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How to harvest Burdock Seeds.

Dust

In the late 1980s and early 90s London gave itself a facial. On the facades of London’s grand buildings mud masks and latex were applied to peel off 300 hundred years of grime from the walls of the city. 

Artist, Jorge Otero-Pailos, collected the latex peelings, black with soot and centuries of fifth, and hung them like flayed skin in Westminster Hall, the British house of Parliament. He called the exposition The Ethics of Dust. His hope that by bringing 300 centuries of grime into the house of government politicians would be reminded of the mistakes their predecessors made. Mostly importantly though, the dark, eerie  soot, a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, clinging to the sheets of latex would recall the politicians to the responsibility they have to the people they represent.  

When the latex peeled the thick coat of black soots from the walls of 10 Downing Street, the home of the British Prime Minister, yellow bricks were revealed. This was so shocking that the bricks were quickly covered up in thick black paint. 

The history of London’s dust is dark. Mills and factories, commonly referred to as satanic for their billowing black coal dust that was dense it blocked the sun, lined the Thames, not only polluting the air but releasing toxic effluent into the Thames. The dolphins and seals that could seen from London bridge frolicking in the great river’s waters disappeared. 

The noxious smoke of coal carrying flakes of black soot, the size of snowflakes at Christmas, also rose from the thousands of chimneys venting homes all over London. Every family used small coal fires to heat their homes, warm their food (few had kitchens where they cook, most relied on reheating take out), and bring a cheerful glow to the gloomy nights. 

The air quality was so bad that pollution is responsible for the London Cockney accent’s. To both avoid smelling the air and the inhaling the soot, Londoners breathed through their mouths. Even if they tried to breath through their nose, their sinuses and nostrils were clogged by the soot. The lack of air flow through nasal passages and always having to have their mouth open to breath shaped how Londoners made their word. 

A skilful London butcher, could spy sheep at the London slaughter houses who had been lingering in the stalk yards for a week. It is said that within three days of being in London a sheep’s fluffy white coat would be blotchy with dark patches. At the end of the week, the sheep would be black. 

Even though the British government did make a statement against the coal dust in 1819 calling it “against public health and comfort,” nothing was done. The plumes of pernicious smoke that was choking the breath of the city send up signals of productivity, thriving industry and jobs. Jobs satisfied hungry bellies. Hungry people is a bad situation for any government. During the French Revolution, a decade before the turn of the century, hungry masses beheaded the monarchy and those the monarch favoured. The British took notice, and were not about to shut down the industry that kept bread in peoples bellies. 

The women in London could see the harm the black soot was having on their families’ health. While no one kept records on the effects of burning fossil fuels to feed industry or to warm homes, lung disease was the killed more Londoners than any other disease. The worse lung disease was consumption. Consumption is now known as tuberculosis, a bacterial infection that can lay dormant in the lung tissue for years until there is a weakened state of being. The infection then blooms and offers a miserable death, bleeding out through the lungs. The constant breathing in the noxious soot would have created a perfect home for the bacterial to flourish. 

Sometimes the dust descended en mass in the form of toxic clouds. In 1873 a three day fog choked the life out of 700 people. In 1880, 1000 people died during a four day fog. A similar fog descended in 1892 killing another 1000. Most who died were babies, young children and the elderly. 

Women resolutely battled the inescapable toxic dust. They had little metal tabs installed over the key holes in doors to stop the dust from seeping into their homes from outside. They hung heavy curtains and kept them closed to discourage the dust from drifting through the windows. They strew wet tea leaves across floors to dampen down the dust before sweeping. They were weary of their brooms giving the dust an opportunity to once again become air borne. To get into tight corners, white bread was squished into little balls and pushed into tight place, the corners of picture frames and skirting boards, with the hope of collecting strays bits of soot. It was such a daunting, endless task that cleanliness became spiritualized. To have dust, or really dirt of any kind, lingering on the sideboard, hidden under the rug or heavens forbid on the linen, was both morally and socially unacceptable. Groups of women roamed through the thick muck of London streets, embroidered handkerchiefs held over their noses and mouths protecting themselves from the soot and stench, and knocked on doors to preach cleanliness to women in one of the filthiest city that has ever been built on Earth.  

It was all to no avail. No matter how the women of London scrubbed, swept, scoured and wrung out, the black soot was eternal and they watch the health of their families deteriorate year by year. The women of London, like Sisyphus back breaking eternal punishment of pushing a huge rock up a hill for eternity, struggle against a foe much bigger then themselves. 

Jack London, an American writer, in his book People of the Abyss, a mémoire of sorts about his life for a few months living in east London in 1903 wrote:

The air he breathes, and from which he never escapes, is sufficient to weaken him mentally and physically, so that he becomes unable to compete with the fresh virile life from the country hastening on to London Town to destroy and be destroyed. It is incontrovertible that the children grow up into rotten adults, without virility or stamina, a weak-kneed, narrow-chested, listless breed, that crumples up and goes down in the brute struggle for life with the invading hordes from the country. The railway men, carriers, omnibus drivers, corn and timber porters, and all those who require physical stamina are largely drawn from the country.

Some believe London during the 1800s was the birth place of the Anthropocene: the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment. Todays’ storms, droughts, melting glaciers, rising sea levels and mass extinction caused by the warming of the planet’s atmosphere due to burning fossil fuels were seeded in Victorian London by industries fatal gases and dust, and the indifference of politicians to the well being of the people and this beautiful planet we all live on.  

Everything you put in your mouth passes through your liver before moving onto the rest of your body. One could hypothesize that any herb taken orally in a tea, tincture, capsule, oil, powder or glycerite is a liver herb as it passes through your liver and therefore in some way effects the largest organ in your body.

For example, in my clinical experience, when folks have a “weak”, “burdened”  or “stagnant”liver it is wise to go easy on the amount and number of herbs offered until the liver has been nourished and strengthened. Folks with liver challenges, whether diagnosed or not, tend to react to  herbs in ways not necessarily helpful to their healing.

One extreme example of this is the herxheimer’s reaction (commonly referred to as herx or herxing) experienced by those struggling with Lyme Disease. Plants herbalists consider gentle such as cleavers (Galium aparine) may cause pain, fatigue and general malaise when taken by those struggling with the chronic infections associated with Lyme disease. One of the reasons for this is cleavers is a plant that moves toxins from the interstitial fluid and into the lymphatic system. Once in the lymph system the toxins flow into the liver where they are metabolized for removal. If the liver is already burdened by the toxins associated with Lyme Disease, plants like cleavers may too pushy the liver asking it to do more than it capable of. This contributes to the herxheimer’s reaction. 

Herxheimer’s is an extreme reaction. Not all folks who have a challenged liver respond to herbal medicine with pain and malaise. However, I found that it is essential to always consider the health of a person’s liver when offering medicine. Supporting a patient’s liver when it shows signs of being overwhelmed will improve their health and sense of well being no matter what they have come to see the herbalist for. Most conditions will improve when the liver vital.

