Sacred Sage - The Art of Smudging

In keeping with the theme of November being National American Indian Heritage Month, I thought I would share something about the healing power of sage.

There was a time when I was going through a lot of pain and as part of my healing I started performing a Native American Tradition….Sage Smudging. I used it to clean my negative energy and I highly recommend it to everyone. When I start feeling low, stressed out or mad, I light up a small piece of sage and perform a sage smudging ceremony. It works immediately and I feel so wonderful and recharged.

The Spiritual Art of Smudging…What does that mean and how does it benefit me? White Sage or “Sacred Sage” has many healing properties that benefit not only the body but the soul. Native Americans started the tradition of using Sacred Sage to ward off evils spirits and negative energies. This process of smudging is used to seek prosperity and fertility. It is used in rituals to draw money, banish negative energy influences, protection, longevity, immortality and blessing.

The ritual of smudging creates a smoke that attaches itself to the negative energy. As the smoke clears, the negative energy goes with it, releasing it to regenerate into something positive.

If you would like to cleanse a home, personal items and the physical body, begin by lighting the “smudge stick”. Once it is catches fire, gently wave the “flame” to extinguish it. Then gather the smoke with you hand or using ceremonial feather to guide the smoke and draw it to the perimeter of the body. To cleanse a room or living space, begin in the doorway and work in a clockwise direction. Be sure to go around the door frame, all the walls and window frames; particularly in the corners by the ceiling.

When you cleanse your living space, body or items; this will allow for purification and cleansing properties of the sacred sage to make way for new awareness and direction to take place.

Smudge sticks are hand-made and rolled dried white sage, and tightly tied together by yarn or string.

Smudging Prayer

"Negativity that invades my sacred place; I banish you away with the light of my grace. You have no hold or power here. For I stand and face you with no fear. Be gone forever, for this I will say, this is my sacred space and you must obey."

Sage Tea

Someone showed me how to take this tea to lift my spirits when was feeling down and in a dark place. What you do is take about 3 leaves, crumble and break them up and then pour boiling hot water over them. Steep the tea for at least 10 minutes. You can also take this tea if you have congestion, a fever (it will create sweat to break the fever). Drinking the tea and eating the leaves will help cleanse inner negativity. Be sure to only drink one cup in a 24 hour time frame.

To Heal a Headache

If you are suffering from a headache here is a recipe for an ointment to rub on your temples, forehead and between the eyes as a natural pain reliever.

1 Cheesecloth

3 Vitamin E capsules (used as a preservative)

.5 oz Beeswax

1 oz Fresh or Dried White Sage

1 oz Fresh or Dried Eucalyptus

1 oz Fresh or Dried Lavender

8 oz Organic Avocado Oil

In a glass baking dish, add the herbs and oil and bake in the oven for 3 hours at 200 degrees. This will infuse the herbs the oil. Let the oil cool and then strain out the herbs using the cheesecloth. Squeeze the oil from the herbs.

Using a double boiler, and a stainless steel bowl add the oil, bees wax in the steel bowl. Poke a hole in the vitamin E capsule and squeeze out the vitamin oil adding it to the bees wax. Slowly stir on a low heat until it is all melted and mixed together. Remove from the heat and let it sit or about 5 minutes.

While it is still warm, pour the mixture into some empty cleaned cosmetic containers and allow it to cool completely.

I hope you enjoyed these tips about how sage can help heal you. Be thankful and as always....Many Blessings

Stormy

Indian Blessing & Pumpkin Seeds

Cherokee Prayer

O Great Spirit, help me always to speak the truth quietly,
To listen with an open mind when others speak,
And to remember the peace that may be found in silence

It's been a busy week in the catering business and I've not had a lot of time to post this week. But I wanted to share with you some Indian wisdom and recipe made with pumpkin seeds that my friends have always enjoyed. November was designated American Indian Heritage Month approved by George W. Bush in 1990 to remind us the contributions the first American Indians made to the establishment and growth of the United States.

"During National American Indian Heritage Month, I call on all Americans to learn more about the history and heritage of the Native peoples of this great land." ~ George W. Bush ~ President, United States of America


In the theme of Thanksgiving upon us....Native Americans introduced pumpkins to the Pilgrims and were an important food source. On Thanksgiving we pay homage with a pumpkin pie but the early Pilgrims would actually cut off the top and scoop out the seeds. The seeds were toasted and eaten as snacks. Then they would fill the pumpkins with spices, eggs, cream and honey. Then put the top back on and bury them into the hot ashes of the cooking fire. When they were done cooking, they would remove the charred pumpkins from the hot fire and open the lid. The filling would be scooped out with the flesh of the pumpkin and it would resemble a nice custard. How good does that sound? YUM.

