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Written by Belinda Viagas
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Tuesday, 09 October 2007 |
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Optimum health and vitality, ample energy and a sense of well-being are what we all hope to enjoy in our lives. Most people, though, find this reality of whole health can be a little elusive at times. Nature provides us with all that we need to keep ourselves in good health and to maintain effective natural defences against ill-health. Of course, being in touch with nature is not just about walking outdoors for a while each day. We can effectively harness the power and energy of the elements in magical and profound ways to help us bring alive every aspect of our true, multi-dimensional selves.
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Written by Judith Hoad
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Tuesday, 09 October 2007 |
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‘A’ is for Artemesia; ‘M’ is for Mugwort. ‘A’ is for Anopheles mosquito; ‘M’ is for Malaria.
The symptoms of malaria are engendered by a parasite that invades the female Anopheles mosquito through the blood she sucks when she bites an infected creature. Male Anopheles don’t drink blood. She generously passes on the parasite when she bites another creature.
Artemesia vulgaris is Mugwort. It’s a tall plant, with a white downiness on the underside of its pinate leaves, that grows as comfortably in the wild as it does under cultivation. Its very close relative, Artemesia verlotiorum, is native to China and is slightly shorter with darker leaves and a more aromatic nature. Both vulgaris and verlotiorum have been used in the past to treat malaria, but China has also used Mugwort for a greater variety of remedies and for longer than Europe. Moxa - the herb that acupuncturists and acupressurists use - is dried Mugwort, compressed into sticks, or pyramids, or just attached to the end of acuneedles as flock. All are ignited to heat up, (‘tonify’), acupoints. |
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Written by Sean Callagy
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Tuesday, 09 October 2007 |
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“… hundreds of young people, 16 or 17-year olds… lost their arms or legs or… were left handicapped for life by brain injuries and Victor Hugo Daza was killed.” Daza was one of six killed during ‘The Bolivian Water Wars’, in which thousands took to Cochabamba’s streets in 1999 and 2000 to reclaim control of water from Aguas del Tunari, a subsidiary of Bechtel, San Francisco. Granted sole water distribution rights, charges of up to one-quarter of family incomes were levied. Debtors’ homes were repossessed and those who ‘stole’ water by digging wells or harvesting rainwater faced proceedings, because apparently ALL water was deemed the company’s property. |
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Written by Robert Pocock
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Saturday, 30 September 2006 |
When the Irish health minister banned smoking in the workplace in March 2004, he was rightly praised for protecting people from pollutants in tobacco smoke, many of which have long been considered harmful. Indeed so well was this decision received and still is, even among many smokers, there were several calls for the health minister to be proposed for the Nobel Prize. In subsequent international recognition, Ireland’s example has since been followed by Scotland, and seriously contemplated in other European countries as well.
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Health 