DJ Conway - Magical Folkhealing Herbs, Oils, and Recipes for Health, Healing, and Magic

Contents One: Two: Three: Four: Five: Six: Seven: Eight: Nine: Ten: Eleven: Twelve: Thirteen: Fourteen : Acknowledgments This book is also dedicated to others who supported my efforts: Darlene B., Mezdulene B., Barb A., Sara Camilli, Michelle V. C., Charles G., Glenn S., Harvey L., Judith J., Merren M., my nieces, nephews, and grandson serving in Kuwait. And to the many encouraging others. Authors and Publishers Note The publisher and author are not responsible for the use and misuse of plants listed in this book, especially those labeled POISONOUS. With some of these plants, even touching can have negative effects. The plants are included with warnings in order to give a more complete study of herbs.

All plants, like all medicines, may be dangerous if used improperly or taken in excess or for too long a time. Be sure the herbs are fresh and know the strengths can vary. We do not endorse or guarantee the curative effects of any of the subjects in this book. One Introduction
to Magical
Folkhealing W hat makes a person who they are is a very complicated question and path. Our personalities and lives are formed and affected by so many variables: karma, choices at each step in life, family experiences, genetics, the unexpected and/or unknowableperhaps even astrology. No one can say for certain.

Even within a family, very few members have totally the same personality or belief system. My father and my brother were, and are, very good dowsers, whether for water, water lines, or underground tanks. However, neither did (or do) believe in the same things as I do. For certain, we all are influenced more deeply by some people than by others. Both sides of my family never considered themselves of any great importance. They were of very different types of personalities, which confused me but taught me many things.

On my maternal grandparents side were two brothers, James and Elijah John Smith, who married two sisters, Lily and Martha Green. James and Martha had nine children, while Elijah John and Lily had twelve. I was the oldest child in my parents family of three and a girl with mostly male cousins, so it was a wild upbringing. The expression fight or flight comes to mind. Both maternal grandparents died by the time I was seven years old. Although there were a few aunts and uncles who had the gift of premonition, they mostly chose to ignore it and dismissed it as fantasy for anyone who experienced it.

The paternal side didnt talk about their psychic experiences and folkhealing very much either. However, it was very quietly acknowledged within the family. My paternal grandmother, Clara Fern Long ne Corbin, was the joy of my life after they moved from Iowa to Oregon when I was about three years old. She rarely refused to answer a question and encouraged me in my art, writing, and reading. Most importantly, she fed my soul and made me comfortable with the psychic. I was full of questions, mostly about her family, and she answered them with patience and love.

I learned that at one time we were a Southern family, which explained her expressions I find myself still using today. Her father, Richard Corbin, was Pennsylvania Dutch and Irish. Both sets of their parents moved south before the Civil War and were deep into folkhealing in Missouri. As a young man, Richard broke his arm badly while logging with his three brothers. His mother, Suzanne Deeds, set the arm as best she could, although it was always a little crooked. Knowing Richard and his stubbornness, it is likely he went back to logging too soon.

He married Alice White, a healer and psychic who was Scots/Irish. After they lost five children in one winter to diphtheria, they moved to Iowa by means of a covered wagon with their two remaining children, one of them was my grandmother. After several miscarriages, Alice finally had two more children, Alice and Albert. Alice White Corbins father, Quincey, was a close friend with the local Native Americans and learned healing from them, passing on this information to his daughter. Being of Native American, Scots/Irish, and Pennsylvania Dutch descent, the gene pool was well stirred, churning out many psychics and folkhealers in every generation. The folkhealing was more than just treating the physicalit slid into areas of mental, emotional, and spiritual healing as well.

By going to a conventional church regularly, they bypassed the stigma of being Pagan or nonbelievers, and their folkhealing was accepted because of the scarcity of good doctors. I was born with a rare kidney disease which even Dornbeckers Hospital in Portland, Oregon, could not diagnose or cure. My saving grace was a local Chinese herbalist who made me a tonic and pulled me back from death at less than a year old. I wish I knew the ingredients of that tonic today, as I still must live with chronic kidney disease. One late autumn when I was about ten, I came down with a fever and some disease that put me in bed for two weeks with a headache that was the worst Ive ever had, worse than a migraine. I couldnt tolerate to even have my hair brushed or turn my head; I couldnt eat and was in excruciating pain constantly.