|
| |||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
Forums
Courses
Shop
Diseases
Articles
Journal
Directory|
|
||||
Homeopathic Materia Medica |
||||
|
|
||||
| Hpathy Ezine - April 04 | ||||
|
Mary Gold is Wounded -- Joy Lucas |
||||
|
There are also some rather more unusual symptoms worth noting - deafness, where one can hear better on a train, or hear distant sounds better, cannot hear 2 people talking together - the pains are excessive and out of proportion to the injury suffered - bulimia (and maybe other eating disorders) - and stabbing pains from within to without, like being stabbed in the back! The modalities are subtle but to the point:- >> perspiration (unblocking and free discharges), >> sleep, >> walking about, >> lying very still, >> 9-3pm (when the flowers are open), << chill, << drinking, << damp, heavy and cloudy weather (it is a heliotrope and follows the sun so the flowers will close if there is no sun). Can be thirsty or thirstless. But one of its chief uses, however, was for Cancer - of the skin, breast, uterus, abdomen, nose, pharynx and larynx, scrofulous and sclerotic tumours, fungus tumours, fribroma, and it was the main ingredient of the famous Rust Pill which consisted of oxide of iron, Colewort, and extract of Marigold. It is the extraordinary successful application of Calendula, in the use of wounds, which I would like to extend to those of 'wounded emotions and mental faculties' which might be involved in the history of someone who develops one of the worst wounds of all - Cancer. To get there, let's have a bit more history..... Calendula Officinalis or, the common marigold, is familiar to everyone, with its pale green leaves and golden orange flowers. It is said to bloom in the calends of every month, hence its Latin name. Many think it was named after the Virgin Mary, but this came later and it is actually a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon merso-meargealla, the Marsh Marigold. Marigold was just one of the flowers associated with Mary, the mother of Jesus - you will see her dresses adorned with them and it was the flower used at the Feast of the Annunciation of the Virgin, and she was honoured as the House of Gold because in her the Blessed Trinity performed such great and wonderful things. This may or may not be religious idealism and regardless of one's own religious feelings the virtuous story of Mary, the mother of Jesus, really is an idealism that is hard to live up to. Pregnant before marriage, had several children, one of which she had to witness exaltation of, intense prejudice and suspicion towards and finally observed his painful execution and disappearance of his remains. Whether she witnessed this with silent dignity, humility or outrage we do not know but she surely suffered one of the worse possible woundings - that of losing a child. Little is known about how Mary herself died but my thoughts lead easily towards Cancer. Maybe she experienced an overwhelming sense of gloom and doom which is associated with this remedy. And also that of separation, from her child. This is another theme running through Calendula. A physical wounding involves separation of the tissues and an emotional wounding can leave many scars and equally requires the reunion of harmonious forces. It would also be very interesting to know if she suffered any diseases of the reproductive organs (as Calendula has such a strong affinity to these regions) and whether the so called 'virgin birth' had any relevance in this. (Calendula has 'sensation as if something alive in the womb'). Suppression of emotions is a key factor in the development of Cancer and this brings us back to the deobstruent qualities of Calendula - that of being able to unblock, to let a free passage or flow go forth. It is this that gives Calendula its essential characteristics - to remove the obstruction causing pain, to soothe and restore without any scarring, physically, mentally and emotionally. It restores the vision when we have been blinded by false communication. Cancer has been encumbered by many boundless and unlimited metaphors. It mystifies and arouses dread. Just the confirmation of the diagnosis can worsen the condition. It is looked upon as a form of contamination; the body is suffering an invasion and is under attack and thus requires a treatment which provides an adequate counter-attack; evil and slow but uncontrollable growths which one can either fight or succumb to; it is seen as a form of punishment "why me?"; cancer 'spreads'; tumours are usually excised leaving a mutilated body; other treatments are often worse than the disease itself; people with cancer are often lied to; rich countries have high rates of cancer; it is a disease associated with affluence and excess; cancer is a judgement on the individual as well as on the community - the mind eventually betrays the body. In her book 'Illness As Metaphor', Susan Sontag writes about the notion of disease fitting the patient's character. "Disease can be challenged by the will. 'The will exhibits itself as organized body,' wrote Schopenhauer, but he denied that the will itself could be sick. Recovery from a disease depends on the will assuming 'dictatorial power in order to subsume the rebellious forces' of the body. One generation earlier, a great physician, Bichat, had used a similar image, calling health 'the silence of organs,' disease 'their revolt'. Disease is what speaks through the body, a language for dramatizing the mental: a form of self-expression." But as Homeopaths we know all that already, don't we? Sontag includes Auden's cute poem about Miss Gee, written in the 1930's (just 2 verses here): 'Nobody knows what the cause is, 'Childless women get it, Foiled creative fire is just one obstruence that Calendula could heal, given the chance. Sontag also concludes that "the cancer personality is regarded with condescension, as one of life's losers. Napoleon, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert A. Taft and Hubert Humphrey have all had their cancer diagnosed as the reaction to political defeat and the curtailing of their ambitions. And the cancer deaths of those harder to describe as losers, like Freud and Wittgenstein, have been diagnosed as the gruesome penalty exacted for a lifetime of instinctual renunciation. Few remember that Rimbaud died of cancer)." And so in Calendula we have, Delusion, imaginations he is falling; Delusion, imaginations he is falling from a height; Dreams, falling from high places. When we lose our position in life, the safety net - this reminds one of Veratrum, but Veratrum develops a highly delusional state to compensate for the loss - Calendula becomes scarred and riddled with Cancer. |
||||
| <-- Previous -- Next --> | ||||
|
||||
