Elderberry, the Elder tree is one of my favorite trees. Well, it's not really a tree, it's more like a shrub, and it has beautiful clusters of white flowers in the summer time. As we drive along the road, we see the beautiful elder blooming. It always looks from the car like it's right by the road, but when I stop and get out, there is always a ditch with a lot of water in it before I can get to the elder, because elder likes to grow in fairly wet places, not out-right swamps where cattails would be, but some place where it can stay pretty wet most of the time.
Those white flowers can be harvested and dried and used as a tea to help reduce especially childhood fevers during the winter or the white flowers can be harvested and tinctured in 100 proof vodka, and anywhere from 10-20 drops of that tincture can also be used to reduce fevers both in little ones and in older people as well. If we don't harvest the flowers, then they turn into beautiful purply-black elderberries.
Elderberries have been found to be a potent antiviral. I buy dried elderberries about a quarter-pound of them, put it into a quart jar, and then fill that right up to the top with 100 proof vodka, and I do that beginning of September or October each year, hoping to have at least six weeks for my tincture to sit before I need to take it.
Why should I take elderberry tincture? As I said, it's an antiviral. If I feel a cold coming on, or if there is a lot of flu going around, then elderberry tincture is going to be what I reach for. I was just reading an article this morning that found that elders who had flu shots got the flu as frequently as those who didn't have flu shots. Don't trust to a shot to keep you safe, get some elderberry tincture. This is Susan Weed, the author of the Wise Woman Herbal Series wishing you green blessings.
Why would I leave home without my St. John's Wort tincture? Well, we talked about the fact that it can relieve muscle pain and prevent muscle pain, and I'm certainly thinking about that when I am sitting on an airplane, all kind of crowded in, and I also find that when I take that St. John's Wort tincture, when I take about a dropperful every hour or two while I'm on the airplane, not only does it prevent me from getting sore, getting lesser pains, but it absolutely prevents jet lag.
Hypericum is also an antiviral. So I know that when I'm on that airplane taking my hypericum tincture then I am also protecting myself from getting colds or flus or other viral illnesses that might be on that airplane.
And remember, this is a sunny herb, it really brings the sun up in our lives, makes us feel more like smiling. So that's why I don't leave home without my tincture of hypericum perforatum. You might want to do the same.
And this is Susan Weed, the author of the Wise Woman Herbal Series wishing you green blessings!
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