Garden Under Bluer Skies

Opportunistic infections and their symptoms associated with HIV/ AIDS and plant based treatments

Aphrodisiac Plants

Plants for Shamanistic Practice

For Poultices:

• Poke root and cornmeal - excellent for inflamed breasts

• Charcoal and smartweed - good for inflammation of bowels

• Charcoal, smartweed, powdered echinacea, goldenseal, myrrh or a small amount of all five - Healing cold sores and ulcers

• Burdock leaf - eases pain of a wound from an animal, such as dog bite

• Plantain - prevents blood poisoning 

• Nettle and wintergreen - for dissolving tumors 

• Carrots and goldenseal - applied to cold sores for healing

• Sage - inflammation of any type

• Charcoal and hops - remove gallstone pain

• Lobelia and slippery elm - for blood poisoning, boils, very good for rheumatism

• Hyssop - remove discoloration from bruises

Herbs used to make composition powders( good medicine for cold, flu, cramps, rheumatism, beginning of fevers, scarlet fever):

• Bayberry

• Ginger

• White Pine

• Cloves

• Cayenne

• Pulverised Pinus canadensis

• Cinnamon

• Powdered Pleurisy roots

• Powdered marjoram

• Powdered pimpernella saxifrage 

• Powdered wild thyme

Plants to avoid during pregnancy and/or breastfeeding:

• Black cohosh

• Sage (breastfeeding)

• Goldenseal

Plants that may be harmful when ingested (*may be lethal):

• Barberry

• Barberry (wax)

• Bearberry

• Bittersweet 

• Black birch

• Black cherries (bark, leaves, seeds)

• Black haw (berries may produce nausea)

• Blue flag

• Bog bean 

• Boneset

• Cascara

• Castor oils (seeds)*

• Celadine

• Coltsfoot

• Comfrey

• Cramp (berries)

• Culver’s (fresh root)

• Fringe tree

• Hawthorn Berries ( may affect heart rate, blood pressure)

• Horsetail grass ( harmful to livestock)

• Juniper berries

• Lindin flowers

• Lobelia

• Male fern

• May apple or mandrake*

• Mullein

• Paraguay tea

• Passion flowers

• Pennyroyal (essential oil)

• Pleurisy root

• Poison Hemlock*

• Poke (all parts)

• Quaking aspen

• Ragwort

• Sassafras (oil is carcinogenic)

• Skunk cabbage*

• Spearmint (oil)

• Spigelia

• Squaw weed

• Stone root

• Vervain (poisonous for cattle)

• White oak

• Wild cherries

• Wild indigo

• Wintergreen (essential oil)

• Wood sorrel

• Wormseed

• Wormwood

• Yarrow

• Yellow dock ( large dose can cause diarrhea)

• Yellow root

Plants that may cause contact dermatitis or allergic reactions (in sensitive persons):

• Blood Staunch

• Chamomile (ragweed allergy)

• Cleavers

• Fennel

• Feverfew

• Fleabane

• German Rue

• Goldenrod (ragweed allergy)

• Hops

• Horehound (plant juice)

• Mayapple or Maydrake

• Mayweed

• Mugwort

• Peppermint

• Pipsissewa

• Shepherd’s purse (seeds)

• Thyme

• Wild carrot

• Yarrow 

Herb Simples / Materia Medica:

• Agrimony - Used for cough, relaxed bowels and looseness of bowels, chest diseases