How does one know a liver is “weak” or “burdened”? A herbalist learns to watch for many different types of signs that a patient’s liver needs to be supported. Considering the liver has about 500 actions it performs to keep you well, there are many different types of signs the liver offers when needing support. Some signs I watch for are:

• Waking up tired, achy and feeling mildly hung over without drinking any alcohol the night before.
• Disturbed sleep (either falling asleep or waking up frequently at night.)
• Female hormonal imbalances.
• Hyperglycaemia and any other blood sugar imbalance such as fatigue after eating.
• Cystic acne (possible hormone imbalance with origin in the liver.)
• Pain in the right shoulder, neck and head.
• Pain below the ribs on the right side, and sometimes on the left side.
• Sense of not being able to take a deep breath
• Disturbed digestion and bowels
• Migraine headaches
• Bruising easily
• Red eyes, dry eyes, burning eyes, rashes around the eyes
• Repetitive emotions of frustration and depression as well as burst of creativity followed by low period.

More serious  clinical manifestation of “weak” liver are jaundice, fluid build up in the abdomen, legs and ankles and itchy skin.

Let’s explore one of the most common signs that a patient’s liver is weak or burdened and one of the most common reason for folks to see a herbalist – insomnia. Many of the herbs commonly used  to support sleep also support the liver’s health in some way: Hops (Hummulus lupus), St John’s Wort (Hypericum perforating), Chamomile (Matricaria recutita), Motherwort (Leonarus cardiaca), just to name a few. 

What is the relationship between disturbed sleep and the liver you maybe wondering. Isn’t insomnia a neurotransmitter imbalance and all in the brain? This is certainly a biomedical approach to insomnia. But traditional herbalist approach insomnia often through considering the health of the liver.

To begin, let’s review the four stages of sleep.

Stage 1 begins as you fall asleep or immediately follows REM sleep (when you dream). It lasts up to 5 minutes and your body begins to relax while your heart rate and breathing slowing down.

Stage 2 comes next. During this stage your body’s temperature reduces, your heart rate and breathing continues to slow down and your eyes stop moving. This stage lasts between 10 minutes to an hour.

Stage 3 is your deepest sleep. This is when the wear and tear on your body from the day before is repaired, cancer cells are killed and imbalances in your biome are taken tended to. You brain is quite quiet during stage. This stage lasts between 20 and 40 minutes.

Stage 4 is REM sleep and this is when you dream. During REM your eyes begin to move again while your brain activity, heart rate and breathing increases. While I personally feel dreams are profoundly complex part of life, let’s for the sake of this article stay with the standard biomedical model approach to the importance of dreams which is dreams are good for your brain and mental health.

So what does this have to do with the liver? Research has shown that a moderate or large amount of alcohol before bed limits the REM cycle. Researchers also have have linked most chronic conditions associated with liver such as Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, Hepatitis C, Cirrhosis with disturbed sleep, both difficulty falling asleep and waking at night, as well as increased fatigue during the day. ^[1] The health of your liver directly influences the quality of your sleep, while the quality of your sleep directly influences the health of your liver. This understanding about the relationship between sleep and the liver is not new to traditional herbalists. The body clock used in Traditional Chinese Medicine teaches that the liver is most active between 1 and 3 am is commonly referred to herbalists when assesssing a patient’s sleep. But the question needs to be asked – what is the liver actively doing between 1 and 3 am?

During the day the liver is busy sorting through everything you are putting into your mouth.

The liver sorts out the good from bad whether you have eaten it, drank it, breathed it or absorbed it through your skin. Your liver cells process all nutrients, sending some and sends off into your blood stream to be delivered to your body’s cells for energy while others are stored as sugar to be used later. During the day, your liver cells increase the production and release of bile. Bile has many purpose: balancing the gut’s biome, emulsifying eaten fats and encouraging peristalsis leading to bowel movements. Your liver is also busy processing all the toxins you encounter during the day, whether from your food and water intake, pharmaceutical drugs or exhausted from the diesel truck you were stuck behind in traffic, just to name a few. This list of daytime activity does not even touch on the role your liver is playing in making and recycling hormones, creating enzymes used by your immune system or dealing with the cellular debris caused by the wear and tear on your body during your hot yoga class.

To do all this daytime sorting and nourishing and disposing your liver cells need energy. They get that energy from the work done by mitochondria. Mitochondria are the creators of energy for  each cell in your body. Because liver cells do so much work and it needs a lot of energy. About 25% of each liver cell is made up of mitochondria. To increase the energy the liver cells need for each days work, the mitochondria inside each liver cells begin dividing as your body wake ups each morning. This sound great, the liver can accomplish all its tasks because every morning its mitochondria double making more energy. Everyone, including our livers, want more energy.

But as always, everything comes with a price. The price of all that daytime liver energy is mitochondrial damage. As the mitochondria creates energy for your liver to do all its wonderful metabolizing during the day, free radicles are created. The more energy the mitochondria create, the more free radicles floating around inside and outside of liver cells. Free radicles are loose oxygen molecule. These fiery molecules burn minute holes in the membranes surrounding the mitochondria causing leaks which disturb their internal environment. Some free radicles damage the mitochondrial DNA, causing them to malfunction. Current research is suggesting that cancer begins in a cell’s mitochondria DNA. Some free radical escape the mitochondria and begin to disrupt other parts of the cell, including the nucleus where your DNA is stored and this is definitely cancer causing. All this means that your liver does not have the energy it needs to all its sorting of the good, bad and ugly of life.

This is where sleep comes. It is during sleep that that the liver’s mitochondria repair themselves. As the sun goes downs and your body begins to prepare for sleep, the mitochondria in your liver begin to merge. Instead of dividing as you wake you, your mitochondria come together to form bigger mitochondria while you sleep. During this time, the mitochondria repair themselves from the free radicle damage. When you sleep is when you heal. Your liver in particular needs rest to restore damaged bits and pieces of mitochondrial DNA and membranes.

So what happens when you eat, have a few drinks, do an intense workout before bed or late at night. Your liver does not have the energy resources it needs to process the nutrients, toxins and cellular debris caused by late night activities. Nor does it have energy it needs to repair the mitochondria. Its resources are spread to thin. Its sort of the like multi-tasking. Chronic multi-tasking is difficult to maintain and creates mental exhaustion, loss of focus, frustration and nothing is gets done, particularly tasks that require a sustained focus like mitochondrial repair.

When the liver is overworked at night, sleep becomes restless. This is why  alcohol disrupts your sleep and you wake up hungover. The liver cells process alcohol. At night the liver simply does not have the resources to process the extra glass of wine. Somethings in the relationship between the repair stage of sleep and REM sleep goes askew and both the physical and emotional processes that happens during sleep do not take place. Toxins continue to circulate in your blood stream until you and your liver are awake enough to deal with them. Unfortunately, the next day has begun with a little less energy both physically and emotionally.

