Hi, My name is Karen and I am the author of The Appalachian Sage Blog site… I have an insatiable interest in natural healing, herbal remedies, growing herbs, processing them, making essential oils, the healing power of essential oils, as well as, the magical side of plants & energy…
I live in Kentucky and my Momma’s maternal family members are from the Appalachian mountain corner of Virginia, Kentucky, & Tennessee… My great-grandmother was what some might think of as a ‘granny witch’ from the tri-state Appalachian mountain area. She was known for helping her neighbors to heal from various issues with her natural remedies…. That was back when there were no doctors in those mountains and long before the medical associations had such control over the people… Back before our time when it wasn’t ‘illegal’ to say, “CURE”.
Her daughter, my grandmother, passed down the knowledge of plants to me as a young girl. She was taught by the best, my great-grandmother, who was taught by her grandmother as a child… (My ‘Maw’ (grandmother) used to tell me about how her Mom knew every plant on the mountainside and how she would make her accompany her as she gathered plants when she was a small child. She told me how she would take the leaves of plants that she was using as medicine and put them in her pouch, saving one leaf from each plant to go in her pocket.
Once they arrived back to their home, my great-grandmother would take the leaves from her pocket and carefully place them between the pages of her big family bible in order to preserve them. She would then drill my grandmother and her younger brothers on what each leaf was named and what it was used for. She taught them to make herbal salves, tinctures, and how to properly dry each plant and all of its beneficial parts. Maw told me that back then, she & her brothers felt somewhat like kids would today. They just didn’t have much interest in learning all of the plants that their Mother wanted them to learn.
However, they did have respect for their Mom and would give their full attention to her at the time. I suppose most kids are like that when their parents want them to be interested in something that they find interesting, yet the ambitions of the child are totally different. Often, a child doesn’t have interest in something if a parent is showing it to them. On the other hand, take the same subject and let a stranger start talking and those same kids might be all ‘in’ on the conversation.
Regardless, back then children had more responsibilities and chores in the family. By my grandmother’s teenage years, she was expected to watch over her 2 younger brothers and to take them out gathering plants that their mother needed in healing remedies. Each trip to gather called for different plants. My grandmother said it all depended on what her mother was treating at the time.
As an adult, my grandmother lived a strict Christian lifestyle and didn’t dabble in all that her Mother had taught her about the plants. Yet, she knew the healing energies & potency of most of the plant life found in those mountains. Although, Maw did plant her garden by ‘the signs’ as she would say….
My grandmother took much knowledge to her grave without sharing it. She had spent her young life watching her mother mix and brew various concoctions for spells from love spells to wellness spells. Josie, my great-grandmother, kept a large fire going with multiple cauldrons hanging from a metal frame that she kept over the fire. She was said to be a very intriguing lady, indeed.
In fact, she even had the typical look of a witch during those days. LOL….This is funny…..One of my younger cousins told me one time that she used to be so afraid that she would look like her when she grew up. LOL… Lord knows she wasn’t a pretty woman, but she was a good woman. Hey, she more than made up for her deficit in appearance with her knowledge in healing plants and helping the sick.
My grandmother, on the other hand, was just the opposite of her mother. She was praised for her beauty by everyone. I was told by other older people many years ago how ‘Maw’ was one of the prettiest women they had ever met. They said she sat on her white horse as a young girl and her long, shiny, thick black hair hung to her ankles. One lady nicknamed her ‘Pocahontas’. ‘Maw’ was a very humble and kind woman. She has talked to me how she would work in the garden and in the fields and cover up her skin as much as possible so the sun would not tan her skin. (Those conversations came when she saw me laying out in my bathing suit trying to get a tan.) She would tell me, “Back then, women didn’t want to be tan.” She kept a big quilt over her if she had to be out in the sun riding very long at a time. When Maw passed several years ago, she still had dark black hair in the back of her head. The front had some white hair, but her black hair in the back remained very dark even at 90 years of age.
I cherish the times I’ve spent in the fields with my late grandmother. Just as she had gone ‘walking for medicine’ in the mountains of Virginia, where she grew up, she took me out with her to teach me plant identification, as well… She used to talk about that white horse of hers all the time. She must have loved that horse. Together they would ‘trudge’ all over the mountains collecting ginseng, plantain, sassafras root, dandelion roots, and other mountain medicinal herbs for her mother.
