Herbal Medicine: Rosemary (mi die xiang)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary

In our external herbs class this week, taught by Bob Quinn, DAOM, we were re-introduced to a wonderful herb that's in most of our kitchens. Rosemary, known as Mi Die Xiang, is a pungent herb that has more uses than I knew. Besides drinking a tea to clear the head (check out teacuppa.com), you can also use the rosemary tea to soak your feet and hands in to clear the mind.

Rosemary has cleansing properties that help heal wounds, and can be used to treat asthma. Since we haven't learned too much about this herb in our program, and we don't have the herb in our dispensary, I found a great site that has good information on the nutritional values and more benefits of rosemary called whfoods.org.

In searching for information on rosemary, I came across a really great site called copperwiki.com, which is a wiki for "an alternative resource that brings about awareness and focuses on the individual." There are a lot of food and health posts, and their section on rosemary had a lot of good information on the plant.

As we left class, we were told that rosemary can help us to remember our dreams if we set an intention to remember the dream, eat a small amount of fresh rosemary (a few leaves off of a fresh sprig), then place the sprig under our pillow. I plan on trying it tonight :)