if you know me,
you know that i'm the girl
who would love to wander the rainforests,
jungles, forests and fields
learning about everything healing from shamans,
medicine people, and healers.
this is the way i've always been,
which is ironic since i was scared into
going through chemo
which i would never do again, ever.
note: if i could go back in time,
i would never have done it.
but we keep moving forward...
i'm still the girl who would love to meet healers,
so i picked this book up in the library,
and am posting some interesting tidbits from it
here, in my blog...because if you're like me
you like this stuff, too.
page 6--
"Many of the human body's powerful reactions are a direct response to plant alkaloids, a class of chemical compounds most common in tropical plants.
Alkaloids, which are characterized by a molecular structure that must include a nitrogen atom and at least two carbon atoms, have had a major impact on every culture- if not every person- on the planet. They provide everything from the kick in our morning coffee (caffeine) to the addictive compounds in our most dangerous drugs (cocaine, heroin and nicotine), the toxic principles in some of the deadliest poisons (strychnine and batrachotoxin), the analgesic effects in our most potent painkillers (codeine and morphine), and the mental pyrotechnics in someof the most powerful hallucinogens (mescaline and psilocybin.)....
Quinine, an alkaloid from the bark of the cinchona tree and one of the bitterest substances known, was first discovered thousands of years ago by South American Indians in what is now Peru and Ecuador. Since then it has been widely used throughout the tropics and much of the temperate world to cure malaria, a disease caused by a parasite, transmitted by mosquitoes, that destroys the red blood cells. Although thought of by many as a jungle disease, the illness does not discriminate based on geographyl malaria has been and still is a world ranging disease....
Yet a single plant alkaloid reveleaed to us by South American Indiands has helps eradicate malaria in the temperate zone and reduce the prevalence of the disease. "
Gotta love this stuff...
anyone ever study this stuff, or go on such adventures?
i would love to hear from you!
love me,
the globetrotting gamine
