Nature's Magic

Nature's Magic

Wild Violets 

I love this time of year, the hedgerows and gardens are bursting into life, everything is becoming pretty and colourful again.

This year, I have decided to go back to making use of some of the glorious abundance of healing that mother nature gives us for free!

I love to make my own healing salves, balms, tonics and teas from natural products. I lost a lot of faith in main stream medicine many years ago when I fell ill, I lost just over 40lbs in 2 months with the inability to digest anything, I was in extreme pain every day (pain management put me at around level 9 on the pain scale!)  Despite 5 years of GP visits, endless blood and hospital procedures and being placed on a bank of tablets (37 a day!) no one could diagnose what was making me ill. I actually felt as if I was dying slowly!

One day, I collected my script (with yet another new additional tablet from yet another consultant) from a different chemist shop, the pharmacist was on his own as the lady on the counter was on a break. He asked me why I was on so many pain medications, other medicines and why I was now being given more medication, it was nice for someone to ask, no one had really asked me that question directly before.
I gave him the short version of my 5 year saga not knowing he was a fully qualified Naturopathic doctor as well as a qualified pharmacist. He gave me some very valuable advice, the first being that the amount of chemical medications I was taking each day were in fact causing many of my 'newer' symptoms, his main advice was to wean myself off all the medications one by one to see which ones I could live without and this would also show which one's were causing more problems than they were solving!
He gave me one simple remedy for the awful burning acid I had recently gotten, which the new medications were for, his advice was to hold off taking the chemical medications and try drinking a glass of water each morning with  half a lemon squeezed in it - the second day I did this the acid vanished completely! I had low acid levels not high!

It took a few months to wean myself off my other 37 chemical medicines, as each one stopped I became more healthy, for the minor symptoms I did have left he would tell me to eat certain foods or herbs which would stop the symptoms without upsetting any other part of my body.

Once I had weaned myself off all but the occasional pain medicine we had another long chat, he advised that maybe I needed to live somewhere less polluted and more natural, that maybe city life didn't agree with my body and soul. A few months later the opportunity to live in rural Ireland arose so here we are!
I still have occasional flare ups of my symptoms and pain but I tend to deal with them naturally now - hence why today we went foraging! - T'is the season to make lotions and potions!

Red Clover and Bird's Foot Trefoil

Nearly all plants have some sort of healing properties, a quick google of their name will give you a wealth of sites that will explain the medicinal uses and dangers of using such plants. There is a rule when foraging wild plants, if you see ten plants you may gather three of them, you need them to be there next year and if you over gather they will not have chance to seed to grow again!

The violets are now on their last bloom, I managed to gather the last few today to dry to make tea.
I had already gather about a cup full a few weeks back when they were plentiful and made some scented perfume moisturizer with them. It's a very simple process and works with most scented flowers.

• Remove the petals from the flowers, rinse under running water in a sieve and allow to dry overnight.
• Take some coconut oil (organic or virgin work best) spread it on a flat plate or tray about 1/4 inch thick (I use a 7" side plate) press the petals into the oil so they are covered
• Take a second plate/tray and press firming on top of your oily mixture
• Wrap them in cling film and put in a safe place for 3 days
• On the 3rd day unwrap, take the top plate/tray off (scrap any oil stuck on them into the lower plate) - you can now either microwave the mixture for about 20 seconds on high to melt the oil or scrap it into a saucepan, heat until it has just melted
• Sieve the melted oil mixture into a clean jar, I give the remaining petals a quick press through the sieve just to ensure I have the most scent I can out of them 
• Once the oil in the jar has solidified again you can use your violet coconut scented oil as a perfume or as a moisturizer for your face and/or body.

If you wish to have a stronger violet scent you can sieve you oily mixture back onto a new plate, add another batch of flower petals and go through the wrapping and 3 day process again.

Violet Coconut Perfume

This mixture has a lovely gentle violet scent, obviously the more petals you have the stronger the scent and is so good for your skin WARNING: please do an allergy patch test before you smear it all over your body, just in case! 

Used on the skin this way violets have antiseptic properties, can be used to treat minor scrapes,  bruises and are fabulous for giving you pimple free skin! Add to that the anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial properties of coconut oil and you have one awesome moisturizer!

Another use is to put a teaspoon of this into your bath, your skin will feel so soft and have that beautiful gentle violet scent to it.

I have made this same scented oil perfume in the past with scented rose petals and lavender. Never be scared to experiment with other scented flowers and let me know how it came out!

Scented Rose Petals

The few violets I managed to pick today are drying on the windowsill on a paper towel in full sunlight - these will be jarred once they are completely dried to use at a later date in other projects.

Violets and Red Clover

So whilst my flower heads and petals dry naturally in the sunshine I am going off to do the dreaded housework! I will show you what I've done with my foraged goodies another day!