Weeds or Medicine? A New Way of Thinking

This is the plant that herbalists, children, and poets call Dandelion. Many other people call it a week and treat it rather rudely.

Let us refer to it as a wild medicinal plant and perceive the extract as an herbal tonic. Our intention is to connect with a plant spirit and with its alliance create a nutritional preparation that is easy to assimilate and can be depended upon to help our digestion, our liver, and our kidneys to feel good.

Dandelions are one of the most common medicinal herbs that live with us in our neighborhoods. In fact, every year petrochemical companies reap additional millions from the urban community by manufacturing and marketing a myriad of designer poisons devised specifically to alienate and destroy these wily turf gangsters. In contrast, communities in China eagerly harvest and eat young Dandelion greens to enrich their diets, along with Purslane and Kudzu, which are two more "weeds" we tend to curse in this culture.

Most "weeds", in fact, come in when our soil is barren (to prevent erosion) or chemically imbalanced, in order to improve the quality of the soil. It is an indication of earth trying to heal itself.

It is necessary to rethink how we view our natural world.

Source: The Herbal Medicine-Maker's Handbook. A Home Manual. by James Green