Once the liver gets behind on the mitochondria repair necessary to sort out the good from the bad symptoms of a burden liver begin to appear. One of the ways the liver begins  to cope with the loss energy and the continued toxic load is to increase its storage of fat. (Toxins are stored in fat cells all over the body) and Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFL) develops.^[2]

If someone tells they wake up feeling with foggy head, heavy body and with no energy, you know the liver is challenged to process toxins and self repair. ^[3]

Luckily, for those shift workers , those struggling with disturbed sleep from PTSD or Mom’s with a kid who won’t sleep, just to name a few reasons why we might not get the sleep we need, there are herbs to support the health of the liver’s mitochondria and therefore indirectly supporting a good night’s sleep. These are the plants that are high in flavonoids and are often referred to as hepatoprotectants. They include milk thistle (Silybum marianus), Schinsandra (Shinsandra chinoisis), Licorice (Glyccyhriza spp.), Burdock Root (Articum lappa) and Rhodiola (Rhodiola rosacea).

These plants with their array of flavonoids, also found in most fruits and vegetables, ease the number of free radicles circulating within your cells and in particular your liver cells. They are an essential part of any herbal protocol formulated to support the health of the liver. Some of these herbs like Licorice, Schinsandra, and Rhodiola are labeled as adaptogens and it is believed that they support sleep through their effects on moderating cortisol levels. It is important to remember that these herbs also protect the liver and support it its ability to function which means sleep between 1 and 3 am.

Let’s return to folks who respond to herbal protocols in unexpected ways: pain and malaise.

One of the reasons these patient’s have difficulty taking herbs, particularly herbs that push toxins into the liver, like lymphatic herbs or anti-microbial herbs, is because the liver is already burdened and unable to cope with all its jobs before introducing herbs. The toxins therefore end up circulating through the blood longer creating herxheimer’s like reactions. In cases like these, it is wise to offer hepatoprotectants that support the liver’s mitochondria before increasing its workload.

Hepatoprotectants, although not known as hypnotics (herbs that bring on sleep), will improve the quality of sleep while supporting the repair of the liver’s mitochondria.  This will effect every part of life: mood, energy, appetite, digestion, libido, immune function, etc. After all the meaning of the word liver is to live.

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^[1] Shah NM, Malhotra AM, Kaltsakas G. Sleep disorder in patients with chronic liver disease: a narrative review. J Thorac Dis 2020;12(Suppl 2):S248-S260. doi: 10.21037/jtd-cus-2020-012

^[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5664866/

^[3] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhep.2021.01.011

There was an odd stirring yesterday. And being solstice there was a potency to the oddness. I generally do not watch for “signs” but I do pay attention. Yesterday driving into Ottawa to go to clinic there were two deer in different places dead on the side of the road. This is unusual on that road. The first deer, I startled like it had jumped out in front of me. As I drove, I was listening to a radio interview about the missing murder women, children and men from the indigenous communities across Canada. I cried all the way to Ottawa. I had a good day in clinic, working with smart, intuitive folks deep into their life journey with question and wonder. Then when I arrived home, our friend Sam who is teaching us bee keeping was in the garden. Before I even changed my clothes we had lifted the top and the super off the hive and were peering into the brood box. Sam showed me how to put my finger close to the bees and invite them to kiss it. Three bees approached my finger to taste my beingness. He said, now they will tell the other bees about you and within a week they will all know you as their friend. My heart swelled with the bee kisses and again I tears blurred my vision. And I feel like this is the paradox of this time: the tragedy and beauty. The question is, how to hold them both in my heart simultaneously. Tears of sorrow and tears of wonder help.

Are you feeling a little overwhelmed with the complexity of the relationships within holistic medicine? Life is complex. The web of life is vast, beyond imagination. But there is also a simplicity to holistic medicine that can be trusted and relied on. Let’s turn to another story of consider the simplicity underlying the complex web of life. This is an old story about a witch, a girl and doll that comes to use from Eastern Europe.

There is a girl named Vasalisa whose mother dies. Luckily, just before her mother gasps her final breath, she gives the girl a tiny doll and says, “Feed this doll every day, and she will always help you when you ask?”

The story than takes another unfortunate turn when Vasalisa’s father marries a jealous woman with jealous daughters. In other words, they don’t like Vasalisa and make life difficult for her until she finally leaves home at an age too young to be on her own. Vasalisa wanders in a dark forest until she finds herself in front of the witch’s house.

Vasalisa opens the gate made of human bones and wanders into the witch’s garden where she meets the witch, Baba Yaga. The witch is fearsome with budging eyes and long pointy nose, thin lips and a long pointy chin. Her hair is a mess and she scratches herself without modesty. She invites Vasalisa into her house.

Once in Baba Yaga’s house the witch tells Vasalisa she will give her a good life but first she must earn her reward. Baba Yaga, after a thunderous belch that reeked of garlic and onions, tells Vasalisa to do the house work, make her meals and point to huge mound of corn. “Sort out the mouldy corn from the good corn.” The witch demans and leaves for the night.

Poor Vasalisa is overwhelmed and does not know where to begin. The little doll soothes the girl telling her not to worry but to have a good night’s sleep with sweet dreams. The doll will tend to the cleaning, cooling and sorting.

Vasalisa has a lovely sleep and when she wakes up in the morning, she finds Baba Yaga gobbling up her breakfast and is impressed that her house is clean and the corn sorted. As a reward Baba Yaga teaches the girl about living within the cycles of nature.

That night Baba Yaga makes demands on Vasalisa. Clean my house, cook my food and find all the poppy seeds in that heap of dirt. heap of poppy seeds mixed in with dirt.  As Baba Yaga leaves for the night she let’s rip a very stinky fart.

Again Vasalisa is overwhelmed and does know where to begin. Again the little doll tells the girl to go to sleep and have lovely dreams and sets about accomplishing the tasks.

In the morning Vasalisa wakes up to find Baba Yaga wolfing down her breakfast, enjoying her clean house and assessing a mound of poppy seeds. The witch grants Vasalisa her wish. She gives Vasalisa the creative fire of meaning and passion and sends her on the way to the rest of her life. Everyone lived happily ever after.

What does this story have to do with holistic medicine? There is a grace in healing. It is the grace that knows how to heal, repair and balance relationships and flourish, like the grace in the relationships between water, the soil, bacteria and the heat of the sun coming together for a seed to sprout. There is grace that weaves life into being with many threads.

To understand this healing grace let’s look at the three characters of the story.

Baba Yaga farts, belches, eats, needs to be cleaned up after and is demanding. Baba Yaga is the body. Bodies need to eat, sleep, drink, poop, etc. And if those things do not happen, there is no health and happiness for anyone.