Pumpkins and their seeds were cherished by Native American Indians both for their nutritional value and medicinal properties. Phytosterols found in the plant help fight cholesterol. A rich source of healthful minerals and protein. Pumpkin seeds have anti-inflammatory properties that are widely used to help with arthritis as a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug. Plus help to promote prostate health.

With Thanksgiving upon us we should all take a moment everyday to give thanks. Not just one day of the year. This process of giving thanks opens up the energy to bring more good into our lives...

Chicken with Pumpkin Seed

1 Roasting Chicken
4 cups Chicken Stock, or more if needed
3/4 cup Raw Pumpkin Seeds
8 Black Peppercorns
1/8 teaspoon Cumin Seeds
2 or 3 Tomatillos or you can use Green Tomatoes
3 Serrano Chilies, roasted, peeled and seeded
4 Green Onions
2 cloves Garlic, minced
2 tablespoons Chicken Fat
1 bunch Radish Leaves
2 large Romaine Lettuce Leaves
1 bunch fresh Cilantro

Put whole chicken in a stock pot or Dutch oven and cover with the chicken stock; bring to a simmer. Cover pot and poach chicken just below the simmering point over very low heat or in a very low oven (275 degrees) for 1 hour. Remove chicken from the stock and allow it to cool enough to carve it.

In a hot skillet, toast the pumpkin seeds, peppercorns cumin seeds about 5 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent scorching. Put into a blender and grind fine.

Remove the outer husks from tomatillo and then put them in a pan with cold water to cover; bring to a simmer. Simmer 10 minutes, drain, then add them to the food processor with 1/2 cup of their liquid and blend to a thick, smooth purée.

Chop all the remaining ingredients and add them to the blender. Add chicken stock, if needed, to thin the purée. Pour sauce into the skillet and simmer about 10 minutes to cook off some of the liquid.

Cherokee Prayer

O Great Spirit, help me always to speak the truth quietly,
To listen with an open mind when others speak,
And to remember the peace that may be found in silence.

Thank you for stopping by...
Many Blessings Stormy

American Indian Healing

Today I had just about had enough of the “pink parade” around town. I was driving into Dallas today and at a stoplight there were tons of woman dressed in pink…pink boas, pink jackets, pink pants, pink hats, I just about threw up. Everywhere you look in October, you see PINK. Pink on every other tag at the grocery store, from your favorite yogurt, neighborhood realtor to your toilet paper, every company is jumping on the band wagon for a race for the cure.

Seeing my father die from a terrible cancer infested death, it sickens me to see so many companies full of vanity exposing their name just for a little publicity. I’m sorry…but millions, if not billions of money is funneled to this organization and I don’t see any improvement in cancer research over the many years this has been spun out of control.

I have to say, with the combination of sending money to other countries to cancer research, and starving African children, we as American’s have not even considered our own heritage, our own soul, the foundation of our country. The American Indian Heritage, a beautiful culture that our time has simply forgot.

November is National American Indian Heritage Month and I would like to send a message that I love my heritage. Not only is my father almost full blooded Cherokee Indian but was a great and wonderful soul who loved nature and was a great story teller. He would tell me stories of my heritage and I was always amused. I remember him telling me the story of a Cherokee woman in our family that was a natural healer and I was so mesmerized. Cherokee Indian Healers were mostly men, and there were few women, so when I found out I had a healer in our family, I wanted to know more.

The Cherokee Indian Healers believed that true sickness came from within. They would first diagnose the aliment by asking about recent dreams and taboos that may have been broken. Some dream content would be taken back as much as 3 years. They would check for rings around the eyes or stomach pain. Until the 20^th century they believed that most ailments were caused by ghosts, witches or spirits from animals.

If the healer had difficulty diagnosing the ailment, they would use a divination method known as "examining the beads." This was the procedure as described by the ethnologist James Mooney, "the medicine man holds a black bead (called adälön) between thumb and index finger of the left hand, a white or red bead between forefinger and thumb of the right hand, and, reciting an appropriate formula, examines what are the chances of the sick man. The brisk movements of the right-hand bead give an affirmative answer; its sluggish movements, or its remaining motionless, a negative answer." (Mooney and Olbrechts, 1932). Beads were considered to produce the true diagnosis and the resulting prognosis.

