For the sixth day of Yule, there’s finally some consensus on how to celebrate it. Most sources tell me that it is the day to honour the Norse goddess Eir. She is the goddess of health and wellness. Very fitting, since I still feel a little sick today. If I’m honest, I haven’t been living very healthy the past week. I’ve barely been outside, doubled my screentime and I’ve consumed a lot of sugar. So this is all on me.
I have been treating the symptoms I’ve been experiencing today and yesterday mostly with herbs. At the risk of sounding like a crazy witch (and I’m only one of those things), I think we should incorporate herbal medicine more into our daily lives. And it could be a coincidence that I’m almost never ill, but I don’t think it is. I treat nausea with ginger, a sore throat with thyme, coldness with homemade soup. Hell, I’ll even put plantain on nettle rash. And sure, I’m very happy that we have modern medicine, but I often feel like it’s lacking. I think western medicine is based on treating individual symptoms, rather than looking at a person as a whole. You have a headache? Here’s some ibuprofen, away with you. You’re a woman? Must be hormones, bye. I know I’m not a doctor and I know it takes years of studying and training to become one, so I don’t want to discredit that. I just think that we have strayed so far away from the healing powers of nature. That we haven’t learned to look at our own lifestyle to discover where our pains or other complaints could come from. We’re often told that something is probably ‘between our ears’, as if that’s not exactly the place where pain signals are processed. I’d love to see a system that incorporates many different types of healing methods. Wouldn’t it be great to get a prescription for: dancing, sunlight, silence, walking barefoot, laughter, a girl’s night, carrot soup?
My sister is going to arrive any second, and if there’s medicine in human form, it’s her. I hope her presence can heal me a little today, since we have to go to our parents’ tomorrow and I know she doesn’t want to go without me.
Tea Time With Amber 