Southern Folk Medicine

by Phyllis D. Light

  Air people focus much of their thought around themselves, what affects them, but at a macro level. They think that what is good for them personally must be good for everyone. “I think therefore I am,” said Descartes, a perfect example of air thought. At the same time, air people don’t want to get too deep into their own thoughts, into their own psyche, because they might have to do something about themselves if they did. They seek answers to life’s questions, but don’t really know what to do with the info once they have it.

  The mind of an air person is always busy, or at least engaged. They often have music playing in the background or the television on or the earbuds in. This background noise is a way of filtering out unwanted stimuli so they can continue thinking their thoughts. Sometimes, air people need this background noise just to fall asleep. Sound moves on air and certain noises, both real and imagined, often keep them awake.

  Air people are the folks at parties who hide in the library waiting for someone to find them and have a good chat. They much prefer this one-on-one engagement instead of making small talk. Or they are the folks at parties who won’t shut up and are the obnoxious motormouths who drive people crazy. Air people have trouble being social and have little regard for the niceties and compromises inherent in any relationship, including personal ones.

  Air people don’t like being needed by others, and they don’t want others to depend upon them. That’s a huge responsibility that forces air into a box or a mold. They want to love and be loved, but on their terms, and not society’s or anyone else’s. Air folks often go for unconventional relationships that seem conventional from the outside. Once they commit, they are devoted partners and parents, but still need some semblance of freedom, or at least the appearance of freedom. Air people want to be loved and may go through several relationships before finding the one person that understands them. If there is any strife in the relationship, air may be quiet for a short time, hours or days, and then will want to talk about it in great detail, often while walking.

  Because air people love and need their freedom and flexibility of action and movement, they often work for themselves or work from home. Air people tend to have several jobs over their careers and tend to pick careers that offer the most flexibility and freedom.

  Air people can appear aloof or unfriendly because they can be quite shy. Unfortunately, people do get on their nerves and for this reason, they can only take folks in small doses. Once you get to know an air person and they relax and feel safe around you, they can be quite interesting conversationalists. Since air people are avid readers and gatherers of information from many sources, they can converse on almost any topic.

  Just as fire people need to connect with folks who have the same drive, passion, and will as they do; just as water people need to connect with like-minded others who believe as they do; air people need to connect with other like-minded people who think as they do. For air, it is all about the thought, the idea, the philosophy, the mind. Think of a flock of birds. All moving together, all thinking together. Or think of a computer club, everyone gathering together and sharing information but working on their own project. For water people, it’s about relationships; for fire people, it’s about the project or goal. But for air, it’s about the idea. For example, fire will be in lust; water will be in love; and air will be in love with the idea of love.

  Air people have a tendency to surround themselves with books, magazines, computers, file cabinets, and newspapers. Once the bookshelves are full, the books and magazines make little piles around the house. It’s amazing how many air people have a filing cabinet at home with old newspaper or magazine articles neatly filed away along with their income taxes and other papers. Air people don’t notice that others don’t see their dusty mounds of information in quite the same way they do. They think their mess is not really messy since they know where to find anything. On the other hand, air folks want their surroundings to be clean, even if not neat, and will judge other people by how clean they keep their habitats.

  For air people, thought manifests in words, whether verbal or written. For this reason, air people make excellent reporters, authors, editors, scientists, gamers, and computer experts. Air is also about communication, whether it’s communication of the brain to the body through the nervous system or the communication of ideas and information to others, or the sending of information over the digital airways. Air is also about providing oxygen to the tissues for the production of energy.

  Air needs direction to accomplish. Moving in a direction and maintaining that direction keeps air people focused and on task. Otherwise, they get sidetracked by other thoughts, ideas, or conversations. Fire needs a goal to fuel their passion; water needs boundaries to maintain good relationships; and air needs direction to stay in focus.

  Regardless of your constitution, you are affected by air.

  Excess Air

  Excess air is overstimulation. There is so much stimulation that it’s hard to focus and there are too many thoughts. But the stimulation is also very exciting and feeds on itself. As the stimulation shifts and air begins to calm, the air person will seek ways to bring it back up. The stimulation is addicting and air people enjoy this excess, but not for long periods of time. Too long in excess is exhausting and debilitating.

  A common reason for excess air is stress, especially the stress associated with work or school and project deadlines. Staying up late at night drinking coffee and working are appealing up to a point. Then, rigidity of action and person sets in, soon followed by exhaustion. The physical effects of not eating enough, losing muscle, drinking too much caffeine, or smoking cigarettes begin to have a detrimental effect. It’s time for the air person to slow down and ground themselves.

  If this excess continues, the ability to follow a thought to a conclusion will be greatly impaired. Now we have the person who is flighty, has their head in the clouds, needs grounding, is an airhead, and someone who needs to come up for air and get a grip.

  Attention deficit disorder (ADD) or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are examples of excess air—too much input and the inability to filter unwanted thoughts or stimuli and focus. In this situation, an air child will seek caffeinated soft drinks, candy bars, or junk food. This quick rush of energy momentarily increases air, not lowers it. But air calls to air, and the more airy a person becomes, the longer they like to stay in that condition and the faster the mind turns. But stimulating substances can also increase concentration. Peppermint or spearmint tea is excellent to help an air person in this way.

