum-preparations are used for the medical treatment of (slighter forms of) depression (no self-medication, please!!). The dye works as an antidepressant, tannin and oil have antibacterial and astringent properties.
As with many plants the many diametrically opposed and therefore, confusing therapeutic properties of the herb are not yet fully understood by medical science, though, as Dr. Michael Tierra correctly points out.

The photo below shows the stem and the small oblong opposite leaves that are so attached that each pair crosses those above and below; the leaves are light green with transparent oil glands that look like tiny holes when you hold a leave against the light.



More photos of hypericum perforatum I took today can be found at Flickr.

Rodale´ s Ilustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs (ISBN 0-87596-964-X) tells about St. John´s Wort: “Pinch the yellow flowers … and -presto the petals turn red. ” “It was said on the Isle of Wight that if you stepped on the plant at twilight, you might be carried off on a magic fairy horse and not return until daylight.” (Don´t try it - the poor plant certainly does not like being stepped on, I guess).
“With the spread of Christianity the plant was associated with St. John the Baptist” whose birthday is celebrated on June 24th. “It was said to bllom first on his birthday … and to bleed red oil from its leaf glands on the day in August that he was beheaded.” “Welsh families used it as a health test” - the plant was hung over a bed and by the grade of its shrivelling till the next morning you could guess how soon the person would die. Accoring to the Doctrine of Signatures the plant was used for bleeding wounds, for skin problems of all kinds.
Hypericum “is said to sooth the digestive system” (ulcers, gastritis, diarrhea, nausea).
Attention please: Let me point out that I have collected all of the above and below in a strictly amateurish fashion, part of it is floklore, part superstition, meaning I wanted to collect what others have to say about the plant - you should by no means start any kind of self-treatment with hypericum. The plant does have adverse side effects and should only be prescribed by your physician. “In Australia … it has killed pale-pigmented sheep and goats by inducing photosensitivity (a major side-effect of many Hypericum preparations). I will not be responsible for any damage you suffer from using or ingesting hypericum without or against your doctor´ s advice!

Hypericum is an important medicine in homoepathy, as well, where it is indicated by its affinity to (spinal) nerves and its modalities (worse from injury, exertion, change of weather, fogs, closed room, motion, cold air and better from lying quietly, bending backward and lying on the abdomen. It is used for penetrating wounds, esp. of palms and soles, injuries to parts rich in sentient nerves, shooting, lancinating pains along nerves (shingles!) and pain in coccyx during or after delivery. Hypericum patients have shon confusion, delusions, hurry, loss of memory, vertigo as if elevated, as if floating , dim vision with colored, yellow spots and dreams of being repudiated by God.

St. John´s wort is also cultivated and planted in gardens, as Dispatches from the logical heart points out - another entry of which even points to some relevant garden photo.
Sierrabella´s is slowly being taken over by yellow-blooming plants; she is not yet sure whether it is St. John´ s wort, though. Nor am I from the photos she posts on her blog (some close-ups of the blossoms as well as of the leaves would be helpful).


Other links/blogs on hypericum I found:

• Nathan praises Hypericum for its effects on him: ” I will once again praise Saint John’s Wort to the heavens, wishing it could somehow personify itself so I could invite it into my house and have glorious, grateful sex with it for many hours”, somehow seeming to report euphoria stemming from the intake of hypericum preparations.


• Andrea Putting mentions St. John´ s Wort in a general article on using herbs.
• … and I just saw that Wikipedia has a very informative article on St. John´s wort.
• Henriette´s Herbal Blog features several entries on SJW.

Foga, Hypericum, perforatum, St-John´s-Wort, Foga, daemonum, scare-devil, goat-weed, herba-john, herba, john, Klamath, Weed, Sol, Terrestis, Tipton, Weed, Midsummer, Johnswort

• ttaglist: Foga Hypericum perforatum St-John´s-Wort Foga daemonum scare-devil goat-weed herba-john herba john Klamath Weed Sol Terrestis Tipton Weed Midsummer Johnswort

Via Blogaholics:

Ecospheres are sealed transparent plastic balls of different sizes (you can have them with diameters ranging from a few inches to a few yards) with shrimps, algae, bacteriae and water assembled within in a way that lets the whole system live and function (for years - the shrimps have a life expectancy of five years, I am not sure whether they reproduce or not - it seems they do not?) on natural or artificial light only. No feeding, no waste disposal - an ecologic balance.

I find this rather cool (will I give one of the spheres to my mother as a birthday present?) amd it reminds me of an experience I have had as a child:

I was very interested in plants and animals. And one day we cleaned out a birds´ nesting box in our garden and found it full of caterpillar-like animals I identified as mealworms. I put them in a transparent canning jar which was half full with meal and put the whole thing on a cupboard in my room. The worms seemed to be doing well and one day the jar was full of black beetles crawling around in the meal. From disgust or lazyness or researcher´s spirit ( I do not really remember which, might have been a mixture) I left the jar alone and after some time all the beetles were dead and I thought the whole experiment was finished. But after another period of time (unfortunately I did not keep track and do not remember, so I think my main motivation was lazyness after all) the worms were back! And then the beetles and then the worms - several times over - until my mother put an end to the spectacle and spilled the whole thing away. But now I think this was an ecosphere of my own creation, wasn´t it? And I was much earlier than NASA , although there was only one species of animals in my jar, of course. So it was rather like an antfarm , although ants in these do not reproduce like my beetles did (do the shrimps in the ecosphere??? second time this question pops up…)

Anyway - just reminded me (I did have other lovely animals, as well, caterpillars that became butterflies and stick insects that spawned hundreds of tiny little descendants … perhaps I will tell about these another time).

For those in Germany: Ecospheres can even be bought online from a German firm .

Flickr photos tagged with “ecosphere”

Related external links I found:

• J-Walk Blog
• Posthuman Blues
• BleepBlog

ecosphere, pets, animals, mealworms, stick-insects, stick, insects, Ecosphere, ant, farm, antfarm

• ttaglist: ecosphere pets animals mealworms stick-insects stick insects Ecosphere ant farm antfarm

Via Chaos Magnet I came upon the text of a talk by Steven Jobs which he gave as a commencement address the other day.

I think he did very well, it is a text worth reading and I liked the thoughts he expressed (although I think it might not always be too easy to live along the notions he outlines):

• You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future (meaning that you should have confidence that somehow the things you do when you follow your heart will in the end align to something of meaning and use and sense - if you cannot see this at the beginning of the path)
Confidence is something that is very hard to gain and to maintain, isn´t it?


• The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.
Difficult, as well. Although of great truth, no doubt. But what, if you never find what you are looking for - could it be that some people really never encounter the one thing (or the one person) they truely love?


• “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.
Memento mori - no doubt, this is the most important thing of all good pieces of advice one should keep in mind. We waste so much of our time on trifles and behave as if we, and the ones we love, are immortal. And yet nothing in life is as certain as death. Would you belief that getting my wisdom teeth removed has made me more aware of the flow of time and the need to use my days more wisely?


• Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Complaceny kills. Staying where you are and not move on is a little death in itself - and yet, that is exactly what I am very likely to do every now and then.

Read Job´s whole text, when you find the time. In my view it is worth the effort …

BTW the text reminded me of my favorite Rudyard-Kipling poem: If.

Steve, Jobs, if, commencement, address, hungry, foolish, love, Kipling

• ttaglist: Steve Jobs if commencement address hungry foolish love Kipling