What is important to understand is Baba Yaga is the cycles of nature. Our body is profoundly in-tuned with nature’s day and night cycle. To ignore the relationship between the health of the body and light/dark cycle of nature leads to imbalance in the body’s health.

Vasalisa is overwhelmed and does not know what to do. How many patients does a herbalist meet who are overwhelmed and do not know what to do? They have lost their bearing and have lost confident in the vast web of life. They do not know how to weave themselves back into the great turning of nature and all its relationships.

The doll is the innate wisdom that understand the balance within the myriad relationships that make up life. Some call it homeostasis, but I think it is more than that. It is the gift of grace one experiences when the one who has to do something gets out of the way. Vasalisa’s doll represent the great healing that takes place every night when we sleep.

Jan Longboat an Anishinaabe herbalist advises that if someone tells you they are going to heal you – RUN! This is the understanding of Vasalisa’s doll. The doll heals. How? We really do not know. Somehow there is a kind of grace that appears when we walk gently through nature’s seasons and cycles. Somehow what needs to be discarded and what needs to nurtured becomes clear and we develop a confidence that every cells of our body is in relationship to every other cells in the vast web of life.

H-plyori or Helicobacter pylori is a bacteria found in at least 50% of all human stomachs. It is one of the top 5 most studied microbes in the world. How it lives in the stomach, why it lives in stomachs, how it gets there and why it sometimes causes disease is not understood. 

What is most hotly debated about H-pylori is whether or not the bacteria has a symbiotic  pathogenic or an opportunistic relationship with the human stomach. Scientists are not sure if it a good thing or a bad thing.

Here is what they have learned. 

It was first found living in a dog’s stomach in 1893. But then it was kind of forgotten about as it was believed bacteria could not live in the stomach’s high acid environment. It was not until the 1970s that H-pylori was rediscovered living in the mucous lining human stomachs. The mucous lining your stomach is called the mucosa. The mucosa protects the cells on the surface of your stomach from its acidic environment. It is also the place where most bacteria in your guts lives. H-pylori lives inside the mucous lining your stomach. The mucosa protects H-pylori from your stomach’s the acidic environment. 

When the mucosa is damaged, H-pylori attaches to the cells lining the stomach. H-pylori then releases toxins to create small pours in the membranes so it can spirals into the cell. Once inside the cell the bacteria wraps itself in a protective coat and begins to replicate. This is the beginning of H-pylori overgrowth and all the associated challenges it brings.

By 1983 it was decided that H-pylori is a pathogen that causes gastritis. Gastritis is inflammation of the stomach lining and causes burning pain, vomiting and loss of appetite. Long term gastritis may lead a peptic ulcer –  a hole in the stomach lining. Peptic ulcers have similar symptoms to gastritis with the addition of blood in the stools or vomit and an increase in the intensity pain. Peptic ulcers or chronic gastritis is associated with developing stomach cancer. 

Today whether H-pylori is a symbiotic, opportunistic or pathogenic bacteria living in human stomachs is hotly debated by the scientific community. Even after years of research, there is so much they do not know about this bacteria. Here is what they do know. 

H-pylori lives in at least 50% of human stomachs on this planet and it is old. At the very least this spiral shaped bacteria has been living in human guts for 3000 years. Many believe it co-evolved with humans as they transitioned from being chimpanzees to today’s Homo sapiens. 

H-pylori is transmitted in families. If your family has H-pylori, then you probably have it too. Your Mom or Dad gifted you with H-plyori when you were a kid. And it has been living there ever since. Children and most adults are not troubled by the H-pylori living in their stomachs. It not until later in life at the age of 68 that most people are diagnosed with stomach cancer with the cause being cited as H-pylori.

In a search to understand the relationship between H-pylori and stomach cancer researchers  reviewed historical medical records. They found  stomach cancer was not a big concern for most of our ancestors even though their stomaches were probably colonized by H-pylori. So what is going on here? Why are modern folks with H-plyori living in their stomaches more likely to develop stomach cancer than folks that lived 1000 years ago?

Researchers suggests that perhaps our ancestors did not live long enough for H-pylori to cause cancer. Few of our ancestors lived beyond the age of 45. 

Today the number of people with H-plyori living in their stomaches is on the decline. As is stomach cancer. In some countries, like Japan where stomach cancer was common, there has been a public policy to eradicate H-pylori. In places where there is no public policy on eradicating H-pylori, the bacteria is still on the decline. No one quite understands why this is.

The decline of H-pylori began in the 1850s coinciding with the onset on the industrial revolution in the UK and the USA. At this time there was also a rise in peptic ulcers and stomach cancer.  Some suggest that the rise in these diseases of the stomach was caused by better sanitation and cleaner water. 

The epidemic of ulcer disease in the first half of the 20th century seems likely to be an adverse effect of important public health measures undertaken in the latter half of the 19th century.1

It is also suggested that H-pylori began its decline because of these measures. Yet, its decline during a period when stomach cancer and peptic ulcers were on the rise is confusing. Perhaps there is more to these diseases than H-pylori.

Today, the decline of H-pylori has participated in an increase of people suffering asthma, gastric reflux (also called GERD), Barrett’s syndrome (damage to the esophagus due to chronic acid reflux) and cancer involving the esophagus. Researchers have also linked the decrease of H-pylori in stomachs with the increase in obesity in society. 

H-pylori plays a role in stimulating and curbing our appetites. H-pylori aids in regulating our appetites by stimulating the hormones: lepton and ghrelin. While the obesity crisis is complex, scientists can not help but wonder if the decline in H-pylori plays a role in this significant public health challenge. 

H-pylori also helps in reducing stomach acids. Stomach acids are necessary to break down proteins and minerals so they can be absorbed further down your digestive tract. But ask anyone who suffers with acid reflux and they will tell you too much acid in your stomach is painful. 

Let’s explore how H-pylori helps balance your stomach acids. H-pylori excretes urea as a waste product of protein metabolism. You also release urea a waste product when you pee. In your stomach, when H-pylori releases urea it also releases an enzymes that changes the urea to ammonia and bi-carbonate. Ammonia and bi-carbonate are alkaline substances. When an alkaline substance meets an acid, the acid is neutralized and loses its burn. 

Converting urea to alkaline substances is one of the ways H-pylori manages to survive in your stomach’s high acid environment. 

Many of the conditions that are on the rise as H-pylori declines are associated with an overly acidic environment in the stomach. Esophageal reflux, Barrett’s syndrome and cancer of the esophagus are all caused by acid moving from stomach into the esophagus. When H-pylori lives in the upper area of the stomach where it joins the esophagus, this part of the stomach is less acidic. Perhaps this why with the decline of H-pylori, there is a rise in diseases of the lower esophagus. 

It is interesting to note that most stomach cancers associated with an overgrowth of H-pylori occur in the lower part of the stomach. This is the most acidic area of a healthy stomach. Does H-pylori’s ability to create an alkaline environment somehow trigger the growth of cancerous cells in this part of the stomach? One needs to wonder?

