This week you could really feel the wheel of the year turning.. its like all that thrusting and thriving and green energy burgeoning until it wears itself out .. and the plants are starting to feel a bit knackered and spent (and me along with them!). We are all a little straggly and starting to go to seed.
This, however, is a favourite time for me for I am an autumn girl and the move towards autumn and its resplendant colours is underway. The colour scheme is changing, with gold and crimson coming to the fore.The strawberries and geraniums are starting to blush a deep scarlet...
.. the evening primrose is out..
..and I'm starting to see how the 'rosa rugosa' got its common name of 'tomato rose'...
This week, too, the dusk has been my companion around 9pm when I've been turning in. I don't know why, but I find this a great comfort!
Its a time to relax and enjoy the fruits of all the enthusiasm and energy of spring and midsummer. To reap what we have sown... (what's left after the slugs and snails have had their pick,that is!)
I just wanted to share with everyone my experience this year of drinking nettle infusions ..
"Drinking Nettle infusion is like drinking the energy of the earth - good solid energy"
I have to tell you that I have found a fantastic increase in energy. And its not a sudden but finite burst of energy like you might get from caffeine, which you have to do 'payback' for later. Firstly, I noticed I wasn't getting that mid-afternoon 'slump' anymore. But then, it seemed that somehow I had more mental energy as well. I experienced a definite shift from feeling overwhelmed and exhausted by my multiple and ongoing health issues to being able to tackle them.
One of the reasons I was interested in trying the nourishing herbal infusions was to find a rich source of minerals (esp. magnesium) to replace the multi-mineral and vitamin supplement I was taking. This has worked out brilliantly for me. Once I stopped taking the multivit/mineral (which had a high level of ascorbic acid in it) and stopped needing caffeine to keep me going through the day, my heartburn and stomachache subsided quite rapidly (in about 10 days).
I don't want to be bore and embarass everyone with long ramblings about my ailments, but I decided its so important to share and document experiences of working with plants so that hopefully others don't have to reinvent the wheel, everyone struggling away on their own in isolation. If I can save someone some time or point them in a helpful direction than it'll have been worth it.
I have to tell you, too, that the biggest test of whether something is working for you is what happens when you stop! So having done my nettle infusion drinking for several months it kind of fizzled out in May .. partly because we were eating nettle soup, but really because I was feeling so much better and just getting absorbed in life. And I suppose, you know, that you think it just couldn't be that simple .. maybe your condition just improved of its own accord, coincidentally.
But after a month or so, everything started creeping back .. caffeine started reappearing and indigestion along with it.. and a general feeling of struggling. So now I really start to get it .. drinking the infusions isn't a 'quick fix' its an insurance policy, long-term nourishment - the clue is in the title 'nourishing herbal infusions'. And we all know that prevention is better than cure! I think I will always be one to learn the hard (or long) way!
So it would appear, actually, that it really IS that simple.