Maw talked about how she would put the herbs that she collected in an empty fabric flour sack on the horses back, along with anything else she had bought from the local store down at the base of the mountain where they lived. She kept everything in a fabric sack and put that sack on the top of the horses back to keep everything dry as she and her horse would swim the river to get home. She had to cross a river with no bridge to get down to the store.
The river was a problem when people needed to get up to the house to have her mother treat them. My great uncle made a floating raft for them to use for supplies and for sick people to lay on and it be pulled across the river. There was always a horse to pull a makeshift ‘sling style bed’ made out of tree limbs up the mountainside to the house. Her Mom always had people in the house being treated for some form of illness. Sometimes, during the summer, she said people would sleep on ‘cots’ on the front porch so that her Mom could nurse them back to health. There were so many there that she ran out of room for them inside the house.
Tuberculosis (TB) was one of the worst things back then. When someone died at the house, they would pull the body back down with the horse-drawn sled made special for those situations and put it on the raft to cross the river and the prospective family would take the body from that point. Back then, TB was the leading cause of many deaths. In fact, my great-grandfather died of TB when my grandmother was only 3 years of age. My grandmother’s healing potions and abilities are what sustained the family economically until the boys were able to start working and my grandmother remarried. I was there the day my grand uncle, Charlie, brought my great-grandmother’s old chest to my grandma’s house in Kentucky. She & I went through her belongings and I remember well the photos and recipes that were in that old humpback treasure chest. My grandmother called it a ‘trunk’ back then. It was so old and beat up that when she emptied it, she threw it away. So much history in that trunk when I think back to that day.
One thing is for sure, ‘Maw’s’ family history is quite mind-blowing when one sits to write the information collected. It shocked me at a young age and I was left with many questions. My grandmother kindly explained. Yes, her father was also her 2nd cousin at the same time. I am a product of INBREEDING….It’s just fact. My grandmother shared this with me back in the early 80’s when I was only 21 years of age and asking tons of family history questions. I don’t think the rest of the family appreciated her telling me the truth. However, the ‘plain blanket truth’ is that my great-grandmother and great-grandfather were 1st cousins. That was weird to ‘swallow’…Ouch… Hey, it makes for a shorter family research project…LOL. My grandmother never got to know her father because of his death from TB when she was 3 years old. She has told me some rather fascinating stories on visions and how she got to see him spiritually. (My grandmother was able to see spirits all the time. She would mention it to my Mom & aunt, but they would never want to talk about it. They blew her off as being ‘old’…..(NOPE!!)…..ME, on the other hand, ….OH, YES!! “Tell me MORE!!” was my motto….
In spite of that shocking info on the family bloodline, I am blessed to remember well, the conversations & the walks that I took with my grandmother. She would always be softly explaining, in detail, what various plants were and what they were used for in medicine. She taught me to identify various ‘greens’ like poke, mustard greens, etc.. I remember her warning me to never eat poke berries because they were not for human consumption. She assured me that the bird on the plant would not die if it ate the berries… She was a calm kind woman. Her voice never raised from its smooth level. She always had a gentle smile on her face as she watched to see if I was understanding her…. I remember her face looking into mine to see if all her info was ‘registering’ in my little brain.
I remember well the times we would go blackberry picking on the back of a wagon bed with my ‘Paw’ driving us around the briar patches on his tractor… Maw would put on Paw’s old bluejeans and big boots for blackberry hunting. I stayed on the wagon and she got off and went into the ‘thickets’. Oh, those buckets of blackberries she would pick back then were DELICIOUS!!…The fresh berries were so good on her hot homemade biscuits and butter. I’d start eating berries the minute that old metal bucket hit the wagon bed. LOL….My face & clothes would be full of berry juice.
