Herb of the Week: Evergreen Allies Part 2, Western Red Cedar

After last week's herbal post, people should have a good idea about the origins of the use of conifers as a ceremonial decoration around the winter holidays.  Hopefully, there has also been some understanding created around how and why conifers can be powerful medicines.  I'd like to expand upon that idea this week by looking at Western Red Cedar.

David Crow, author, herbalist, visionary, and grassroots community organizer has done a lot of work around the use of aromatic medicines especially those from trees (Check out his websites floracopeia.com and medicinecrow.com and his book In Search of the Medicine Buddha).  It was from David that I first heard an excellent explanation for why the scents of conifer trees are so potent.  Conifers actually use their scents, and especially their aromatic resins, as their own form of medicine.  This medicine actually functions as their immune system to protect them from insect, pests, and diseases.  Hence, the similar use by humans.

A fascinating side effect of these potent aromatic compounds is that they have powerful effects on our emotions, our mind, and our spirit.  In fact, in many cultures aromatic conifers are burned to ward off negative emotions, energies, and even negative spirits.  Examples of this include Junipers, True Cedars, Cypresses, Spruces, and the trees which produce Frankincense and Myrrh.

In the Pacific Northwest Bioregion known as Cascadia where I make my home, without a doubt Western Red Cedar takes on this role as a spiritually powerful medicine.  It is both a medicine in the conventional sense and a medicine in the way that I have been describing in other parts of this blog.  Let's take a closer look:

Western Red Cedar
Western Red Cedar, Thuja Plicata, is a common coniferous tree of the Pacific Northwest that has played a profound cultural and practical role in the lives of indigenous people of the Northwest for a very long time.  Note: Western Red Cedar is not a true Cedar, but is rather a part of the cypress family.

Description and Appearance:
Western Red Cedar has very fibrous deep red-brown bark.  It's needle are scaly and long and are not in bundle as you will find on Pines and are not individual like you will find on Firs and Spruces.   Rather, they grow in a fine branching pattern at the end of woody branches.  The needles are light green and potently aromatic, especially if crushed.  Cones are very small and not common.  Branches also grow in distinctive drooping "U" or "J" shapes.

Uses:
1)Needles-Very Potent Aromatic Smudge for Spiritual Purification
While this doesn't fall into your typical "medicinal use", I think that Cedar's highest value may be it's use as a spiritual Medicine rather than as a medicine for colds and flus.  Cedar needles can be burned over coals and the smoke can then be inhaled and also wafted close to the body from head to toe.  This has a very powerful effect of dispersing negative emotions and energies.  Taking the smoking needles and wafting the smoke throughout a room can have the same effect on the space you are in and remove the effect of invisible negative forces.

The herb doesn't have to be burned to activate this part of it's medicine.  Cedar needles or "fronds" can simply be rubbed on the body and gently discarded.  Or, you can even allow yourself to be gently brushed by the needles of a live cedar tree by walking near or around it.

When collecting the needles it may be best to look for green needles that have fallen or been blown down.  When needles turn brown they start to loose some of this potency.

2)Live Tree-Very Potent Spiritual Power and Dispeller of Negative Energies
Again this doesn't exactly fall into the conventional category of medicine, but in the world of Wild Medicine the healing power of a living tree is definitely recognized.  Western Red Cedars are so powerful spiritually and energetically, simply touching one can give you a very powerful energy boost and also provide a spiritual smudge in the same way that the needles do as described above.  Being in a grove of Old Growth Cedars may be one of the most powerful healing places people can actually experience.  Also, if you have deep and old emotional wounds simply sitting against a Western Red Cedar tree on a daily basis can be extremely healing.  You can also express and let go of grief, anger, sadness, and other emotions verbally at or near a cedar.  They can definitely take it.  Regularly touching and spending time with Western Red Cedars will start to act as a regular emotional purifier and spiritual buffer such that you may find that you need to smudge less often and actually function as a smudge more yourself.

