English: Flower of Jewelweed, showing spur (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
What a great start to my day, this was my morning! After making breakfast and getting everyone off to school or work, stopped at the Raw milk farm, and then spent my morning harvesting jewelweed.
If you are not familiar with jewelweed, it is a great one to get to know! i can remeber as a girl my grandmother would send us out to collect and bring back as much jewelweed as we could, partly to keep us busy, and partly due to the great benefits of this plant. My grandparents had a house at Gillen Pond, in Lebanon, NY, we would spend our summers outside, and the jewelweed would grow all along the side of the road where little streams or brooks would flow. Once picked we would lay them out on cookie sheets to dry, as a child I had no idea of the power of this small golden flower, as by its name looked like a jewel.
My grandmother would dry the jewelweed,and then later make a tea from it for when we needed it for poison-ivy or other skin irritations. I have come to us it in my work, sometimes drying and adding to a herbal boluses for relief from bruising, sore muscles, and on a visual level the color is very calming in massage.
With any oil, we know they are absorbed though the skin when used in massage therapy, and with the healing properties of the jewelweed, it is easy to say that we would see some reaction to this as an oil.So, in the past year I have started to take the jewelweed and create oils with it, finding it to be a very calming and effective oil for painful joints and skin aliments with my clients.
Jewelweed has great potential , as a healing plant for the skin, visually calming, and has been used as a digestive aid. As I came to work with jewelweed, and learn this importance of the plants around me, I have come to understand how important it is for all lf us to preserve our natural resources. I continually find and learn new ways to work within the plants around me.
http://www.naturalnews.com/036190_poison_ivy_remedies_jewelweed.html
Metta Wellness 