A plant at a time: Ivy?

[LadyB]

Just don't know what it IS with me and IVY....Just plain old IVY. English Ivy, Hedera whatever.....absolutely ADORE the stuff.

I stuff sprigs of it in bottles all OVER the place. The absolute ANCHOR of my healing office is Michael, my co-healer. He's a HUGE ivy plant that grows, as I tell everyone, on 'a plant light and abject adoration'. Everyone remarks just how he GLOWS over there in the corner, climbing all over the walls, with no windows at all, just his plant light.

I did some gardening for a new customer today and just couldn't RESIST clipping all kinds of sprigs of what I call Elf Ivy. A small-leafed beauty that just looks like ELVES.....all pointy. Looks like elfin TOES and elfin NOSES and elfin SMILES....just wonderful. So there I am popping off the bottom leaves and putting the sprigs into MORE bottles all over the place, but I can't waste the popped-off leaves, so I begin pinching the stems off of THEM and laying them into the pages of large books. Some I start sticking to my kitchen walls with tiny bits of fun-tack.

What is WITH me and this plant?????
I love how deep green and substantial the leaves are.
I LOVE all the different shapes.

I remember the very first time anyone did some guided visualization kind of work on ME, asking me to LOOK at my heart and tell her how it looks, which set off a truly mind-boggling image-return to deep, DEEP childhood wounds and deep understanding of them. When our session was done, this healer asked what I wanted to do now to PROTECT my heart. Immediately I said I wanted to put ivy vines around it.....only today as I launched off into GoogleSearch do I find ivy all tangled up with protection.
Love it when you DO it first and FIND it later......[:)]

The only SPECIFICS I've found so far is this:
"Hippocrates, the "father of medicine" (460 to approx. 375 BC), helped to make ivy extraordinarily popular. However, he knew nothing of its healing components. Instead, he believed that gods and spirits lived in the plants and gave them their healing powers in this way.

Dioscurides (around 40 to 90 BC), an army doctor at the time of Nero, and Hildegard von Bingen, thousands of years later (1098 to 1179), also set great store by the healing powers of ivy. Hildegard however recommended that it only be used topically and provided an explanation for its healing effect that was current at the time: the disease passed from the patient into the plant.
<i>(Ahhhh, and I wonder how Michael helps so much with the healing sessions I do in that room!)</i>

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 to 1519) was also familiar with the healing effect of ivy: according to da Vinci, wild boars were cured of their illnesses with ivy.
<i>(and I will certainly remember THAT if any wild boars come in for sessions!!!)</i>

In the 16th century, ivy was increasingly paid attention to as a medicine for inflammation of the respiratory tract. However, it was not until the 19th century that ivy made its breakthrough from a simple folk medicine remedy to a serious natural cough preparation. And that happened by chance.

A doctor noticed that children in a certain part of Southern France suffered less frequently from cough. He discovered that these children drank their milk from bowls made of ivy wood."

Well, well, well....ain't that SOMEthin'

Anyone ELSE out there have any thoughts on why I just seem to RESONATE with this particular plant???? BTW I put ivy+healing into the Google search engine and got a zillion sites on Healing Poison Ivy.....VERY funny [^]
LadyB with another bottle of ivy cuttings by the bed!


Lady Barbara,
www.ladybarbara.net
where gypsies and goddesses bellydance
and Healing Happens!

[rose]

I'm trying to imagine an Ivy vine with a stalk (trunk!) big enough to carve bowls out of. Wow!

Ivy is beautiful. Enjoy it!

Rose.

[LadyB]

I did a bit more snuffling about, and sure enough, wound up right back at Suite101. The herbalism editor there seems to create all her articles from other books whose formats I actually recognize, but she's got one WICKED copyright statement at the end! Therefore, I shall link directly to it and not DARE grab any of it!!!
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/herbalism/52660
But, rose, there was this note about ivy TRUNKS growing up to a foot across, so I guess SOMEwhere folks were making BOWLS out of them. Also found it very funny that it has some value for sunburn, 'cause WHILE working in it I did a bit of a number on my back and shoulders in the sun-toast dept.....(oops, wrong thread, back to the St John's wort as a sunscreen one!!) LadyB

Lady Barbara,
www.ladybarbara.net
where gypsies and goddesses bellydance
and Healing Happens!

[Eva]

Hi Lady B ~
I too love Ivy! My hubby always says oh you bought another one! I think they like me as much as like them. I think they grow like my brain functions.......always reaching and then getting all caught up in myself. I think I like them because they look great and healthy all year not just part of it. I didn't know they were good for anything but being pretty.
~Eva~[:I]

[Leaf]

Dear Lady B (and all the other ivy lovers [:D]),

In your article you wrote "Ivy was specifically associated with Bacchus, and one ancient practice speaks of tying leaves of Ivy to oneís brow to prevent intoxication. Old writings do reference a belief that the effects of wine intoxication could be removed by adding a handful of bruised Ivy leaves were boiled in wine and drunk while imbibing. It is interesting to note the survival of that notion in the English, where taverns used to display the sign of an Ivy bush over the door to indicate quality."

There's an old legend here in Belgium that says if one wears a crown of ivy leaves on one's head, one just can't get drunk... and I can't count the number of taverns called "Hedera" or "Edera" here [:)] When students have their "student initiation" (usually it goes together with liters and liters of alcohol) here, they sometimes wear such a crown too...

My parents have a BIG one in their garden (and I mean BIG!!), my father sees the pruning of it as a fight, but I just love to harvest the leaves and let them sun-infuse in oil for a few weeks; that makes a great massage oil that really softens the skin (my clients use it often against cellulitis).