What we do know is the sale of ante acids in North America earned pharmaceutical companies 5.15 billion dollars in 2022. It is estimated that by 2027 the sale of ante acids will be worth 6.44 billion. Again we need to wonder if the decline H-pylori with its ability to neutralize stomach acids is contributing to the rise of ante acid use to relieve the symptoms of acid reflux or as it is commonly called GERD. 

No one is sure why the decline of H-pylori in the broader population has lead an increase in asthma. 

One other important piece of research needs to be consider in trying to understand the relationship between our stomachs and H-pylori. Other bacteria have been discovered to be living in human stomaches including: Prevotella, Streptococcus, Veillonella, Rothia and Haemophilus. Some studies suggest that a decline in the Streptococcus and Prevotella bacteria in your stomach causes an imbalance in H-pylori. 

To sum up, scientists cannot agree if we have a symbiotic or pathogenic relationship with H-pylori. One thing they do know is H-pylori survives in your stomach, moves about and replicates. We also know that H-pylori has different responses to the different environments within your stomach. 

1. DOI: 10.1111/jgh.14090

Sitting at my kitchen table, amongst the salt shaker, cups of tea and books, I watch the birds come and go from bird feeders: one near the blue berry patch, another by hulking hops climbing a later and two near the kitchen window where morning glories bloom in the summer. A storm howls outside. Snow blows and swirls. The white pines, along the fence line, bend yielding to the wind. Their branches gesticulate the story of storm.

I am grateful the bird feeders are filled with Sunflower seeds. Sweet Chickadees quickly come and go from the feeders. The Sunflower seed’s will protect the wee birds from hunger and cold. As the temperature drops, unable to rely on the sun for warmth, birds need extra food to fuel their inner heat.

Every spring, as soon as earth thaws, we plant sunflowers to mark the boundary between the dirt road to our house and the garden. As summer days lengthens, the neighbourhood kids, awed by stretching stalks, broad leaves and massive flower heads, will ask me if they can have a flower for their mothers. The Sunflowers’ towering presence cause strangers stop to chat about Sunflowers they have known. One passerby told me about a fence he made with sunflower stalks that lasted for years.

The flowers begin to bloom in the first week of August. At first the flowers unfurl with feigned shyness. Each bright yellow petal unfolds slowly over a couple of days until the flower’s full magnificence is reveals and turns towards to the sun. This is when the pollinators arrive.

The gigantic flowers buzz with honey bees from the hive nestled at the back of the garden. Big, fuzzy bumble bees hover over the flowers and butterflies linger, sampling the nectar each floret offers. It is magical when the humming birds arrive, zipping about the massive flower heads, their ruby red throats glinting in the sun.

It was a stellar patch of Sunflowers this year. Before planting the seeds, we enriched the soil with last year’s compost. Compost is a dynamic environment of billions of bacteria feasting on rotting plant material. The bacteria in the compost gifted the Sunflowers with extra nourished this spring. We never had flowers so tall.

There are five main ways the soil bacteria helped to co-create this year’s sunflowers:
The bacteria stimulated the Sunflowers to make growth hormones that caused the sprouting seed to grow and grow and grow!
The bacteria from the compost helped the sunflowers’ roots absorb minerals the plant used to make strong stalks and the hard seed covers.
The Sunflowers used the minerals the bacteria broke down for the roots to absorb as fuel sources. Minerals, along with sunlight, are essential for Sunflowers’ energy metabolism. Without the minerals from the soil, delivered to the Sunflower’s roots by bacteria, the flower would not be able to live.
Along with minerals the bacteria offered a steady supply of nitrogen to the sunflower’s roots. Plants need nitrogen to turn sunlight into energy through a process called photosynthesis.

The bacteria and other microbes, including fungi, and the Sunflower’s roots live in a community. The diverse community of microbes around the roots is called the soil biome. One gram of healthy soil has a thousand different microbes.

Like any community a soil’s biome exists because of supportive relationships, boundaries and rules. Being able to talk with your neighbour about events in the community that have impact on everyone’s well being is important to the health of a community. The dynamic communicative relationships between bacteria, fungi and other microbes living in the soil creates a rich environment for Sunflowers to thrive.

The Sunflower is part of the soil’s community. Like the any good community member the Sunflowers does not just take minerals offered then by the microbe. The Sunflowers provide the microbes in the soil biome with something they can not make for themselves. The Sunflowers’ root feed the microbes sugars the flowers make with energy from the Sun.

As the summer days shortened on the Sunflowers’ face seeds begin to appear. The seeds are arranged in spirals – one spiral turns clockwise while the other turns counter-clockwise, just like the spirals found on Pine cones, Aloe plants and galaxies. As the coats on the seeds turn from green to black, the birds arrive.

The Cardinal’s red feathers flash as he nibbles on the seeds one at a time while perched on the head of a the biggest flower. Blue Jays, the colour of the sky and shadows, swoop along the fence line chasing the other birds away. The Jays seem to goggle up the seeds, hard shell and all. A flock of yellow Grosbeaks arrive in the garden like a wave coming a shore. They feast on the sunflower seeds while their high pitched peeping floods the garden. A shy red Finch darts through the sunflowers and rests on the sunflowers’ broad leaves. Acrobatic Nuthatches flitter through the Sunflowers while Chickadees, come and go with a single black seed in their beaks. Each seed a bird pulls from a Sunflower’s spiral leave behind a honey cone like lattice a on the flower’s face.

The lattice from which the birds extract the seeds is made of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium and calcium. These minerals were delivered to the sunflower’s roots by the microbes in the soil biome. The flower used to minerals to make the sturdy stem that could support both their massive flowers and the birds who perched on them. Once the stems were full grown the minerals were used to make a container for the seeds to develop in. The remaining minerals were stored in the seeds for next year’s crop of flowers.

Birds plant the sunflower seeds. Cardinals and finches have beaks designed to slice open sunflower seeds. When they pluck one seed from the Sunflower’s spiral, the seed next to it becomes loose and falls to the ground. In the spring, many Sunflowers will sprout where in the previous year there was a singular sunflower growing.

Blue Jays and their covid cousins, Crows and Grey Jays, are prolific Sunflower gardeners. Jays stuff a pouch found below their throats with as many sunflower seeds as possible. This is why at the feeder they look like they are gobbling the seeds down shell and all. Some reports say a Blue Jay can stuff as many as a 100 Sunflower seeds in its pouch. Others offer the more conservative number of 30. When the pouch is full, the Jay sneaks off to her secret hiding place and buries the seeds with the plan to return at a later date. When spring arrives and the soil warms, seeds left behind in the Jays’ cache sprout. Sunflowers can be found growing in the most unusual places, like behind the garden shed.

The chickadees and nuthatches crack open the Sunflowers seeds’ hard shell on tree branches. As they flit about the garden with seeds in their beaks, some are accidentally dropped. These are the seeds that become the Sunflowers striving for the light under the White Pines or in the middle of the Angelica patch.