  The air adult will drink coffee to keep the air moving during the day, forget to eat or purposely avoid eating because it will ground and relax them, and then drink alcohol or smoke pot at night so they can sleep. That’s too much stimulation. At this point the caffeine isn’t stimulating the mind anymore, but is still stimulating the body and nervous system. Now, the air person still can’t think, but can’t sleep either. If the overstimulation continues, nervous exhaustion, or adrenal fatigue, is not far behind, and other opportunistic disorders, often autoimmune, may appear. In excess air, thoughts can become circular and so can emotional responses.

  The state of excess air is an excited one. Folks are running on their second wind—going, going, going or talking, talking, talking. If they sit and relax for a moment, they might fall asleep. And when talking, they often jump from one topic to another without letting anyone else contribute to the conversation.

  Excess air wants to move, move, move. These folks tend to wiggle in their chairs, get up and walk around, can’t sit still, and twist and turn. All this wiggling and moving can take place while they are sleeping and may express as a type of restless leg syndrome.

  Ever been around a person who just can’t stop talking and you can’t get a word in edgewise? When they leave, even though you haven’t said anything, you are exhausted. You are wiped out. They’ve sucked out all your air.

  A caution: People with excess air have a tendency to throw t
hings when irritated. They usually throw objects on the ground, out the door, or at the wall, but not at people. They also like to throw around words. This can be quite disconcerting to experience. This may appear like fire, but it’s just wind blowing. Contrast this to a fire person with temper—they will throw objects at you and the object could be their fist.

  On the physical level, excess air is drying. Folks will be thin, dry, underweight, with long, stringy muscles. People with excess air are prone to food allergies and sensitivities, leaky gut syndrome, and sensitivities to chemical and environmental toxins, digestive disorders related to nerves, such as irritable bowel or ulcers, and disorders of the nervous system.

  They are also prone to histamine reactions. Rashes, red spots, and hives are not uncommon, as excess air can carry heat. Blood sugar may be prompting the excess air person to reach for the sugar fix or more caffeine.

  Folks with excess air should be cautious about the nightshade family; potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, and green peppers may not digest well or contribute to inflammation. Histamine reactions tend to create an acidic stomach. During high-histamine times, foods and beverages that are acidic should be eaten with caution, such as tomatoes, vinegar, wine, fruit juices, and coffee. In the same vein, air children may exhibit redness around the mouth after eating acid foods such as pizza or spaghetti.

  Nervine herbs, adequate protein with balanced carbohydrates from vegetable sources such as root vegetables, avoiding caffeine and processed sugar, and restful sleep will go a long way to restoring balance. Sleep and rest are extremely important to restore air. Also, the air person should avoid listening to the news, turn off the computer at least a couple of hours before bed, and avoid adrenaline-pumping movies late at night. A good book is therapeutic.

  Because there is a tendency toward dryness, moistening herbs and foods can be helpful. Moistening foods include soups and stews, dairy products, cooked fruits, dried beans cooked well-done, and tender meats. Sweet and grounding well-cooked root vegetables such as carrots and winter squashes are also an excellent choice.

  Sweet, moistening herbs such as angelica, anise, cooked burdock, fennel, red clover, mimosa, oatstraw, peach leaf, and sarsaparilla are useful.

  Nervine herbs to help bring down excess air include skullcap, hops, wild lettuce, California poppy, passionflower, wood betony, peppermint, and valerian.

  Deficient Air

  Deficient air looks a bit like earth. Instead of the stimulation and excitation of excess air, in deficient air, there is sluggishness and over-relaxation. Depression could be a problem, along with blood sugar issues. In deficient air, there is a tendency to gain weight, stop moving or exercising, and become a bit of couch potato.

  One cause of deficient air is that these folks feel that the world has turned against them or that they are alone in the world and no one likes them. Air people may not always want to be around other people, but they always want to be liked. Deficient air doesn’t feel victimized the way a water person might, but their self-esteem certainly takes a hit. In this scenario, the deficient air person becomes reclusive and even more withdrawn.

  There is nothing more demoralizing to an air person than someone questioning or not believing the air person’s information. Questioning what an air person knows is a sure way to hurt their feelings, and this is like a blow to their gut. It immediately demoralizes them and takes away their energy. They feel drained, tired, and just want to be alone. If air stays deficient too long, they will lose interest in the world at large.

  Deficient air shows a lack of ambition and motivation. There is reduced ability to communicate with people and more time is spent reading, writing, working on the computer, or playing video games. The shy air person becomes even more shy. They feel left out and alone and sort of shut down. Instead of sharing their information or sharing their writing, in deficiency state, they tend to keep it to themselves, hoarding information like Midas hoarded gold.

  Deficient air people may exhibit jealousy, hoard information, and be critical of others. They may also exhibit selfishness in sharing their feelings or sharing their material possessions.

