Novice Herbalist requests advice

[Missouri Dave]

I've lurked here for a while but on the advice of a member here decided to register. I'm quite interested in alternative medicine but have not had the opportunity to study it much and am now trying to make up for lost time. If possible any reading you could suggest would be greatly appreciated. I'm particularly interested in herbal medicinals. With the situation in our country and around the world I consider it prudent to not only learn the herbal medicines but to actually grow as many as possible in my yard. I'd really appreciate if you folks could post say a short list of your favorite herbal remedies and in general what they are used to treat. Any links you have would be useful also. In a future post I'll post some links I've found to nursery's that deal in uncommon plants. Some of them seem tailor made to the budding (pardon the pun) herbalist. Oh, almost forgot, my wife bought home a book on reiki. Is there anything to it or just a load of bunk? Thanks.
Missouri Dave

[goatlady]

Dave, Many herbalists like to work with combination herbal preparations, I personally prefer to stick with individual herbs. I recommend Louise Tennys book Today's Herbal Health and James Duke's Green Pharmacy are very good, wide coverage basic books. Many herbs are sort of difficult to grow at home in the quantities usually needed for making tinctures and other preparations. You might want to check out the book many of the MODs here wrote - Survival and Austere Medicine: an Introduction. Chapter 8 is on herbs, using, preparations, gathering, and growing - A good basic list of herbs most handy in a SHTF situation, also references and a good place to buy herbs for initial stocking up are listed in the book. If you have particular questions re: herbs or using them just post and I'll answer or find the answer if I can. With regards to Reiki, a well-trained EXPERIENCED practitioner usually gets excellent results, novices and trying to learn from a book usually doesn't get good results. It seems to be one of those alternative that one either has a "feel" for or not. Same with so-called energy work and some crystal work. Some can ,some can't. Reflexology is another one that can work wonders or not depending on the practitioner.

[Missouri Dave]

Goatlady - Thanks for the info. My interest in the reiki began recently when I threw my back out at work. I was in quite a bit of pain but I'm one of those people who will not go to the doctor unless I'm on the verge of death. (No offense or disrespect to any medical personnel is intended by that remark it's just a personal preference of mine). My wife who's whole family practices some form of energy medicine (which surprisingly seems to even work at quite a distance) did "something" over my back for about 5 minutes and the pain went completely away. They don't call it reiki (I don't think they even have a name for it) and I know I have no empirical evidence but I WAS there and it did help. She has tried to teach the technique to me but alas, I seem to have no talent for it. I found a reiki practioner about a hundred miles north of here though and thought I might contact them.

[goatlady]

Dave, sounds as if you wife is a VERY talanted energy worker - lucky you! It takes getting into a certain frame of mind and lots of folks just can't manage it.