Christmas Trees and Health
Is the Christmas Tree the center-piece of your home and celebration each December?
It is for us! Memories revolving around the selection, trimming and enjoyment of the Tree are strong. Do you remember your first tree? Is there one in your village that love every year? Do you go someplace special to make your selection? How do you decide what’s right?
Color – Dark green, blue and misty, bright and beckoning?
Size and Shape – Must it fill the great hall of your home? Will it abide close-by on a tabletop in the flat? Do you like tall and thin? Short and stocky?
Smell – Perhaps scent is the most evocative experience as we stand our seasonal visitor in place and admire its miraculous beauty. Are you cheered by it? Do you feel more alive because the refreshing fragrance? We want to drink the Christmas Tree in, don’t we? Why is that?
Our evergreen friends have been known throughout the centuries as both healing, and beneficial; that’s what we’ll examine today:
- Evergreens have long been understood as symbiotic to lakes and reservoirs, keeping both air and water clean. Clean air and clean water are prized by all; evergreens continue to play their helpful part with grace and ease.
- Native Americans and early settlers, feeling weakened by challenges of the ever-changing seasons, made small cuts in evergreens (never a hemlock) and gathered the sap, ‘chewing’ it a little like gum, swallowing essences of one of Mother Earth’s strongest medicines.
- Helena Rubinstein used copious amounts of the inner bark of White Pine in her detailed and successful skin care products in the early 1900’s! Many people still embrace pine bark salve today, and with good reason!
- A balancing tea made of spring shoots of Pine Balsam is beneficial to swollen glands, bronchitis, backache as well as to asthma sufferers, since time out of mind.
- Colorado and Norwegian Spruces has been made into a decoction, used as a bath additive. Begin with 2 gallons of cold water, and add 1 to 1 and 3/4 cups of young greens, allowing both to stand for 12-24 hours. Next boil the mixture uncovered for 2 hours. Filter the liquid, and relax into one of the most beneficial bath experiences ever! Historically, this addition is known to ease rheumatism, aches and pains, as well as digestive and nervous conditions. I am told this water makes an excellent room and respiratory freshener when added to the humidifier or vaporizer, tho haven’t tried it personally yet.
- Limbs that are not required for the look of your Christmas Tree can be processed through an old fashioned meat grinder and used to fill pillows, extending the refreshing life and properties of your tree for years to come.
In closing, Medieval Magic Organics and I wish you the most joyous and satisfying Christmas ever! There are still organically grown trees here on my private property in Casco, Maine:
- Pine Balsam, Colorado Blue Spruce and Norwegian White Spruce, can be sustain-ably ‘topped,’ all at $5.00/foot.
Let’s see the season in right and do it together, shall we?!
Make an appointment today and I’ll see you soon!
https://medievalmagicorganics.com