I’ve seen Maw ring more than a few chicken necks in her time. She would then put them in a large galvanized tub of hot scalding water, pluck the feathers, and cook a ton of fried chicken for the family. She taught me to gather eggs from the henhouse and I’d help her pick dandelions, dig the roots, and also gather a ton of other plants for jellies, tinctures, etc… I think back on those times now and they seem so far away. The younger family generations have no clue that I was fortunate to spend such great experiences with my grandparents. I feel so blessed to have these memories. I didn’t get the chance to spend this type of time with my grandchildren. Life today seems to be so hectic and the younger generations don’t understand the importance of grandchildren spending time with the grandparents. Many grandparents don’t have the time to spend like women did back in those days. Back then, women didn’t work outside the home or farm much. Today, its a different world. I’m just glad that my Mom let me have these memories of my grandparents. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents on their farm.
LOL…Keep in mind now, that in my version of this little story I’m about to tell you, I was ‘helping Maw’ to make lye soap. When she would make soap, I remember her warning me how dangerous the lye was and then I asked her, “If that is so dangerous, why is Paw using it on his face to shave”? I didn’t understand saponification back then… She would explain it to me in her soft voice.
I said I ‘helped’ her make soap. Yet, Maw might not have described me as her ‘helper’. I was often in her way. Thinking back, I realize that I was a nosey, little curious girl. LOL.. I was in the middle of whatever was going on, believe me. I just had a curious mind as a child and even today. LOL…. I loved watching and learning from my grandmother. She was always so kind and soft hearted. She could make anything. She often made poultices for family members from potatoes, charcoal, clay that she dug herself, etc… That woman had an answer ‘up her sleeve’ for almost every ailment. (Taught well by her mother before her)….
Maw knew her ‘stuff’ when it came to surviving and raising a large family. She was Mother to 7 of her own children and helped raise her 2 younger brothers. Her knowledge was strong when it came to knowing the plants and their potencies, taking care of farm animals, canning, raising a large garden, etc… I am blessed that she taught me so much at such an early age and even more blessed that I remember much of what she taught me 54 years later… For, when medicine wouldn’t help me with Lyme, the memory of my grandmother’s strong practice of natural healing during my childhood gave me the firm belief that I could heal myself as an adult. Prayer and plants were what sustained me.
Like all young children, I listened and showed respect to my little grandma back then, but I quickly found other interests to fill my life for the next 45+ years. That is, UNTIL 2013 when I had a very harsh, rude awakening with my health. I has already studied pre-med courses, as well as, was in the bachelor’s nursing program at a local university when I was suddenly forced to change my degree and graduate early due to sudden anxiety attacks and seizures. My physician of 20+ years wouldn’t listen to me when I told him my sudden symptoms felt like I was dying.
Instead, he patted me on the shoulder and told me he would give me a prescription of ‘the famous psych wonder drug’ and to come back and see him in 30 days!!! I was devastated and cried when I got to the parking lot. This, my friends, was my SURPRISE introduction to what I call, ‘My Journey Into The TRUTH in medicine’…..
To make a ‘long story as short as possible’, I immediately knew I had to find out what was causing these seizures and anxiety attacks. I felt it had to be ‘something’ in my body that didn’t belong and I was NOT accepting the ‘psych button’ that my family practitioner wanted to so quickly label me with….(no, no, no…). I was not depressed!!! In fact, I would go so far as to say I was happy, in school, loving every minute of being in school and being able to do what I wanted to do earlier in life, I was ecstatic to be in school!! At last, I could complete my education after raising my son and fulfilling my obligations as a parent. Nothing to be depressed about when I had such a wonderful opportunity ahead of me. So, giving me a ‘depression drug’ was NOT satisfying me on ‘why’ I was having seizures!!!
I started relentlessly researching and again, to make a long, long journey shorter, I had an epiphany that I might have ‘Lyme’ disease. I didn’t even know what that meant, other than it came from a ‘tick’. I realize that I was given this ‘thought’ to test for Lyme from a MUCH ‘higher power’ than my brain could muster.
