How Has Natural Medicine Impacted My Life?

This challenge has been put together by @naturalmedicine, it is a great opportunity for everyone within the community to share their wisdom, to share their stories and in doing so provide much valued information on how natural medicine can really improve the quality of your life and improve your overall health. By sharing our stories we are helping to empower one another, by breaking our dependency on the healthcare system, by taking responsibility for our own well being. So this is my journey with natural medicine, a journey that has helped shape me into the person I am today.

My Story

Natural medicine is such a broad term, as it covers so many different treatments, therapies, outlooks, it is a way of live that incorporates living as natural a life as possible. It is listening to yourself, trusting your self, your instincts and surrendering to the inner wisdom your body carries and surrendering to the wisdom that nature provides for us all. Everywhere we look, no matter in a town, city or in the wild, nature calls out to us, nature is present. We are part of nature and when we engage with other people who live close to nature and respect nature we are then engaging with nature itself. From the people we meet, to the trees, the rivers, the streams, the medicinal plants, we have been gifted with so much abundance, with so many connections, all of these are uniting us, helping us access the medicine on offer all around us.

The natural world has always been my companion, since I was a child it has been the place where I felt most secure, most at peace. It has always been my home.

I have written before about my childhood and I do not wish to go into too much detail right now, all I will say is that it was not a happy one. It was a home where I was expected to be silence and put up with the violence that was directed towards me and my sister, especially in my earlier years. The only place I felt safe was outside in the wild, amongst the trees, lost in the grass, at one with nature. This was my refuge. Being out in my natural environment allowed me to experience security , love and what it felt like to be nurtured. I felt the ground hold me, cradle me. I felt warmth and unity with the trees. But most importantly I felt unafraid.

I really don't know how my life would have turned out if I didn't have nature as my sanctuary.

Throughout my life, it is nature that I have always turned to for my healing. Writing is the way I express myself, it is a celebration of my natural self, as is music, singing and dancing. They have all been forms of therapy for me. They are natural medicines. It is to nature I have turned to celebrate some of the major transitions in my life. I happily talk to the plants and croon to the trees. I happily exchange energy with the earth. I have found such inner calm watching the ants, watching the bees. Allowing these beings to help me put my life into perspective.The plants that have nourished my body and my soul, the wild plants that always surround me and provide for me. When I pee into the earth, I am communicating with the land, my body is telling the land what I need and in time the nettles, the clover, the coltsfoot, the plantain appear. They come and nourish my body and I repay my thanks by helping to feed the soil.

Sometimes I get caught up in my life and I ignore what my body has been trying to tell me, but then the twinges become more frequent, the uncomfort that is bit more unbearable and then I listen and I look around me and bare witness to the medicine that the earth has provided for me.

Me pregnant with my 3rd daughter

When I was pregnant with my first child, I wanted to have a home birth, I did not want to go anywhere near a hospital, why would I, I was not sick. As I have returned to Ireland after living in Australia, I needed to find a home with my partner. He was busking in order to make money, so the city was the best bet in order for us to be able to survive. The only place was a small flat, with no garden. But time was running out and we ended up taking the flat and I tried to create a nest in which to birth my daughter. When the time came all I wanted to do was be outdoors, amongst the trees. But there was no where for me to go. So after a long time and with a midwife, who really had no business being one, I was transferred to hospital where my daughter was born via suction after they had performed an episiotomy on me. I had no pain relief and I can honestly say it was an horrific experience and it left me very traumatized. I later read that this sort of birth is viewed as birth rape, by some of the leading birth keepers, a fitting term indeed. I felt very violated. I adored my daughter but I was so emotional and very disempowered.

What followed on from that was a journey of rediscovery, a journey that saw me move to the countryside and buy a bus to convert and live in. A journey that got me involved in local woman's circles, circles held in nature. Women coming together, creating a safe and sacred space, singing, drumming, creating, crying and healing together. Being Wild and Free, Free to really acknowledge and honour what had happened to me. A journey that helped me find my power again, helped me find my voice and ignited my passion for birth rights.

That's me with my bodhran (my drum)

Natural medicine is there, it is there in the Creating and attending of rituals and ceremonies. Invoking the elements, calling on Earth, On Air, On Fire and on Water to guide me, to connect me, to connect us to everything that is within and without. Calling on them to help me remember that I am powerful, that I am a warrior, that I am gentle. Coming together and sharing our stories and our wisdom, remembering our ancestors and calling on them to be present and to bare witness to our pain and suffering, to bare witness to our healing so that we can also heal for them.

We all hold such ancient wisdom, it is in our DNA, it is in our visions and our dreams. It is all around us, it is our intuition our gut feeling, it is our inner knowing, it is our birth right, for we are all healers.

My journey with Natural medicine, with natural healing allowed me to become more empowered. It allowed me to birth my 2nd daughter by the sea and my 3rd unassisted on the land I still live on. It has given me the courage to live the life I want to live. The medicinal herbs that I work with and consume enable me to nourish my children through my breast milk, to have the strength to keep going when times are tough. They have allowed me to heal my children when they have been unwell. I would not be who I am today if I did not embrace my Natural Wild Side. Nature is my sanctuary and the gifts within it and within myself are my medicine. And now that I start the next chapter of my Life as a single Mother, it gives me strength to know that I am surrounded by such magic and healing.

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Big Big Thank You To @byn for designing my logo.