I read many medical books from Mama’s library and she shared with me her knowledge. She often told me, “You are a doctor by nature. It is a gift from God. You understand and feel the nature of disease. Why won’t you continue to study medicine?”
“Mama, my first love is journalism,” I would tell her.
Although I felt a strong desire to devote my life to becoming a doctor, I dreamed also of being a journalist. I was torn between the two paths and had such a difficult time making one “right” choice that I chose a “gold middle.”
I became a writer and a broadcast journalist, an educator, and the family
“doctor” for my husband and two sons. I feel comfortable sharing the knowledge I’ve garnered from Grandma and Mama’s wisdom combined with my own research and formal education, including the study of natural remedies from fifteenth-century herbal books through current advances. Many of the hundreds of Mama’s recipes have been used widely in Russia and Europe for centuries. I am happy now to share with you my knowledge and show you how you can treat illnesses in a wise way without polluting your body with an endless flow of chemicals.
Svetlana Konnikova
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Introduction @ xiii
A. K.
xiv ^ Mama’s Home Remedies
A Fine Mood
Who was silent by the window?
Fog quarreled with rain
and it was a long, long evening…
about something far away, unearthly,
about something close and kindred.
The weeping candles burn down.
And what is there to cry about?
All in all, we are in fact alive,
but sometimes toward evening
suddenly we feel sorry for ourselves.
It’s always toward evening
and we sit down at the grand piano,
lift a veil from the keyboard,
and bring the candles back to life.
These candles weep for the people –
now softly, now intense,
unable to quench their tears
in time.
It’s very important for me
that we have no fear of fire,
that the candles cry for the people,
burn down and, soundless, melt away.
Tomorrow daylight comes again,
and we’ll hear a tune again,
like Mama’s song.
And a musician will be playing
to make the people glad again.
And like a song it comes back to you
that fine mood.
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S. K.
A Fine Mood @ 1
2 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies
Chapter 1
Rose Hips Tea Party
To live we need sun, freedom and a small flower.
—Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875), Danish writer
Tea parties were a Friday tradition and always a perfect get-together at our home. The “girls” would meet as usual in our garden. They were my mother’s girlfriends, medical professionals, doctors, and nurses. They worked together many years and shared one love, an obsession with their medical profession.
During these years they accumulated a rich experience in healing people from different diseases. They were a team of courageous and noble people whom I observed and from whom I learned. I listened to their long conversations about natural healing and alternative medicine and their humorous stories with unabated attention. I was 12 when I began to keep a journal in which I wrote my observations and collected valuable information that I gleaned from Mama and her friends.
They told me that whenever they began to work with any patient, they would recite to them this ancient parable:
There are three of us: me, you, and a disease. If you, my patient, will be on the side of illness, I will not overcome you as a doctor. If you will be on my side, together we will conquer your illness. Rose Hips Tea Party @ 3
Mama’s and her friends’ practice was evidence that this psychological approach worked. It was motivation for the people to fight their illnesses. It was a clear direction to health and life. The “girls” gathered these miraculous remedies from centuries of wisdom and expertise including their own mothers, grandmothers, and Mother Nature. They combined the natural method of physical therapy with electro-physiology. They prescribed well-known antibiotics and other drugs, but their first attempt to heal a patient was always with the sole use of herbal remedies.
Tea was considered to be an essential part of l’ art de vivre. They sat down to tea many times—the same party around the same table on our patio, overlooking Grandma’s multicolored garden with an array of flowers that greeted them with sweet and pungent aromas while the strains of Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers” filled the air.
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4 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies
To live happily is an inward power of the soul.
—Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161-180), Roman emperor
Mama’s Philosophy for Your Motivation
^ Life is a beautiful gift given to al of us. We should use it properly.
^ Be kind and try to do something good for somebody right now. Don’t delay because we will not pass the same way again.
^ Be an attentive listener and motivator if family members or your friends share their ultimate secrets, goals, and dreams with you. Never put them down. The consequences can be unpredictable.
^ Be positive and constructive. Be straightforward and encouraging. As a result, something great can come out of it.
^ Look at the sunny side of everything in your life and be optimistic. Your optimism will become reality.
^ Make your life an example of health,
