Nature Heals

Mother Nature Heals

Did you know that the most recommended drug in use today is made from a common tree? The drug of choice today, the most popular Aspirin, has been used by healers for thousands of years in its natural form of bark obtained from a Willow Tree.

This drug from the Willow, the Aspirin, has gained popularity in recent years for preventing heart attacks and strokes due to its blood thinning and pain killing properties which were well known to herbalists for centuries.

Alternative medicine herbals and recipes often call for the use of the gel found in the inner bark of the Willow for use in preventing bone or joint pain.

Native Americans and alternative health practitioners often collect the inner bark of river Willows to use for tooth aches, or joint pain.

A very small piece of the fresh bark would be chewed for the same effects as taking a full dose Bayer Aspirin.  Another treatment would be laying fresh bark with the jelly side down on the area of pain, such as on a sore hip or wrist.

In the days before drugs, dried Willow leaves and bark would be stored for winter use and used as a tea when injury or ailments arose. The tea would be rubbed or soaked into a cloth to be laid on an area of soreness or taken in very small doses as a tincture.


From the beginning of humanity, fields and forest have played an important role in our lives.

The first people learned of plants as a food and medicine source because they needed the food to eat and medicine for curing the ill. They had to maintain a body that could deal with a much harsher environment then today’s comforts afford many modern people.

Through trial and error, ancient tribes found which plants made them feel good, which foods or herbs make them sick and which plants healed what illnesses. When they were injured they turned to plants for help, like the Willow below.