Working the Roots: Over 400 Years of Traditional African American Healing 

by Michele E. Lee

African American traditional medicine is an American classic that emerged out of the necessity of its people to survive. It began with the healing knowledge brought with the African captives on the slave ships and later merged with Native American, European and other healing traditions to become a full-fledged body of medicinal practices that has lasted in various forms down to the present day.

Working the Roots: Over 400 Years Of Traditional African American Healing is the result of first-hand interviews, conversations, and apprenticeships conducted and experienced by author Michele E. Lee over several years of living and studying in the rural South and in the West Coast regions of the United States. She combines a novelist's keen ear for storytelling and dialogue and a healer's understanding of folk medicine arts into a book that makes for both pleasant, interesting reading, and serves as a permanent household healing guide.

Divided between sections on interviews of healers and their stories and a comprehensive collection of traditional African American medicines, remedies, and the many common ailments they were called upon to cure, Working The Roots is a valuable addition to African American history and American and African folk healing practices.

• Healing Narratives
• The Ailments & Medicines

Paperback, 396 pages, English, Wadastick, 2017

YARROW  - Achillea millefolium

Perennial / Full Sun to Part Shade

Organically Certified Seeds / Open-Pollinated / Untreated / GMO Free

APPEARANCE: Mounding and creeping herbaceous or evergreen perennial, native to temperate zones worldwide. Flowers white to 2 feet tall.

GROWING INFORMATION: Hardy to Zones 4 to 8. Plant thrives in regular garden or woodland soil in full sun to part shade. Press seeds into soil surface and deep evenly moist until germination, which can take up to 3 weeks. Thin or transplant to 18 inches apart.

200 Organically Certified Seeds / package

YLANG YLANG (Cananga odorata)

THERAPEUTIC PROPERTIES: sedative, antiseptic, aphrodisiac, nervine, antidepressant, calmative

AFFINITY FOR: adrenals and thymus, nerves, heart chakra, yin energy

RESONANCE: emotional, physical

PLANT FAMILY: Anonaceae

PART UTILIZED: flowers

EXTRACTION METHOD: steam distilled

APPLICATION: Excellent oil for diffusing. Diluted, it can be worn anywhere on the body.

AROMATIC CONSIDERATIONS: Ylang Ylang can bring back feelings of confidence, joy, and peace.

EMOTIONAL - SPIRITUAL - MENTAL ASPECTS: The aromatic focus of Ylang Ylang is spirituality. It fosters a desire in our souls for deeper and more meaningful communication with heaven. As we develop the emotional, caring, nurturing, intuitive, spiritual side of our natures, many things shift for us. We find that we are able to block or filter the negativity and “garbage” around us. We are better able to focus our thoughts and our drive.

One of the behaviors that signals a need for Ylang Ylang is throwing temper tantrums that, if we are honest with ourselves, have the underlying intent of getting us our own way. Another indication for Ylang Ylang is sudden loss of interest in work, personal appearance, and even in family members and friends. Ylang Ylang may also be helpful for insecurity, low self-esteem, anger, rage, and dare-devil tendencies.

PHYSICAL ASPECTS: Ylang Ylang balances the male-female energies and hormones in the body by stimulating the adrenals and thymus glands. This can balance sexual energy and bring joy, harmony, and passion to relationships. The hormonal support properties of Ylang Ylang make it useful for the symptoms of PMS and many other hormone related complaints. Ylang Ylang is a uterine tonic. Dilute and apply to the abdomen for this function.

As Ylang Ylang’s hormonal properties work in conjunction with its nervine properties, Ylang Ylang becomes exceptionally effective for depression, irritability, anxiety, rapid breathing, heart palpitations, high blood pressure, hypertension, nervous tension, physical and mental exhaustion, nervousness, and insomnia. Ylang Ylang is also excellent for routine skin care, more serious skin problems, and hair loss. Ylang Ylang is also used to regulate circulation, fight intestinal infections, and alleviate constipation.

GENERAL INFORMATION: The distillation of the delicate flowers of Ylang Ylang is a complex process. The product that is extracted two hours after the distillation process begins is referred to in the industry as the “extra.” This distillation is extremely heady, potent, and overly-sweet, and is not used in aromatherapy applications but is used by the perfume industry because a little goes a long way and the aroma remains stable longer.

Ylang Ylang is distilled in batches by time. As the process continues the oil changes as different components are distilled off. Some distillers separate as many as 5 or 6 batches and the resulting products are referred to as ylang one, two, three, and so on.

In aromatherapy, Ylang II is the more the more commonly used Ylang. Ylang comple is a reblending of all the batches. It is generally more expensive and is not used by some aromatherapists. Most of the desirable components are found in Ylang II. Ylang Complete is becoming more popular as people realize there are some benefits to the various distillations combined. I use both, and blend with both. Sometimes one is preferred over the other for various—or even unknown—reasons.