I am consistently flabbergasted at the number of 50, 100, or even 150 year cedar trees that are still cut down.  To me this is like killing our spiritual elders.

3)Needle Tea-
Boiling WRC needles for 20 minutes or so creates a tea that can be used to treat colds, respiratory infections, and even early stage urinary tract infections.  It is definitely diuretic and should not be drank frequently as there are compounds in the tea that can irritate the kidneys.  When acutely sick with the above, the tea can be drunk for a few days to help clear away the illness.  The notion of drinking the tea daily or using a needle tincture every day as an immune system booster strikes me as careless and dangerous to one's kidneys.

4)Ethnobotanical Uses of Bark and Wood
It is important to note that WRC can be made into a variety of items that are very useful to survive in the damp, cold climate of the Northwest.  Cloths were made from Cedar bark.  Longhouses and canoes were made from Cedar wood, and Cedar was used as a bow-drill or hand-drill wood to create fires.  The ethnobotanical uses of the bark and wood are almost endless.  There are many good resources available on this topic.  One last note, in some traditions WRC was not burned as a firewood due to its importance for so many other uses and due to its sacred qualities.

Putting the Medicine Back in Medicine part 1

If we are to truly practice Wild Medicine, I think it is necessary that we really take a deep look at what we mean by medicine and look at other ways of conceiving of it.  For many of us, especially if we have been raised in modern culture without exposure to other ways of thinking, medicine is mainly associated with doctors, hospitals, and pills.  However, the term medicine has a lot of other connotations and definitions.

Take for instance the idea of the "medicine man or woman".  This concept is mostly used in the context of Native North and South America and is often equated with a holy man or woman (though sometimes African spiritual practitioners are also thought of as medicine men or women).  However, in these cultures the giving and receiving of plant medicines, often within a ceremonial context, is inextricably linked with the sacred power that holy men and women possessed.  This sacred power was cultivated through time alone in nature, guidance under a mentor, dreams and visions, and some form of self-sacrifice in the form of fasting or intentional hardship.  In this sense, medicine means healing and also sacred or holy.

There is a specific teaching handed down around this concept and it's application to using plants for healing.  Gilbert Walking Bull, a Lakota holy man who has now passed on to the spirit world, taught that in his traditional culture holy men and woman used different herbs and roots to heal people.  However, they would put a certain power or "electricity" into the plant to make it work.  Often they had been taught how to do this by the plant itself in the form of a dream or vision.  If someone else tried to use the same plant in the same way, it would probably not work or even worse make the patient sicker or even die!  These healers would only use the plants that they had this relationship with, and they might use less than ten plants to treat all of their patients.  This concept of medicine is a far cry from our modern use of both hundreds of pharmaceuticals and also from the immense number of dried, powdered herbs available in every natural foods store around.

This idea of medicine extends beyond the plant realm as well.  In this sense, medicine can become equated with the power or sacred ability of virtually all things.  Animals each have a medicine.  Objects have medicine.  Natural phenomenon have medicine.  Thus, we start to talk about Deer Medicine or Bear Medicine, Thunder Medicine and Water Medicine, Stone Medicine and Sun Medicine.  This points to the idea that for something to be healing and holy and useful for treating illness (spiritual or otherwise) it does not necessarily have to be ingested into the body.

How would our practice of medicine in our current culture differ if we truly valued the sacred medicine or holy power of the practitioners who were dispensing medicines?

What if it was considered normal for healthcare practitioners to cultivate their own sacred powers and gifts in order to be more effective healers?

What if we were to support them in this practice rather than demand that they work endless work weeks crammed full of seeing as many people per day as possible and buried under insurance paperwork, phone calls, and practicing under sterile hospital conditions?  (What kind of medicine does someone possess who is forced to practice under these conditions?)

What kind of medicine do we want for the future?

What is the medicine you carry?  (It's a good time of year to think about this...)

More ways of thinking and looking at medicine to come...