The medicine that makes us whole

Lately, my beautiful and very pregnant daughter has been struggling with a bad outbreak of eczema; she can't get it under control and it is frustrating for her.  I tried to make it better by telling her that it is most likely a combination of pregnancy hormones, the strange weather and acidic food that she has been eating lately which is most likely aggravating her eczema but that didn't really help lower her frustration level...ha!  Yea, don't use logic to explain a frustrating situation that you aren't in but the other person is as it goes bad rather quickly....lol  

So what is a mother to do?  I don’t know about you, but it's hard for me to see my children struggle especially if it causes them physical pain.  As my daughter stood before me with sadness in her eyes, in that moment of wanting to help but not knowing what to do, it was then that I remembered what my dad used to do when I was a child and I went with that.

my daughter & dad many years ago

My dad was forever in the bush: sometimes for work, sometimes to hunt, sometimes to hide (yea hide…lol) and the other times to get medicine.  I remember him going out into the bush and coming back an hour or two later with what I thought were just leaves/plants and watching him at the stove boil or prepare it to get it ready for us to use.  I had no idea that this wasn't a normal practice for everyone; where you made your own medicine if you were sick.  Come to think of it, I don’t recall much about taking pills when I was younger unless we were really, really sick and had to go to the hospital.   In looking back, I don’t think we could afford buying medicine too much. 

Isn’t it interesting how memories come back to teach us something that we forgot but was just waiting to be brought back again at the right time and place? Well, yes it is!  The memory of my dad at the stove  putting the plant into the pot of water and turning to me to let me know this medicine will help, was a teaching that I didn't know I possessed until the day I had no money to get medicine from a store.  I had been making medicine for years for my kids, but stopped for some reason as they became teenagers and then young adults.

So I looked at my daughter and said "I will make you some medicine to help you" and set about getting the cedar ready to boil.  I had been picking and preparing cedar for a week for someone else and managed to save a bit for myself as I knew that I was going to make medicine for my daughter as a week ago I had let her know that having a cedar bath would make her skin feel good, soft, and would protect her and her baby inside of her.

She agreed to it and set about getting ready for the bath.  With cedar in hand along with a pot and water, I stood at the stove stirring the cedar boughs enjoying the smell of cedar wafting through the air and down the hallway making its way throughout the whole house. I felt safe and very much at peace while preparing the medicine.  It was then that my mind drifted through the thought that my spirit missed doing this; missed making medicine and missed how it made the air around me feel alive and all that much more cleaner.  

When I finished making the medicine, I silently thanked my dad for what he taught me and grateful that I taught my children about our ways of life and the medicines that make us whole.  I believe that if I had not taught them this from an early age that our beliefs are a part of who we always were and are, then my daughter would not believe that the medicine I was making would help her; believing and knowing about oneself is part of how any medicine works.  So, in each stir, I sent my prayers that it would soothe my daughter's skin and all would work out as it should; the power of the mind and soul is one of our greatest medicines that we are born with but forget at times.

When the smell of medicine had finished floating through the house and into the bathroom, I took out the cedar boughs from the pot and put them aside as I carried the pot of cedar water to the bathtub where I poured it into the bath water my daughter had drawn minutes ago.  I stood there for a minute watching the color of the medicine mix with the clear bath water creating a light green mixture that reminded me of the sea as it swirled about.  

My daughter and I.

In that moment, as I turned to tell my daughter it was ready, I could feel my dad's presence and had a sense of deja vu.  But instead of seeing my dad turn from the stove to assure me the medicine would help, I was now in the spot that my dad had been so long ago, looking upon his little daughter and saying, “this medicine will help".   

Our medicine makes us whole; it was and will continue to heal us.  Medicine isn’t just the plants we use but the food we put into our bodies, the thoughts and emotions we experience and the movement of our physical bodies. We have everything we need within our traditions and culture; let go of what isn’t medicine to you and you will become whole again.

Miigwech,

In good thoughts,

Carrianne