The treatment took the form of a mixture of plants, spirits, and messaging the body. Specific songs were also recommended and utilized during the healing ceremony.

Although I don’t have much insight as to all of her methods of healing I do know a few things about her and her name was so funny… Her name was Grannie Gore. She was my great, great, great grandmother, and she was a true, natural healer in Stone County, Missouri. She was full blooded Cherokee Indian from Tennessee. She used methods and remedies passed down from her native culture.

She has a pamphlet published in her honor at the Springfield, Missouri Public Library in the rare book room, labeled “Grannie Gores Ozark Folk Medicine”, by Sherman Lee Pompey, #MR 6155.83 P. Her real name was Nancy Gore and everyone knew her as Grannie Gore; she was well known in the Stone County area to heal others in time of sickness and special needs. Some of her healing methods seem so simple and something we wouldn’t think twice about doing to improve an ailment. This pamphlet was published to pass down some of her natural remedies, which originated with the Cherokee culture.

I would like to share some of her medicine notes that I thought you might find some interest in:

Yellow Pecuyne (Goldenseal) - Stomach Ache

Dried Powder and Linings of chicken gizzards (Ingluvin) - Bad Stomach Ache

Wahoo Tea - Body Chills

Skunk Oil, Mutton Tallow, Goose Grease & Turpentine - Applied to rags and placed on the chest for a cold or bad cough.

Bloodroot - To stop bleeding at child birth.

Wild Cherry Bark - Boiled down to drink to stop cough.

Horehound - For worms.

Button Snake Root Tea - For colic.

Catnip Tea - For sore neck.

Skillet Bark Tea - For Heart Ailments

Oat Tea - For Measles to prevent severe rash.

Flax Seed Poltice - For Boils

Artichoke Tea - Babies with Summer Complaint.

Sienna Leaves and Catnip - For laxatives.

Ginseng Tea - Stomach Cramps

Mare Water - Warts and Pimples

Yellow Root - Canker Sores

Elderberries - Longevity or to live long.

Sassafras Tea - Thins the blood.

Tablespoon of sulphur, 5 tablespoons of sorgum & a pint of peach brandy - More modern cough syrup.

Black Pepper or Cobwebs - Stops bleeding on a cut.

Raw Irish Potatoe (mashed) - Placed on splinters - wood or glass - To draw out foreign object from skin.

Pith from Goose Quills - Kidney Troubles

Pyorrhea of the Gums - Burn a red corn cob to cinders. Cool and rub on gums.

Various other Teas for various other symptoms - Penrod Tea, Smartweed Tea, Red Picuynme, Slippery Elm Bark Tea, Gingseng Tea.

Here's a story in the book about Skillet Bark Tea. A Dr. Lloyd with a medical license had a newborn baby that was born a blue baby with lack of oxygen. He had given up on saving the baby. Granny told him he should use some Skillet Bark Tea. He didn't know what it was but allowed her to administer a few drops to the baby. When they got up the next morning, the baby had color and was healthy. Dr. Lloyd took some of the Skillet Bark Tea back to his lab and tested its contents. He found was cortisone - a mild heart stimulant.

And finally in the words of Granny Gore herself…

"You see, the good Lord made herbs an' roots for the purpose of medicines. A lot of medicines that we used in the early hill; was nothing more than the same thing or the artificial substitute of these things used today by modern medical science."

Granny Gore died at the age of 96 in 1917. She was buried in the Old Philiburt Cemetery but when the Table Rock Dam was filled her remains were moved up to the Cemetery across from the Kimberling City Chamber of Commerce and her marker was no longer there.

I guess my Great, Great, Great, Grandmother, Grannie Gore would be proud to know that her Great, Great, Great, Granddaughter, Chrisie Cloud aka “Stormy” was passing on the tradition and knowledge of the healing power of our earth and how natural remedies are exactly what the world needs in this modern life.

Since I am suffering from heart ailments, I just might try some of that Skillet Bark Tea… you just never know, maybe those Indians really did know something about God’s Gift, NATURE…

Please remember our American Heritage, our American Indians, if you are going to donate money this year; please donate to our starving American Indians, to help the families, the schools in reservations and to keep our heritage alive. It is the foundation of our country.

May God bless all of our American Indians, our Culture, our Family…

Blessings…Thank you for stopping by…Stormy