At our bird feeders, the squirrels squabble with the Blue Jays at the feeder over the Sunflowers seeds. Squirrels are not the only mammals to visit the feeders. In the late falls, we have had bears tear the feeders to pieces while feasting sunflower seeds. Just before the snow flies skunks and raccoons arrive to fill their bellies with seeds. And when the snow is deep, deer shyly creep into the yard to binge on the seeds that have fallen around the base of the feeders.

Everyone loves sunflower seeds. They are potent source of nutrients when food is scarce. The seeds contain 14 amino acids. Nine of the seeds amino acids are essential. When an amino acid is called essential this means your body can not make them and they must come from food sources. Amino acids are the bits and pieces that make up proteins. Muscles, red and white blood cells, hair, skin, and every other tissue and organs in our bodies are made of protein. Proteins also play crucial roles in biochemical process of our cells. Proteins are found in enzymes, hemoglobin, cells receptors and are essential for most of the work your cells do including turning genes on and off with your DNA.

The birds, bears, raccoons and deer seek the protein in the seeds to help keep their bodies strong and resilience during winter months. The amino acids in the sunflower’s seeds provide fuel for the Chickadee to stay warm while nestled in the White Pines’ shelter during winter storms.

Sunflowers also make and store Linoleic acid in their seeds. Linoleic acid is an essential fatty acid. Linoleic acid is called essential because bodies can not make it and every one of the cells in your body uses this fatty acid to make healthy cell membranes. All of life needs linoleic acid to have resilient, flexible and water proof cell membranes, including birds, bacteria and plants.

Let’s pause for a moment and contemplate membranes. Membranes are both surfaces and boundaries. They both contain and keep out. Membranes, like boundaries, create relationships: inner and outer, self and other, here and there. Membranes like good boundaries are porous and allow what is needed in and hopefully keeping what is not needed out. Membranes define, accept, guard and reject. Membranes are essential for the life of the cell.

A healthy cell membrane, also called a plasma membrane, is elastic and flexible. It lets some things in and keeps other things out. Your body, an all other living beings on this planet, make cell membranes with fatty acids, including linoleic acid. When you, a blue jay, raccoon, or bear, eat a sunflower seed it journeys through the digestive system until it reaches the small intestine. In the small intestine the linoleic acid is broken apart by enzymes from your pancreas. It then mingles with bile from your liver. The bile emulsifies the linoleic acid. This helps the small intestine absorb this essential nutrient. The linoleic acid is taken up by your lymphatic system and transported to the liver. In the liver, the linoleic acid is packages into minuscule fatty acids that your cells use to make and repair their membranes. The fatty acids in cell membranes act like a seal, protecting the cell from leaks.

Like the Sunflowers roots, cell membranes interact with the environment it finds itself in. Whereas the Sunflower’s roots are in relationship to microbes in the soil biome, cell membranes are in relationship to your bodies other cells and microbes living extracellular fluid. Extracellular fluid is the liquid surrounding your cells. When you get a blister and the top layer of skin peels off releasing clear liquid, that is extracellular fluid.

One of the things the fatty acid in the cell membrane does is protect the life of the cell from microbes floating around in the extracellular fluid. Conversely, the microbe’s membrane protects it from our immune cells which are constantly seeking to rebalance your body’s biome. Both our cellular membranes and the microbes’ contain linoleic acids.

Let’s explore microbes and how their membranes interact with your cellular membranes.

Microbes are single cell living beings. In your body, there are at least 10 microbes for every one of your cells. Some people like to compare humans, and other animals, to walking microbe condos. Microbes are bacteria, fungi, archea, parasites and viruses. What are these trillions of microbes doing in your body? Most are seeking the nutrients. Like the minerals from the Sunflower seeds our cells turn into protein. Some of the minerals from the Sunflower seeds are also used to help our cells make energy. Microbe use the same minerals to create their single cellular body and fuel their various activities.

Viruses are unique amongst microbes. They don’t feast on our cells like bacteria or parasites. Instead they need our cells to replicate. Viruses are the tricksters of the microbial world. Think of them like computer hackers. Like hackers, viruses present themselves to cell membranes with a friendly gesture that appears to be acceptable. Once inside, they take over the core intelligent of your cells your DNA sequencing proteins.

On their own, viruses are unable to reproduce. That is why many believe that viruses are not living beings. One of the definition of living beings is their ability to reproduce. Viruses do not have the necessary DNA sequencing proteins needed for replication. They need your cells to do replicate their DNA. Without your DNA sequencing proteins, viruses make baby viruses.

Once the virus has hacked your cell membrane and taken over your DNA sequencing proteins they make 1000’s of copies of the self. Then they escape your cell through the it’s membrane seeking another cell to hack.

Bacteria, yeast and parasites are able to replicate themselves. They do not need your DNA sequencing proteins. Instead they hunger for the juicy fat in your cell membranes and the minerals and proteins tuck away inside your cell. To access the life affirming goodness inside your cells, the microbes need to penetrate your cell membranes.

Parasites and fungi use brute force to rip into the cell membrane. The tears in membranes caused by parasites often kill the cell.

Bacteria generally prefer not to use brute force to get their lunch. There is something to be said about not killing the cook. Bacteria have more discrete techniques for stealing their lunch.
Some bacteria have sharp thin needles they use to pierce the cell membrane to siphon nutrients from your cell’s interior. Other bacteria use chemicals to make minuscule hole in membranes.Through these holes the bacteria extracts the cell’s resources.

The cell membrane, on a cellular level at least, is the first defence against microbes. Because of this, cell membranes needs the nutrient like those Sunflower seeds contain to be healthy. Sunflower seeds contain both the fats and the amino acids necessary for strong cell membranes.

Yet there is more to it. Just because a bacterium pokes a hole a cell membrane does not mean it the cell dies. Cells are continuously repairing their membranes. Cells use similar processes to repair cell membrane as your body does to heal tears in your skin. To repair the damage caused by microbes, cells needs fatty acids and proteins made from amino acids. Once again the Sunflower’s seeds provide both. Curiously, the bacteria in the soil are the original source of the nutrients that build and heal resilient cell membranes.

Its a beautiful complex chain of events, the birds and humans that plant Sunflower seeds, the bacteria in the soil that provides the nutrients for the seeds to sprout and the seeds rich in the nutrients needed for healthy cell membrane. Or perhaps the humans and birds with healthy cell membrane who plant sunflower seeds so the soil in the bacteria can flourish on the sugars the Sunflower is able to feed them. This is one cycle within the great cycle of life on our beautiful planet.

When I slow down, it seems to me there is so much more to life then taking the resources one needs from the environment to live. Careful watching, listening and studying suggests to me that life both on a macro and microscopic level is generous.