Love,
Lieve

[LadyB]

Love you Leaf/Lieve!!!
oooooh. Ivy leaf OIL!! What a glorious idea.....wonderful wonderful, as I am heading back to the property where my client wants me to REMOVE a good deal of the IVY.....oh, good. Ivy leaves ALLLLLL over, what a THOUGHT.

Yes, I've seen the ivy-wreath to ward off drunkenness many times, but never quite knew who came up with the notion or WHY. That's a hoot that taverns in Belgium borrowed the name!!

Thank you!
LadyB

Lady Barbara,
www.ladybarbara.net
where gypsies and goddesses bellydance
and Healing Happens!

[Cloudberry]

I was visiting Prague in March and my son got a cough you wouldn't believe. Nothing seemed to help. At the local pharmacy we were told that they had new organic cough medicine. And guess what was the major ingredient? Ivy in alcohol - sounds like tincture to me. Needless to say in a few days the cough was better and almost gone.[:)]
Cloudberry

[Leaf]

I can even tell you more ivy stories...

According to what my parents tell me, I was already making "nettle soup" as a toddler, but the one who really opened my eyes for the healing power of plants was dear ivy... it gave me a terrible rash when I was pruning it (I was 14 then) and someone cured that with a wonderful calendula-lavender-nettle ointment in no time. I was amazed.

It took me almost 7 more years to really begin studying herbalism, but that fact was really the start; the seed. Last year I took a large piece of ivy wood from my father's garden and made an elf on it with clay as a "thank you" gift. (And I was even more astonished when the clay dried and the elf face suddenly seemed so known to me...then I figured out it looked like my cousin's baby indigo son which whom i have a very deep relationship...).

Love,
Lieve

[LadyB]

You got a RASH from pruning IVY??? Was it FROM the ivy, or did Hedera helix have a little Rhux toxicodendron in it!!! Actually SOMEwhere in all this research I read a mention of contact dermatitis for a few folks......(she says looking down at her itchy hands having JUST come from clipping more and MORE sprigs of now the large-leafed English Ivy and having STUFFED them into a bag.....)

Well this is just WAY too much fun!!....and I think I even tossed out the question looking for EXACTLY these kinds of stories!! One of those "Who Are You REALLY????" kinds of questions.

QUITE a plant.......[^]
LadyB



Lady Barbara,
www.ladybarbara.net
where gypsies and goddesses bellydance
and Healing Happens!

[Leaf]

Dear Lady B,

Well, you know, Ivy has these little "attachment roots" (don't know how else to call them exactly) that it uses to stick to walls and trees etc very firmly. And apparently I react sort of allergically to that (the rash looks like hundreds of little burning blisters).
Well, I'm not sure if it's really an allergic reaction, since I've heard this from more people... (ivy likes to be attached and doesn't appreciate to be removed I think)[:)]

Did you know that this plant was originally a tree?? If it blossoms, the shape of the leaves changes in that part of the plant where it blossoms, and THAT'S the original leaf shape of ivy. It just started to climb and attach as a surviving strategy for colder climates. If you cut off that blooming part and start to make it grow, you have an ivy TREE again (my father does this often to make bonsais with them... than pruning suddenly isn't a punishment anymore but meditation! [:D])

An old herbalist once told me once people used the berries sometimes for ending pregnancy, but then told me there were better ways because not everybody survived this treatment [:0]...)

Love,
Lieve

[rose]

Where is the thread about how to treat plants when they are being harvested/ sacrificed? Reading that I realized I still do that to herbs I don't value. I'd like to read the thread to help me remember to have more respect.

Rose.

[rose]

Strange, that last reply was supposed to go on the bottom of the seven rivers of healing thread...
To reply to THIS thread...
Well that explains the ivy wood bowls! I love to bonsai, I am going to try this with ivy.

Rose.

[LadyB]

Well dears, I'm decanting my Ivy Infused Oil as I type. Sure wish it SMELLED better....it just has that tedious 'fried food' kind of smell to it like Plantain oil does....Feels good rubbed into my hands so far......any body else working on some??
LadyB

[Ayla]

Ivy is your ally! I love Ivy, too. I have a friend who's always been into it and I was given a plant by a neighbor who set me off, too. I like the one that looks like the leaves have been painted sloppily by a watercolor artist with the cream around the edges and I like the ancient English kind. I've always thought ivy to be a plant for fidelity and honesty? .. just what I've read.

XOXOXO[:)][:p]

[Ayla]

From "Gerard's Herbal" (my favorite today[:)]):

Of Ground-Ivy, or Ale-hoofe
The Vertues.
Ground-Ivy is commended against the humming noyse and ringing sound of the eares, being put into them, and for them that are hard of hearing.
Ground-Ivy, Celandine, and Daisies, of each a like quantitie, stmped and strained, and a little sugar and rose water put thereto, and dropped with a feather into the eies, taketh away all manner of inflammation, spots, webs, itch, smarting, or any griefe whatsoever in the eyes, yea although the sight were nigh hand gone: it is proved to be the best medicine in the world.
The herbes stamped as aforesaid, and mixed with a little ale and honey, and strained, take away the pinne and web, or any griefe out of the eyes of horse or cow, or any other beast, being squirted into the same with a syringe, or I might have said the liquor injected into the eies with a syringe. But I list not to be over eloquent among Gentlewomen, to whom especially my Workes are most necessarie.
The women of our Northerne parts, especially about Wales and Cheshire, do turne the herbe Ale-hoof into their Ale; but the reason thereof I know not: notwithstanding without all controversie it is most singular against the griefes aforesaid; being tunned up in ale and drunke, it also purgeth the head from rheumaticke humors flowing from the brain.

Of Ivy
The Vertues.
The leaves laid in steepe in water for a day and a nights space, helpe sore and smarting waterish eies, if they be bathed and washed with the water wherein they have beene infused.

XOXOXO[:)]