In addition, to this ‘thought’ coming from ‘The Great Devine’, I was also miraculously connected with an online lab that would test me for Lyme without my family doctor ordering the test. Since I could test for only $59, I spent the money and did the testing for both the ELISA and the WESTERN BLOT…. (THANK GOD, this was back in 2013 when the FDA/CDC allowed testing for both!! Today, one can ONLY test on the WESTERN BLOT IF the ELISA is positive and we all know the ELISA is wrong more than its right.) I did test positive and to spare time here in telling you the ‘whole’ story, (I’ll explain this in detail in my Lyme book that I’m working on), I’ll stop elaborating for now, for the sake of time….. Indeed, I was gifted with this thought to test for ‘LYME’ from a HIGHER power… It’s just fact…
I started researching to learn about Lyme and I was devastated to find the ‘political’ side of Lyme disease, the truth that I could die from it, and the difficulty in finding a doctor to treat me after 28 days due to the POLITICS around ‘Lyme & its many coinfections. The money involved in the ‘quest to stay alive’ was more than my husband & I had at our disposal. So, I was scared. It was humbling to find out that so many people lose their homes, their jobs, their vehicles, & their life savings trying to treat for Lyme and stay alive. I was distraught, to say the least.
This sobering fear of dying led me to seek the ‘natural treatments for Lyme’ in order to survive……..However, in the beginning, I did get EXTREMELY lucky to have a super fantastic insurance policy that paid for many things that others policies refused to pay for when it came to LYME. My Lyme specialist suggested essential oils a year prior to me actually trying them. I was hanging on to the antibiotics from ‘big pharma’ and I was BARELY hanging on…… Yes, I bought the oils whent he doc suggested them and they stayed on my dresser for over a year. I just kept building my immune system with supplements and taking antibiotics to treat the pathogens. Like I said, I was one of the few lucky ones with Lyme, in the fact that my insurance continued to pay for my antibiotics even after 28 days and I suppose that was due to my doctor’s keen ability to code well. I was blessed, indeed.
However, one day, I was at ‘the end of my rope’ and ready to die. The suffering was beyond words and I was not improving with antibiotics. I raised up, slid off the side of the bed and I told my husband, “I’m going to die if I don’t find something else to treat with… I am going to stop all antibiotics and start natural options, starting with the oils first… God promised ‘healing from the leaves of the trees’, so I’m ready to die or get better. I’m starting those oils internally and via full body massage daily, if you will help me.” He agreed and I am here today in a much, much healthier state 5 years later. I am SOLD!!! on natural options. I’m NOT against pharma, but I believe in doing BOTH when the need arises.
The essential oils saved my life and continue to maintain my life as Lyme never truly goes away and is cyclical monthly. The essential oils have improved my body functions beyond words. Five years later, I can once again see, talk, swallow, walk, and hear… I still have issues during the moon phases of New Moon & Full Moon, but I can deal with the symptoms and I’m thankful every second for the knowledge I have attained as I walk my life journey.
I did, INDEED, with the help of the GREAT DEVINE, save my own life. That I can confidently say…. My Lyme book will detail all the many things I did to survive. God promised, I read that promise over and over in the Bible, I talked to ‘my mountains’ as he said to command them, and I jumped in with both feet full of faith that he knew what he was talking about….. This was my FIRST TRUE LESSON in INTENTION & FAITH…..
I continued to learn the chemical makeup of plants, the components in each plant oil and what those components did in the human biology. Hence, I continued learning and ended up becoming a Certified Aromatherapist. I am a believer in ‘the oils’……I have a much detailed story in my Lyme book on this, but for the sake of getting on with my little ‘ABOUT ME’ article, I’ll save the details for the Lyme book. Note that the oils were not the only thing I used. I used MULTIPLE ‘out of the box’ ‘forbidden’ natural options…
I continue to learn daily about various different oils and the constituents that make up those oils, as well as, how those components relate to human health. In addition, I also learn the magical properties of plants. (Now, don’t lose your composure, I’m WELL AWARE, that some of you don’t believe in this ‘mumbo jumbo’ as you may call it, However, I do believe and I’ve experienced this knowledge FIRSTHAND. Therefore, if you know and believe in magic, then you appreciate this knowledge and if you don’t want to know their magical potency, then I can respect that…..Take what you need and leave the rest……
LOL… It’s ‘kinda’ like Momma used to say in her ‘country accent’ when we were kids growing up. ‘If you like something at the table, then ‘getchee some’, but if you don’t like it, just pass it on to the next person without comment, please.”
