Gold Thread, for Helping with Demons

 

I have always believed that there are not many things on this planet that one can not indulge in from time to time without harming one's self.  If you are feeling blue, a day of eating ice cream and feeling sorry for yourself is perfectly fine.  If, however, you allow that to take over your life and begin to savor times when you can sit on your butt and moan and groan about how unfair the world is...well, then it's time to put the spoon away and go help out at a soup kitchen or at an animal shelter.  See others that have it worse than yourself.  I like to turn my face to the sun from time to time, indulge in the color it puts in my cheeks and the smile it puts on my face.  But lying for hours in the sun for a tan may not be the best thing in the world for me.  I need to step into the cool darkness of life to save my skin as well as my soul.  And a good beer or a shot or two of fine whiskey is a great way to unwind with friends.  But when whiskey replaces the friends and becomes the only thing in life that we crave...then it is time to step away from the bottle and get back to life.

I have a friend who earlier in life sank far too deep into that bottle.  It had started out as his path to a social life and ended up locking him away from the very people he enjoyed being with.  He was one who had a difficult time pulling himself out of the bottle without a bit of help.   Now some people can pull back from the drink and still have an occasional beer or glass of wine and not be bothered by it.  My friend was not one of those.  A sip of beer for him could send him spiralling back into a life he has fought to leave behind.  I was 17 and my aunt was still alive when his mother first came to the farm to ask my aunt to make something to help him fight his demons. 

 

I felt I was a bit too old to sit in with my aunt while she talked about something so personal, first with his mother and then with him.  But my aunt insisted that I did.  She told me that many people like to look away from the darkness, pretend it isn't there, but I should not turn away.  Working with people's pain would make me stronger, she told me.  After she had spoken with the young man long into the night she set out with me in tow down into the bogs to gather up some gold thread to mix with several other herbs to help curb his cravings to give him the strength to fight for the person he wanted to be.

Gold thread is a tiny little evergreen plant that likes a bit of acid to sink her feet into.  I often feel like this is her way of getting ready to take care of the acidy faults we humans seem to carry from time to time.  She is quite a common plant but is seldom seen because of her small size.  She lives down in the moss that lines many trails under the pines in the north east part of the U.S. and she usually likes it pretty shady, though I have seen her growing out into sunlit clearings.  Her leaves are shiny, like some little gnome spends the night waxing them, and they come in threes, like clover.  In fact some people mistake her for clover if they are not use to walking in the woods.  But those shiny leaves give her away.  No clover shines like gold thread.  She shines up from patches of clear ground in the snow this time of the year as one of the few green things growing.

Gold thread root

 

But as shiny as those leaves are, gold thread gets her name from what lies underground.  Her roots are threadlike, spreading from plant to plant.  Gold thread grows in clone colonies, where what looks like many different plants are all the same, just connected in the earth instead of above it.   Once the dirt and moss is brushed away from the roots they glow with the color of gold.  And it's not that hard to brush away the dirt.  Because she likes her soil acidy, it usually doesn't cling to those tiny fibers of roots.  Which is a good thing, because like the second part of her name suggests, her roots are the size of a thread, a thick thread, but still a thread.  Luckily gold thread is a pretty potent healers, so we don't need much to work with.

Gold thread root gets her golden color from the alkaloid called berberine, which is also the main healing component of oregon grape root, goldenseal, and barberry root.  Berberine is an amazing natural living antibiotic.  I'll try to explain the pros and cons of a living antibiotic to those who've never worked with one. 

The bad part of working with a living antibiotic is that, as all life does, it changes from year to year.  A year that is more dry and has a lot of sun may make it weaker, while a year that has more rain and less sun may make it stronger (or vice versa).  If a disease is introduced to the plant, it may make it's antibiotic properties very strong, or it may weaken it considerably.  Basically, no two plants with berberine in them can ever be the same and even the same plant harvested in different years or even in different times of the year will be different.  So every time you use a living antibiotic, you need to start over from scratch, starting at the smallest dose and slowly working your way up to a strong enough dose to cure the problem.  With so many people addicted to just grabbing something off the shelf and expecting it to work the same way each time, working with living antibiotics is a time consuming pain in the...well, you get my meaning.

The good part of working with a living antibiotic is that, as all life does, it changes from year to year.  Yes, the same thing that makes it hard to work with makes it work, period.  Bacteria are living beings, they too change when they need to.  So an antibiotic that is the same time after time after time, like modern pharmaceutical antibiotics are, will become less affective every time it is used until finally they will not stop the bacteria.  We are seeing this today as bacteria are developing "immunities" to our modern, lab created antibiotics.  We are developing "Super Bugs" that are becoming almost impossible to stop.  With a living antibiotic, it changes all the time, making it hard, if not impossible for bacteria to fight against.  Just as a bacteria finds a way to fight against it, the living antibiotic changes and the bacteria has to start all over again.  So what for many is a pain of trial and error to get the right dose, for others it is the salvation of not using an antibiotic that is helping to create these "super bugs" of bacteria.

Gold thread is one of these ever changing, ever healing friends of the forest.  What she is known for mostly is to help with any stomach problems.  If you are having problem with digestion over and over again, a tea with gold thread root may help your body heal up enough to start digesting the food properly.  I like to give it with slippery elm bark because the slippery elm mixed with the gold thread and coats the stomach and intestines, helping to keep the gold thread right where it is needed.  If you suffer from frequent heartburn, gold thread may be what you need to help heal the acid producing mechanism of your stomach.  Ulcers have been cured with strong teas of gold thread, again mixed with slippery elm.  Canker sores in the mouth can be help by gargling with a decoction of gold thread.  Bit your tongue?  A quick bit of gold thread tea swirled in your mouth can stop an ulcer from forming on the spot by killing off the bacteria that causes the ulcer.  Some people mix a bit of this into homemade tooth powder that is used in place of the controversial fluoride.  It helps to curb the bacteria that can cause gun diseases.

 

And back to the original use I am gathering it for.  My good friend finds spring to be the hardest time to fight his cravings for alcohol.  His mind has linked warmer days with getting out with a beer and sitting in the sun.  Our minds are often our worst enemy when fighting an addiction.  So every spring I mix up some cinquefoil, thistle leaf and root, slippery elm bark and gold thread, like my aunt did for the many years before she passed on.  This mixture helps with the cravings both physical and mental of alcohol as well as many other drugs.  As with many herbal medicinals, it is usually made for the person that is using it, such as some may need a bit of vervain added or others a bit of blue cohosh, but the basic recipe still remains.  I take a jar of it down to him before the first real warm days hit.  We sit and talk, which is healing in itself, about all the things we have done in our lives and all the things we will do in the future.  We forgive each other's mistakes and we encourage each other for what we have yet to do.  It is healing for both of us.  The jar is left discretely on the table as I go, and the spring's sun is a little easier for both of us to deal with.  Me, for my addiction of loving to turn my face to it, even though I know I need to deal with darkness too, and him for the demons that try their best to rear their ugly heads when the sun gets warm enough to call them out.  We heal each other, and gold thread helps with the reminder that we all share weaknesses that can be overcome.