  On a physical level, deficient air may manifest as weight gain, bloating, high blood sugar, high blood pressure, headaches, and mental sluggishness. Herbs and foods to balance blood sugar are extremely helpful. This person should also avoid any type of processed sugar, processed grains, or artificial sweeteners.

  If air is deficient, it important to get the person up and moving. Air has to move to be healthy and happy. It’s finding the balance that is important. Any type of exercise can be helpful with deficient air—walking, jogging, dancing, or any form of exercise that gives continuous movement.

  Herbs to stimulate air include American ginseng, cayenne, elderberry, raspberry, gotu kola, hibiscus, lemon verbena, bay, pine, rose hips, huckleberry leaves, and sumac.

  Chapter Twelve

  Earth: Sweet Blood

  We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap.

  —Kurt Vonnegut

  Mrs. Pridmore was a local herbalist and fire-blower. She helped people with herbs, sound nutritional advice, a commonsense approach to affairs of the heart, and she could blow away the pain of fire. In her day, there was hardly anyone overweight or diabetic; it just wasn’t the norm. Those few people who were overweight were often joked about and considered to be lazy or gluttonous. At best, they had a glandular disorder. While we might think this is a totally inappropriate view today, in Mrs. Pridmore’s time, this was the common view. Most all the folks were farmers, hunters, and loggers, poor people who worked the fields, and folks whose gardens were their basic source of food. The effort of living was physically grueling and demanding. If you were overweight, you couldn’t pull your share of the work on the farm. If you were overweight, you didn’t have the stamina for those long, long days of hard work. And since everyone was so very poor and there was so little food to go around, if someone was overweight in a family, then there was a good chance that another family member wasn’t getting enough to eat. This situation affected everyone. Also, folks who were overweight tended to be “city folk,” people who didn’t have to use their bodies in labor.

  Being overweight could cause diabetes and was commonly recognized as so. However, there was another type of diabetes, the kind that caused weight loss, that was also commonly recognized as more serious and life-threatening. This was considered a serious health issue and acknowledged as a glandular problem that required medication. Today, we know that either type 1 or type 2 diabetes can cause weight loss, but it wasn’t common knowledge in those days.

  Even if a person thought they might have high blood sugar, few could afford a doctor’s visit. There was a quick and easy home test that could infer, if not assess, how much sugar a person might have in their blood. If positive, it certainly warranted scraping the money together for a trip to the doctor.

  Mrs. Pridmore would have folks pee into a pint fruit jar, and she would then sniff and check for a sweet smell. Urine with a sweet smell can indicate excess glucose that has spilled into the urine because there was more glucose than the kidneys could reabsorb. Ketones can also cause a sweet smell in the urine and could indicate that the body is burning fat for fuel. Regardless, urine with a consistently sweet smell should be investigated.

  If Mrs. Pridmore had any doubts of the urine’s sweetness, she would take the urine outside, weather permitting, and pour it on the ground where she knew the ants would find it. She had a piece of sandstone that she kept just for this purpose. Then she’d wait for the ants to arrive. And they almost always did. She liked to show folks how the ants swarmed their pee. It’s quite disconcerting to see how the ants come swarming for the liquids from your body.

  In a healthy body, there should be little or no glucose in urine, though the amount might be so low as to be considered not harmful. However, just drink twelve ounces of your favorite soft drink, or eat a chocolate fudge ice cream sundae, or drink five glasses of swee
t tea and eat an extra helping of cobbler and see what happens. That’s pretty much guaranteed to throw some sugar into the urine. It doesn’t mean that the person is diabetic—only detailed medical testing can make that determination—but temporary rises in blood sugar after meals aren’t uncommon.

  So Mrs. Pridmore would show the person how the greedy ants would swarm over the sweet urine. And she would tell them a story while they stood there and watched the spectacle of the piss ants. One of her favorites was about Coyote, who was walking in the hot sun one day. He was getting hotter and hotter, and his tongue was hanging out his mouth. Coyote asked for a cloud to cool him off. So a little cloud came and covered Coyote’s head. But Coyote wasn’t satisfied, so he asked for a little rain to cool him off and quench his thirst. So the cloud began to rain. But Coyote still wasn’t satisfied and he asked for more rain and then more. And pretty soon, it was pouring. And before Coyote knew it, the rain had washed him right away. And because of his greed, no one ever saw Coyote again. And all the while the piss ants swarmed over the urine. Folks generally got the message.

  All About Earth

  There are several definitions for earth. It is the planet on which we live, sometimes called Mother Earth. Here is our home, the land of our ancestors, and the land of our children. No other location in the vast array of planets and stars in the universes will ever be as hospitable to human beings as the one on which we already live. Planet Earth is perfect for us.

  Earth is the dry part of the globe, the place where humans can build homes and towns. It is the soil beneath our feet. Rich, loamy soil fills the nostrils with the smell of fertility and brings the yearning to plant something, just anything in that hallowed ground. The word earth can also mean the ground beneath your feet. How solidly you plant your feet will depend on the type of ground on which you are standing. Burrowing animals go to earth or go to ground when hunted by either predators or humans.