Scientific systems of thought define life as an organisms ability to harvest the energy and materials required for growth and reproduction from their environment. Biologists call he process of taking energy from one’s environment and using it to grow and reproduce metabolism.

This definition of life seems to suggest that life is separate from its environment and the mind boggling interweaving of life is one simply based on resource extraction.

Let’s take the definition of metabolism used by science and rewrite it:

The environment provides organisms with the energy and materials required for life because they are part of the environment.

Written this way, life becomes a generous act by the environment in which the organism finds itself because the organism is part of the environment. The organism is not taking as in harvesting from the environment, but activity participating in life within the environment.

When we simply think of life as the receiver of energy and material, we loose the complex dance of life. The continuous giving of trillions diverse life forms, from microscopic bacteria to elephants, coral reefs to mosquitoes, creating our home called Earth.

When we shift our perspective of experiencing life a dynamic process receiving all one’s needs from the environment and giving all one has to sustain an environment to supports of life, life becomes blessed with feelings of mutual support and even death become part of the many faces of life.

Chapter One of The Vessel: Plants, Women and Contraception

We are the Granddaughters of the Witches you didn’t burn!

– A protest sign carried during the Woman’s March January 21, 2017, the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Dear Reader: Elizabeth Francis and Agnus and Joan Waterhouse were tried for witchcraft during the summer of 1566 in Essex County, England. The following is both a factual and imagined account of their lives.

When Elizabeth Francis was twelve years old, her grandmother, Mother Ev, shared with her the medicine plants carry. On the morning of summer solstice, the old woman and the girl plucked St John’s Wort’s flowers, its purple resin staining their fingers. Mother Ev taught her granddaughter that the sunny yellow flowers will chase demons from minds when nights become long. At the end of the day, they hung the fresh bundles of St John’s Wort over the door to their small home. “To keep away witches,” Mother Ev explained and she threw last year’s spent flowers into the solstice bonfire. Elizabeth was more concerned about the purple stains on her white fingers than witches sneaking about her house.

When the moon swelled in June, Mother Ev took Elizabeth to the hedgerow to gather hawthorn flowers and leaves. She showed Elizabeth how to gift the fairies with a few drops of honey and offer a short prayer to the Virgin.

My Queen, My Mother, I offer myself entirely to thee.

And to show my devotion to thee,

I offer thee this day, my eyes, my ears, my mouth, my heart,

My whole being without reserve.

Wherefore, good Mother, as I am thine own,

Keep me, guard me as thy property and possession.

Amen.

 “The flowers make a pleasant tea to calm a troubled heart and bring a good night’s sleep,” Mother Ev taught her granddaughter. Hawthorn’s sharp thorns tore at Elizabeth’s dress. “You must be careful picking Hawthorne’s flowers,” Mother Ev cautioned, “the thorns claim a high price when you are not.”

In August they hurried towards the hedgerow to gather Elderberries. Elizabeth’s skirts were heavy with morning dew. The damp chill clung to her ankles. Elizabeth struggled to keep up with Grandmother. “Hurry,” the old woman urged the girl, “the birds will take them all, if we don’t get there first.”

All day long, Elizabeth stood over the fire stirring the bubbling Elderberry syrup.

“Sing if you are tired,” Mother Ev encouraged her granddaughter. And so Elizabeth sang a song the miller’s boy taught her.

It’s of a shepherd’s daughter keeping sheep all on the hill,
And by there cam’ a king’s fair knight and he would have his will.

He’s ta’en her by the middle smail and by the silken gown
And he has had his will before he rose her up again.

“Now that you’ve had your will o’me please tell to me your name,
So when our bairnie it is born I might call it the same.”

“It’s some they call me Jack he said and some they call me John
But when I’m at the King’s court they call me Wilfu’ Will.”

He mounted on his milk-white steed and then away did ride,
She’s kirted her petticoat round her knee and ran at the horse’s side.[1]

Elizabeth’s song rattled her grandmother. Mother Ev interrupted the song with a story. “When you were a small girl with a fever it was the Holy Mary, Elderberry syrup and Catnip tea that saved you,” and Mother Ev thanked the Virgin one more time for her granddaughter’s life.  Elizabeth wiped the sweat from her brow and rolled her eyes and made an irreverent prayer asking Mary to stir the syrup if she wasn’t busy saving girls.

The summer was hot and dry when Elizabeth turned twelve. The ground was hard underfoot, the grasses crisp and cracking. Cicadas sang their song of drought while Mother Ev showed her granddaughter woman’s medicine: Buttons with its yellow button-like flowers, the moon’s whiteness on the underside of Maiden Wort’s leaves and Bishop’s Nest with its reddish-purple spot in the center of a white lace-like flower. “These plants will keep your health,” she told Elizabeth.

Little did Mother Ev know, the knowledge of plants used by women to keep their health would bring her granddaughter death. But let’s not travel too far into Elizabeth’s grim future. Let’s continue with that sunny summer day.

Read more: The Vessel

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When the wind carries a warning of cooler weather and leaves scurry across the path, herbalists
dig up roots. Putting on rubber boots with wool socks, down filled vests and knitted hat,
herbalists, who have been waiting patiently for leaves to die back as the frost creeps higher and
thickens with each morning, take out their shovels for the final harvests of the year – the
medicine buried beneath the earth.
Gathering flowers for medicine in the spring and early summer is a delight. A herbalist’s basket
carries the scent of tender violets and rose petals. The sweetness hidden in the red clover’s
clusters of purple petals is carefully tended to on drying racks. Elders flowers’ quiet delicacy is
infused into cordials and meadowsweet flowers are tinctured to tame bitters. St John’s Worts
flowers, mingling with olive oil and the warmth of the sun on the back deck, make medicine red
as blood. Early summer is a busy time for herbalists. From morning to night, plants and their
medicine need to be tended to.
By the time the trees are bare, herbalists are ready to settle next to a fire with a big fat book and
begin to dream about next spring. But first there are the roots to dig.
This year the first roots I dug were dandelion. I prefer fall dandelion roots over the roots I dig in
the spring. Dandelion’s fall roots carry summer’s sweetness. The plants have made and stored
sugars in their fat tap roots to prepare for winter. By spring, when Dandelion’s first jagged green
leaves appear, the roots have become bitter with winter’s cold.
Digging burdock’s root requires patience and a steady hand. One cannot be in a hurry when
unearthing Burdock’s roots. Burdock’s roots penetrate deep into the earth. One I gently dug get
and tugged a meter long burdock root from its bed of soil. During the mid summer, when
burdock’s leaves grow to be the size of elephant ears, I decide which plants I will return to in the
fall to gather roots. Only the first year’s roots make good medicine. By the time the burdock’s
second year burrs are tangled in my dog’s coat or clinging to the edge of my scarf, the roots
have rotted and their medicine is gone. Like dandelion’s roots, burdock’s roots are sweeter in
the fall.
Comfrey, which if you do not dig its roots every fall, will march across your garden, putting down
roots in any space it can find. Comfrey’s roots come out of the ground covered in a thin black
skin. RinsIng comfrey roots with the garden hose, the black skin peels away exposing fleshy
roots white as bone. Comfrey heals bones. Inside I chop the white roots until they are the size of
the nail on my baby finger. Then I spread out the roots on the drying rack. Once they are dry, I
cook them in oil to help heal bones that break from falls on ice or tumbles while snow boarding.
This fall I found a Comfrey plant hiding amongst the Elecampane. Elecampane like Comfrey
grows leaves the size of elephant ears. Elecampanes roots are long and thin and branching.
They are similar to Comfrey’s but carry a pungent, sharp scent that remind people of cough
medicine. After gathering and chopping Elecampane’s roots, I gently heat them in honey. After a
day on the stove, the honey is strained and bottled and put in the fridge ready for winter’s first
cold.
Digging roots was special for me this year. It was the first year I was able to dig the roots of a
medicinal plant called Baikal Skullcap. Three years ago I started a small patch of Baikal
Skullcap plants from seed in my medicine garden. The first year they struggled and looked tired
and weedy. The second year the plants became bushy and offered up deep purple flowers.