©Copyright Butterfly Expressions 2020, 2021

You Are the Placebo

by Dr. Joe Dispenza

s it possible to heal by thought alone—without drugs or surgery?

The truth is that it happens more often than you might expect. In You Are the Placebo,
best-selling author, international speaker, chiropractor, and renowned researcher of epigenetics, quantum physics, & neuroscience, Dr. Joe Dispenza shares numerous documented cases of those who reversed cancer, heart disease, depression, crippling arthritis, and even the tremors of Parkinson’s disease by believing in a placebo.

Similarly, Dr. Joe tells of how others have gotten sick and even died the victims of a hex or voodoo curse—or after being misdiagnosed with a fatal illness. Belief can be so strong that pharmaceutical companies use double- and triple-blind randomized studies to try to exclude the power of the mind over the body when evaluating new drugs.

“In his paradigm-altering book, You Are the Placebo, Dr. Joe Dispenza catapults us beyond thinking of the placebo effect as an anomaly. Through 12 concise chapters that read like a true-life scientific thriller, Dispenza gives us rock-solid reasons to accept the game-changer of our lives: that the placebo effect is actually us, proving to ourselves the greatest possibilities of healing, miracles, and longevity! I love this book and look forward to a world where the secret of the placebo is the foundation of everyday life.”
— Gregg Braden, New York Times best-selling author of Deep Truth and The Divine Matrix
 
Chapters Include:

Foreward by Dawson Church, Ph.D.

Part I.
Is It Possible?
A Brief History of the Placebo
The Placebo Effect in the Brain
The Placebo Effect in the Body
How Thoughts Change the Brain and the Body
Suggestibility
Attitudes, Beliefs, and Perceptions
The Quantum Mind
Three Stories of Personal Transformation
Information to Transformation: Proof That You Are the Placebo

Part II: Transformation
Meditation Preparation
Changing Beliefs and Perceptions Meditation
Becoming Supernatural

Dr. Joe does more than simply explore the history and the physiology of the placebo effect. He asks the question: "Is it possible to teach the principles of the placebo, and without relying on any external substance, produce the same internal changes in a person’s health and ultimately in his or her life?"

Then he shares scientific evidence (including color brain scans) of amazing healings from his workshops, in which participants learn his consciousness shifting model of personal transformation, based on practical applications of the so-called placebo effect.

The book ends with a "how-to" calming meditation for changing limiting beliefs and mental perceptions that hold us back—the first step in healing. You Are the Placebo combines the latest research in neuroscience, biology, psychology, hypnosis, behavioral conditioning, and quantum physics to demystify the workings of the placebo effect . . . and show how the seemingly impossible can become possible.

“I discovered that if I could teach people the scientific model of transformation (bringing in a little quantum physics to help them understand the science of possibility); combine it with the latest information in neuroscience, neuroendocrinology, epigenetics, and psychoneuroimmunology; give them the right kind of instruction; and provide the opportunity to apply that information, then they would experience a transformation...

This book is about: empowering you to realize that you have all the biological and neurological machinery to do exactly that. My goal is to demystify these concepts with the new science of the way things really are so that it is within the reach of more people to change their internal states in order to create positive changes in their health and in their external world.”
— Dr. Joe Dispenza

Paperback, 416 pages, English, Hay House LLC, 2015

Dimensions: 6.06" x 1.06" x 9"

Your Body's Many Cries for Water: You're Not Sick, You're Thirsty

Author: F. Batmanghelidj, MD

Are you tired of managing symptoms instead of fixing the actual problem?

In Your Body's Many Cries for Water, visionary physician Dr. F. Batmanghelidj introduces a paradigm-shifting discovery: the human body signals its need for water in ways that are frequently misdiagnosed as medical conditions. When the body is chronically dehydrated, it sends out emergency signals that we often mistake for sickness and treat with toxic drugs.

Backed by years of clinical and scientific research, this book explains how simply adjusting your fluid and salt intake can help prevent, treat, and even reverse a wide range of debilitating conditions.

Discover how proper hydration can help alleviate:

• Chronic Pain: Including heartburn, back pain, arthritis, and migraines.

• Cardiovascular Issues: High blood pressure and high cholesterol.

• Metabolic & Digestive Troubles: Asthma, allergies, colitis, and constipation.

• Weight Management: How dehydration mimics hunger pangs and slows metabolism.

This is not just another diet or lifestyle trend—it is a fundamental manual for understanding your body's unique warning system. Easy to read, deeply insightful, and intensely practical, this book will change the way you think about your health forever.

Don't treat thirst with medication. Learn how to heal your body naturally from the inside out!