Everyone is obsessed these days with the idea of "anti-aging". Creams, saunas, pills, supplements, weird practices that might or might not involve obscure animal parts............
But the truth of the matter is, beauty comes from the inside and stays with us or doesn't depending on many factors. Looking young even when we're old is a weird concept. I don't mean to offend anyone, but ladies dying their hair to fool, who? Themselves? We all age, men and women, but what we do with that depends solely on us. So embrace age, celebrate it.
Are you one of those who sits most of your free time watching TV? Or are you someone who gets outside and looks for adventure? One way to enjoy the outdoors is by foraging. Foraging for wild medicine is the ultimate anti-aging activity. Let me explain why......
1. Getting outside in the fresh air and sunshine brings in new perspective , positive energy and loads of oxygen into our body. Too much indoor air and too much sitting inside makes us heavy, sad, and cranky. When we get out into the light and into nature , our mood becomes happy and ready to tackle obstacles. Lines on our face decrease, we breathe deeper, we smile, we look into the suns rays, which fills us with light , we laugh..
2. Use our bodies/yoga poses. Many of us spend a lot of money on yoga classes hoping to get our bodies to move , become more flexible, get in touch and become more spiritual. This is exactly what happens when we forage . In order to touch , see and understand the plants we are collecting, we've got to bend down, get close and use our muscles . This is body building. Using our strength to bend, lift, stretch, reach, dig , pull and get into poses we might not otherwise do. This gives us flexibilty and core strength , tightening muscles we normally couldn't reach or wouldn't even know existed. This act of natural exercise keeps us young and healthy.
3. Grounding / Earthing is the act of connecting bare skin to the earth: soil, grass, rock, wood, natural body of water. Mother Earth contains a natural electricity. When we connect with this we tap into that positive energy filling ourselves with it while releasing and emptying our own negative energy . We collect this "bad" energy from stress, electronics, wifi and phone radiation etc. As we continue to collect this, we become overburdened and begin to feel dis-ease, anger, symptoms, health challenges, inflammation, tumors ,etc. When we release this negative energy back into the earth and we are in turn filled with good positive energy and vibration we reduce inflammation and can begin to turn dis-ease around. We feel better, more grounded, lighter and younger.
4. Connecting with the earth , nature and your medicine. When we connect with nature on her terms. We come with hearts open. We become our true selves , stripped down to our bare essentials. I'm not saying we need to come naked, but we walk away from the technology that normally surrounds us, the stress, the overload of information. All of this closes us down and disconnects us from "reality". But when we show up as we are , quiet, accepting and full of love, we embrace nature and these plants which ultimately have the ability to heal us. When the plants sense this, they open up their secrets to us. We become connected to our medicine. Imagine if our medicine knew us and could work that much better for us and with us. A relationship develops between us and we learn to give respect as they do. This is how the most powerful healing takes place.
5. Learning the secrets of plants and of our ancestors. When we connect with this intuition, this sense of "reality" that we've known all along, but was hidden from us, we are tapping into limitless knowledge going back to our ancestors and to the beginning of time: to the Garden of Eden. This is connecting to the deepest parts of ourselves and of the world. This is what we're aiming for: That the world and its inhabitants to release their secrets to us . Allow this healing positive energy in and we will find that proverbial "fountain of youth".
6. Omega 3 Wild greens or any leafy greens have a flexibility to them. An amazing ability to survive harshness, drought, storm, winds, rains, insects, disease, etc. This partly comes from the Omega 3's found in their leaves and stalks. This omega gives them youth and the ability to withstand struggle. They are flexible yet strong and firm. This is what we want more of. The more we eat of this, the more we touch these plants, have them close to us and let them into our lives, the more similarities we will begin to share with them.
7. Chlorophyll This is how these plants turn sunlight into nutrition for themselves and for us when we eat them. This is medicine straight from the sun. It's an internal source of Vit D, of the goodness of the sun and it's healing energy . Imagine youth, health and energy in a leaf!
8. Re-introduce our sense of wonder and re-ignite our imagination Can you remember being a child and having imaginary friends or seeing fairies in the forest? Children hold onto these fantasies using the power of their imagination . Everything has a sense of magic and mystery to it when we're kids. Then at some point we tell ourselves to grow up and we lose touch with that mystical part of us. But when we get out there in nature and reconnect with that small child hiding inside of each and every one of us, we begin to open up again to that possibility of magic. Fairies hiding under the Mallow leaf, protectors of our plants and medicines. This feeling of letting go of the constraints of being an adult and just going with the wonder that is nature and all she holds, is freeing, uplifting , and lets us tap into our youth again. That freedom, joy , laughter and pure abandon that lets us be truly young again.
9. Probiotic microorganisms in the soil Walking barefoot, picking, pulling and digging with our hands in the dirt allows us to come into contact with microscopic probiotic organisms in the dirt. These touch our skin, get under our nails, lay on the leaves and make their way into our mouths. These healthy organisms live in harmony with the plants and with us. They feed the soil and give life to the plants. This is something we want to have as part of our anti-aging protocol... These bring life into our digestive systems as well as to our skin. Imagine having little soldiers coming in and cleaning up all the dead cells and pushing out bad viruses and unwanted invaders to create a new fresh living space filled with oxygen, nutrients and and life.
The best way to do this is to get out there and for-age!