When the flowers turned to seeds, I collected them and spread them about in another area of
the garden that gave them a bigger space to grow in. This year, after their third summer, I dug
out the original plants. They were twisty roots, like snakes, and golden in colour. Inside they
were bright yellow/orange. I tinctured them up right way. I prefer my medicine made with fresh
plants. It is stronger. I felt proud of myself as I shook the bottle of tincture and asked the roots to
put their medicine into the liquid. I tended to the plants for three years to make Baikal Skullcap’s
medicine. It was a good reminder that sometimes the best medicine needs time.
I have one more set of roots to dig up and then I can put my shovel away in the garden shed for
the winter. The last roots to be unearthed are Black Cohosh’s. Black Cohosh is another plant I
have been tending to for three years. Like Baikal Skullcap, Black Cohosh’s medicine needs
time. Before I dig Black Cohosh’s roots, I will collect the plant’s seeds. Some I will cast about in
the maple forest near my home and let nature decide whether not to awaken the seeds in the
spring. Some I will cast about in my garden, and wait and see if they rise to meet the sun in the
spring. Others I put in a small bag and keep in the freezer over the winter to plant in pots in the
spring. These I will fuss over making sure they have the right amount of heat and sun to make
strong plants.
And so the season will be complete one more year. The roots becoming medicine and the
seeds waiting

I’ve been working on a book about plants used for contraceptives. In the research journey I learned about Silphium, an extinct plant that was a wildly poplar contraceptive.

The story goes like this: during the time Alexandra the Great, he was born 356BC, on his yearly visit to the Delphi Oracle a Greek king was advised to send his people across the Mediterranean sea and set up a settlement on the arid land that rises from the glistening waters of the inland sea. The Oracle told the King that city state established in this place would become the wealthiest and most powerful in all the empire. The King was not keen on the unpredictable journey across the sea and decided to stay home. Then draught destroyed crops. Trees died. People were restless and hungry. Again the King supplicated the Oracle and again she prophesied a rich and powerful city state across the Mediterranean. The King randomly picked citizens to cross the sea and establish a new city state.

After crossing the Mediterranean the Greeks discovered dry, dusty hills where the wind had a hot, dusty breath and their crops shrivelled before they had a chance to set down roots. The previous tribal ruler of area suggested the Greeks move a little bit in land where they would discovered a fertile valley where plenty of rain fell to nourish healthy crops. The Greeks moved in land and found a lush valley. The Oracle was right, they became very wealthy and powerful in this place. Their wealth and power did not come from the crops they grew there, but a plant that they found covering those hill sides, silphion. Silphion, a suspected member of the Apiaceae family, produced an oozing, odourous resin. When a women, took once a month, a chickpea size resins ball of silphion with a cup of hot water and she would not conceive. And if by chance she had conceived, her womb would be purged according to Pliny the Elder.

Silphion is a tall hollow stemmed plant with  thick black roots and leaves like celery. Its flowers were typical of a large apical umbels like angelica or Queen Anne’s lace. Theophrastus, the Greek father of botany, likened silphion to fennel. He described it as a giant fennel plant. Today, on the hill side where silphion was once plentiful two giant fennels grow. One is called giant fennel and the other is Tangier fennel. Like many other plant in the Apiaceae family, such angelica and cow parsnip, silphion had heart shaped seeds. The medicine people of the time, sited silphion’s  heart shaped seeds as a sign of its effectiveness as an contraceptive or in other words, sex without responsibility.

Silphion, to the Greeks was more than a contraceptive. It was a preferred cough remedy and they also used it relive growths on the anus. I have no idea what these growths were, but apparently silphion was a sure cure. Silphion’s ordorous resin was also a choice seasoning called laser in local cuisine.

The Greeks, understanding the value of the plant, tried culverting it in different location of their empire. It turned out to be impossible to grow, unless it planted itself. The only place silphion was willing to grow was in the Cyrene valley the Greeks had colonized. To preserve the plant the Greeks enforced strict laws about how it was harvested. As excitement of silphion’s contraceptive powers spread the demand for the plant increased. The Cyrene Greeks managed the plant well, understanding scarcity drove up prices. They quickly were became very rich and powerful. As a tribute to the plant, they placed its image on their coins. One coin depicted the use of the plant. On the face of the coin sat a women with silphion at her feet and her hand over her uterus.

Then along came the conquering Romans. When they occupied Cyrene valley, they renamed silphion silphium and ignored the foraging laws the Greeks had laid down. The Romans harvested the plant without foresight. Six hundred and eighty kilograms of silphium resin was shipped to Rome where Julius Caesar greedily secreted it away in his cache of most value treasures. After a 100 years of Roman occupation silphium was extinct. Pliny the Elder wrote in that the last stalk found of “One of the Most Precious Gifts of Nature to Man” was plucked and given to the Emperor Nero. Nero ruled from 54 to 68 AD.

As there were fewer and fewer silphium plants to be found in the lush Cyrene valley, it appeared in the herb and spice markets with more and more adulterants. Everything from juniper berries, mustard, pepper and rubber was mixed with resin to make the rare medicine go a little bit further. The most commonly used adulterant was asafoetida, a strong smelling herb from Central Asia and India. Today, asofoestida gives Wercestershire sauce it unique odour.

After silphium disappeared forever, Benedictian monks in France in the early part of 800c spent years transcribing the works of Ancient Greek physicians like Dioscoride and Soranus. When they came to silphium, they substituted asofoestida in its place.

Interesting asofoestide in 1963 was found to be a very effective contraceptive in humans.

Today’s research shows silphium’s cousin Fennel has contraceptive properties. It contains a volatile oil called ferujol which is also found in Queen Anne’s Lace. It is suggested that it ferujol impedes implantation of the ovum.