I suppose here’s the perfect timing to make a ‘RURAL COUNTRY ACCENT/LANGUAGE DISCLAIMER’. 🙂 I am rather self-educated on many subjects, I’ve traveled the world over in my previous work, and I do have a degree from a local university, along with several other diplomas and certificates, here and there and what not… YET, I am SOUTHERN!!! So, that means I’m not exactly ‘perfect’ in my grammar or accent in some folks ‘opinion’. I write as I speak….That is my warning to you…. Although, I won’t throw so much ‘COUNTRY HICK’ in that you stop reading my blog. I am who I am’…I always try to be HUMBLE, KIND, & to LISTEN. I accept you for who you are without comment or questions…Together, we shall be friends and come to know each other as such on the common ground of ‘LOVE THY NEIGHBOR’……So, just know that when I write, I write to be what I call, ‘REAL’. Therefore, love me for being who I am……<3
I strive hard to treat others as I would want to be treated… Yes, I was taught, ‘the Golden Rule’ and I live by that principle… So, when I write, I can write grammatically correct, however, I write from the heart and that isn’t always grammatically correct when you say it in SOUTHERN SLANG. I do make mistakes, so get ready… Afterall, I am SOUTHERN BORN, SOUTHERN BRED. If we ever sit on a porch sipping sweet tea together, you might get a few ‘hints’ of my regional slang…(SORRY)….
Oh, but don’t be fooled… My Southern accent and slang vocabulary doesn’t mean that I’m ‘stupid’. You would be grossly misjudging me if you thought that…). I shall write as I feel, I shall ‘call it like it is’ and I shall live openly ‘who I am’… I am merely, ‘me’, so accept me, love me, or ‘pass it on’ if I’m not your ‘cup of tea’…..
As for my life today, its quite boring compared to a few years ago. I worked the cruise ships as a US Merchant Marine a few years back. I have a very successful adult son, 5 grandchildren that are homeschooled and a ton of optimism that I am ALIVE each morning and can teach others the healing power of herbs, oils, and magic from my own experience…..
As for my immediate family that I grew up in, I have 2 parents still married for 63 years (an anomaly in today’s world) and I have one younger brother… I grew up on a rural farm in the foothills of Kentucky…We raised tobacco and bred horses. Both my parents worked outside the home and worked on the farm until dark (and sometimes after) once they came home at night…. We all worked on the farm. I drove the tractor while they put up hay, sometimes threw bales onto the wagon, I pulled tobacco plants on my knees, followed the setter in the field to put in missing plants, stripped tobacco, and helped to ‘book it’ in the barn when it was ready for market. (‘Booking it’ means organizing the ‘hands’ of tobacco on the sticks to sit on a truck bed, wagon, or pallet. This is how we had to arrange the hands of tobacco in order to take it to market to the tobacco warehouse where it was auctioned off around the holidays. It was our holiday money.)
My Dad taught me how to drive a dump truck also and I’ve even spent some time learning to operate his big backhoe. I mowed our yard meticulously every week and would also do the weed-eating afterward. We had a HUGE yard and that was a treat back then to have a riding lawnmower. Not many had a riding mower at that time.
I was raised in a lush green open valley between the foothills, with a big creek going through the center of our fields… I drank out of a garden hose, caught lightning bugs in a mason jar, and even dipped that mason jar into the creek for minnows occasionally…I fed my minnows bread crumbs when I was little and couldn’t understand why they didn’t want to eat them…LOL.
I stood up in the back of Dad’s 1974, 2-tone green, Ford pickup truck, against the cab, as we went soaring down the highway, and I even caught a few bugs between my teeth doing that…LOL.
I remember standing in the seat next to my Papaw as we went up and down the backroads and we would laugh when the little bumps made my 5-year-old tummy feel kinda weird…LOL…
I could be found on the hills around our house, in the barn, and at the creek in front of the house, more than ‘in’ our house during my childhood… I can still recall my ‘Huckleberry Finn’ style raft I made from fence post and baling twine. LOL… I am COUNTRY and proud of it… Today, I just wear a little LACE sometimes and get mistaken for a ‘city girl’ from time to time…
May you enjoy my blog and know that I have great appreciation that you have spent your precious time reading it… Please pass this info along to your children, take them on walks to identify healing plants, and teach them to make salves, tinctures, and teas……
Blessings to ALL…..