• Angelica - used for kidneys, heart, spleens and to induce perspiration

• All heal - Colic, gout, liver

• Ash leaves - gouty conditions, arthritis, dissolves fatty tumors, ringworm

• Avens herb - Looseness of bowels, heart tonic

• Balm - cooling in fevers, inducing mild perspiration

• Balmony - Chronic constipation, indigestion, jaundice, worms in children

• Barberry - Stps canker, tonic

• Bayberry bark - Gout, arthritis, rheumatism

• Blessed thistle - purifies blood, skin diseases, giddiness

• Bogbean - creates appetite, excites bie, good for gout

• Blackberry leaves - bowel looseness

• Black currant leaves - sore throat, coughs, catarrh

• Bladderwrack - arthritis and rheumatic conditions

• Blue mallow - coughs and colds

• Boneset - relieves fever and pains in the bones, asthma, colds, dyspepsia

• Borage - chest complaints

• Broom - gall stones, broken bones, cures tumors

• Buchu - urinary affections and inflammation of bladder

• Buckbean - liver troubles, skin diseases, arthritis

• Bugloss - inflammation

• Burdock - purifying the blood, skin complaints, kidney troubles

• Burr marigold - gouty conditions

• Greater Celandine - eye infections, jaundice, sluggish tumors, good for piles

• Cascara sagrada - constipation

• Catmint - removes female obstructions, hysteria, giddiness

• Chamomile - nervous hysteria, nervous complains in women 

• Cleavers - cooling in fevers, gravel and gallstones, opens pores to remove toxins

• Cloves - sluggish digestion, toothache

• Coltsfoot - asthma 

• Damiana - sexual stimulant

• Dandelion root - warts, internal disorders

• Dead nettle - Bruises, Sciatica, gout

• Elder leaves - colds and coughs

• Eye bright - weak eyes 

• Garlic - whooping cough, clear the blood, constipations, clears the bowels

• Goldenseal - catarrh 

• Ground ivy - rheumatism, indigestion, kidney complains

• Heartsease - blood cleanser, fits, itching, pleurisy

• Hops - strengthens bile, insomnia, blood cleanser

• Lungwort - cough and chest infections

• Marigold - skin troubles

• Mouse ear - whooping cough

• Nettles -  purifying the blood

• Pennyroyal - cooling bood of stomach

• Pilewort - piles

• Plantain - relief from insect bites

• Raspberry leaves - easy childbirth

• Red Clover - blood cleanser

• Rue - Female disorders

• Scullcap - Hysteria, nervousness

• Solomon's seal - bruises, helps circulation

• Senna leaves - constipation

• Slippery elm - skin cleanser and tonic

• Tansy - Hysteria, morning sickness, worms in children, kidneys

• Vervain - upset stomach

• Valerian - insomnia, curing pains

• Violet - cancerous growths of tumors

• Witch Hazel - bleeding piles, bleeding wounds, cuts, sprains, bruises

• Wood Sage - removes obstructions in liver and bladder areas

• Yarrow - skin cleansing, opening pores, removing obstructions

Astringents:

• Agrimony

• Barberry (bark)

• Bayberry (bark)

• Sage herb

• Pilewort herb

• Witch Hazel (twigs)

Bitter tonics:

• Balmony

• Barberry (bark)

• Barberry (root)

• Bayberry (leaves)

• Blessed thistle

• Chamomile (leaves)

• Dandelion (root)

• Goldenseal (root)

This project will explore the impact on the lives of people with AIDS with the arrival of a three-drug cocktail therapy. We hope to explore their experience through the following questions:

• When did you find out you were HIV positive? 

• What was your medical history prior to 1996?

• What was your experience with western medicine?

• Had you tried other things and what were those experiences? Any success?

• Were there dietary practices that you developed through those? 

• What challenges did those diets present as well and how did you address them?

• Did you create a garden or anything of the sort for yourself? How did you acquire these things? What was in your garden? Did it change over time? If no, why and how did you treat ailment? 

• What happened when the cocktail arrived? What was your experience? 

• Did you continue the dietary practice that you had before the cocktail, after you began taking meds? Do you still? Are there aspects that remain part of your daily habits? 

• What kind of physical health needs did this diet address? What kinds of romantic challenges did you also address through the diet? What about the spiritual side?

• Do you have a spiritual practice? If so, what is it and does it require any sort of ingestion? 

• Is there a recipe that developed in response to these dietary practice?

• What was the city like in and after 1996? What impact did that have on your eating habits? The availability of treatment and herbs/vegetables to meet these dietary changes? 

• How did being on the three-drug cocktail change your life?