Poison as a Remedy

Monkshood -- Aconitum

Since i was coming down with a cold, which several other people in our tour group had already had, the tour leader gave me a homeopathic remedy--Hyland's Cold Tablets with Zinc. I dissolved 2 little tablets under my tongue. First, they dried out my mouth, then they dried out the drip, drip, drip.

I was surprised to read on the label Aconitum and Gelsemium--both of which are poisonous. Aconitum is monkshood, and Gelsemium comes from the Italian word for jasmine, also called jessamine in the southern states.

It's surprising that small doses of poison actually act as a remedy. Radiation and chemotherapy spring to mind as modern-day examples of poisons used to heal people.

In our daily lives, too much stress may finally lead us to the decision to simplify our lives. We eventually decide we would rather be happy than stressed; we prefer a peaceful mind to a stressful mind.

The Fall Garden

The fall garden is blooming now with indigo monkshood, yellow mums, pink turtlehead (Chelone), and white burnet (Sanguisorba). Overhead, green is receding from the leaves on the trees that are turning yellow, red, and eventually, orange. Those same colorful leaves float down like confetti and add careless color to the lawn, the paths, and the flowerbeds.

The landscape is aging fast now, like vibrant 60-, 70-, and even 80-year-olds, capable of leading a colorful life while the body returns its strength (earth), flexibility (liquid), and even its air-y gases (ahem) to the world. These qualities, that we thought belonged to us, turn out to have been borrowed. In fact, our entire body has been loaned to us by the universe, and is not really "ours" at all.

In the fall, the river of life rushes on.