Spiral Way

            I was fairly young when I discovered that I was a bit different – not because of anything particularly special about me, but rather because my father, God rest his soul, was a wee bit absentminded.   Well, perhaps more than a wee bit, for he got on with mother for many decades and she was a strong-willed Irish lass.   Because he was rather absentminded, however, I learned to read when I was rather young, for father liked to talk about philosophy.   This was probably a good thing, as he was a professor of philosophy at the famous University of Heidelberg, one of the first universities in Germany.               So, one particularly fine day, my father came home, terribly excited to share the book that had just arrived at the University, because he knew my mother would be impressed.   It was the works of Hildegard von Bingen, the abbess who was a seer, an herbalist, a song mistress, and philosopher in her own right.   And that’s when I discovered that I was different – for

            The last trunk!   I didn’t think I was ever going to finish going through the attic, but I’d put it off for far too long.   My grandmother had left boxes upon boxes of *stuff* to me, rather than my mother.   I never quite understood that, except that my mother and grandmother never did really get along.               In any case, after going through what were mostly boxes of books, pictures, photographs, painting supplies, I had finally arrived at the last trunk in my mission of clearing the attic of all stuff that could be distributed, incorporated into my own or other households, or sold.   All of the photos would eventually be uploaded to places where any of the kids, grandkids or great-grandkids might be able to identify people and they would be properly labeled in albums eventually.             The trunk was obviously very old, rather ornate in places, and with a curved top.   I opened it slowly, almost expecting time itself to escape with a rush of wind.   Instead,

E. Augustifolioa E. Pallida This would be an herb that Angelika had never heard of, as it was discovered in the "New World."  The Native Americans used it for a variety of things:  the Lakota tribes used Echinacea for snake bites, sepsis and rabies; the Blackfeet used it for toothache; the Chocktaw, for coughs; the Delaware, for venereal disease; the Comanche, for sore throats; the Cheyenne, for rheumatism and colds; and the Dakota, for eye infections.  As many of you know, Echinacea is now used primarily as an herbal antibiotic (or as I’d rather refer to it, anti-microbial), which works specifically to clear out and make the lymphatic system do it's job better. Scientists have been fascinated with Echinacea’s unique properties allowing the lymphatic system to perform its function in the immune system better, rather than attacking whatever microbes have caused the illness. Echinacea root increases the production of T-cells, strengthening tissues during assault