A Jungian herbalist?

I never cared much for drugs, hated them for as long as I can remember. I hated having to drink Scott’s Emulsion. I hated taking Milk of Magnesia or castor oil. When I had children of my own I began to like drugs, more for the relief they brought me than the suffering they put my children through. As I grew older and wiser, I became slowly hesitant to see doctors who did not make me feel secure. But finally I had a stroke and liked my neurologist but refused to continue taking post-stroke medications primarily because they were so expensive.

Strangely, I have this knowledge I carry around with me about how once upon a time Filipinos lived in a herbal culture. Do you have a wound? Go to the garden and get a piece of that leaf, crush it and put it on. The next morning your cut will be healed. Do you have a cough? Make a tea of lagundi and drink it. Did you just give birth? Get guava leaves and boil them. Use the water to wash yourself to make your healing faster. Do you need to improve your mother’s milk? Eat clam soup with a lot of malunggay leaves. We had all manner of folk wisdom like that.

Now I drink Carica herbals — COQ10 and Mangosteen Juice Concentrate. I mix one tablespoon of each in a shaker. Then I pour cold water in, cover and shake. I drink it twice a day. It tastes like prune juice, pretty good actually. I drink it first thing in the morning and last thing at night. In the morning it gives me energy and at night it makes me sleep well. I don’t know how it does that but I do it faithfully, every day. It has become part of my life.

I think I began taking this in February of this year. After my last birthday, towards the end of August or early September, six months after I began, I woke up one morning and felt something fall in my head. It felt like a sound, a thud. I think it was my brain or the way I think. All I know is that now I have my old brain back so I will continue taking these herbs until I die.

When you take herbals, you have to take them constantly and then you get better steadily. My mother is on her 9th bottle of Bio-Restore. She has put on weight. Her eyes are less blank. There are many small improvements. But she is on her 9th bottle, not her first.

I get many calls from people who have read my Alzheimer columns. They all want more advice. Will their doctor not object to herbals? Will it run counter to the drugs prescribed? Should I take her off drugs and move her to herbals? In the end, it is all up to the person calling. How does he or she feel? If you genuinely feel the drugs you are giving work, then why call me? Surely there must be a feeling that they don’t. In the end the choice between chemicals or herbals is entirely yours.

Let me just say this. Initially we were a herbal culture. Then chemicals were invented. Chemicals studied the herbals and duplicated their effects using different substances. They worked better in the beginning but now we don’t know how they work. We only know now they have many side effects. See, our bodies are organic and therefore need healing organic substances. Chemicals are inorganic. Right now, nobody is sure about what will cure Alzheimer’s disease. True, there are many drugs but to date no one has been cured. So what kind of advice can you expect from me? I was never a doctor. All I have is personal experience.

You like the Jung seminars? There’s another two-day seminar on Nov. 13 and 14 at the Ateneo in Rockwell for people 50 and above. On Thursday, it’s Mature Goddesses: Energies that Surface in the Third Phase of Life, when you’re already in the pre-departure area like we are. Personal wholeness and integration is the centerpiece of the third phase of life. Energies dormant or put on hold by the demands of previous life phases are awakened and bring a wind of change in one’s attitudes, beliefs, values. This workshop will show us how to grow old in wisdom and grace.

On Friday, it will be on Celtic Spirituality: Discovering One’s Soul Friends. Celtic spirituality is anam cara, a friendship of the soul, a companion who walks with you in your psyche’s journey. Find out who your anam cara is.

Finally, that’s what I am today — a Jungian herbalist. But look at me now. I am — and I look — so well. What else is there to say?

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