Well, what an exciting week with the Netcoins frenzy! It was good medicine for us all to see everyone put in so much effort to get that listing and WIN! Really heartening for us all. Equally heartening is the building momentum of #naturalmedicine posts - the hashtag is starting to take off and you'll find some amazing posts under this tag!

This past week we've been posting on the theme 'Local Medicine' to win steem, and we're including these posts as part of this curation. Winners will be announced on Wednesday - you might just sway our decision by commenting below on the ones you enjoyed the most! And it's not too late to enter - @riverflows will be checking to see any last minute entries all the way up to Tuesday night Aussie time (that's Monday night/Tuesday morning ish for everyone else).

In case you were wondering how we chose posts to be featured in these curations, we favour:

• original articles
• a blend of personal stories and facts/research (either anecdotal or otherwise) to engage the reader
  good images or photos
• novel or interesting approaches to self care through natural remedies
• content that makes us go aaaaaaaaahhhhh

If you'd like help making your posts pop, please let us know - we're here to help you succeed!

Challenge Entry: White Pyre

Newcomer @aksurevm89 wrote a really intersting post about white pyre, or amaranth, which she discovered through her (very cute) rabbits, who ate it and consequently appeared very healthy! You can read more here, plus get to see very cute rabbits!

In the first place, the "White Pyre" from Central and South America has its ancestral origins, in the different indigenous tribes that inhabited this part of our continent and that used this plant in their daily diet, treatments, home remedies and some rituals. The name of this plant varies according to the region or country of origin, some countries know it as: ataco, quinoa, quimicha among others. In my country, Venezuela, its name was given by the Cumanagoto tribe, today extinct ethnic group that lived in the East of the country specifically in the province of Cumaná. Secondly, the "White Pyre" can be consumed through tea infusions prepared in the form of tea or lime, in varieties of salads, in the form of oil, its stems and seeds through a long process of dehydration are milled to form a flour and from there you can make sweet dishes, cookies, breads, atoles, and energy drinks. Its stem and leaves also serve to accompany all kinds of stews and stews. Its flavor is very similar to spinach. The White Pyre has a high nutritional content.)

Challenge Entry: Cannabis

@lilyrabe's post here thoughtfully details marijuana as an ally. We were touched with how this plant medicine has helped her through some tough times - a real reason to support legalisation of cannabis.

She writes:

As I went through college my schedule increased, I took on many jobs, and I started to work 70-80 hour weeks regularly. Sometimes when I came home, my mind racing, the only thing that would calm me down enough to sleep would be to smoke a bowl and watch Xena: Warrior Princess (I digress a bit with this anecdote, but I couldn’t resist). When I didn’t smoke, I’d lie awake for 2-3 hours, unable to stop thinking about my 15-hour day and all of the things I had to do the next. At the time, I knew that marijuana helped me relax and rejuvenate. Now, looking back, I realize that marijuana helped me get through college and maintain my GPA by literally ensuring I got adequate sleep.

Such a powerful plant it is that we had two posts on it this week - the unstoppable @elamental also writes of the benefits of cannabis in his post here where he writes:

This divine plant medicine can be found everywhere in Oregon, the greenest city I have ever experienced. I am forever grateful to be blessed enough to live in an area that does not persecute their citizens for utilizing cannabis in their everyday lives to improve their health and happiness.

Challenge Entry: Local Meti Medicines in North America

@porters always comes through with the goods for the @naturalmedicine challenge, and this post thoughtfully explores local plants that were medicines for the Aboriginal people of her area. She writes:

This area was first opened up by French traders. Many of them took Native wives, who held the knowledge of the land. The First Nations People had been surviving in this harsh land for thousands of years. Without these First Nations women, who held the traditional knowledge, transmitted orally from generation to generation, many of those traders would not have survived. Plants were an important component of indigenous medicine. They would gather the wild plants and make pastes, poultices, juices, powders, infusions and decoctions.

Challenge Entry: Pleurisy Root

We've seen so many beautiful posts about herbalism by @mountainjewel, but this one was a newbie! She explores the benefits of pleurisy root in [this post], and writes about all plant medicines that:

This is one example of conservation through use and relationship. By forming bonds with members of our local community (be they plant fungal, animal or otherwise), we are building connections and weaving ourselves into the fabric of life. If we are using plants for medicine we have a vested interest in conserving and multiplying them. Plants that are threatened or endangered have a much better chance of survival if there are people who care about them and work towards promoting their survival and distribution. As with so much of natural medicines it all comes down to relationship; with ourselves, with other human, plants, animal and ultimately the whole of Life. The opportunities for strong ties to our ecosystems and vibrant health are ever-present.

@riverflows writes too of first peoples in her post on gum trees. Whilst she might use tea tree oil and eucalyptus oil all the time, great local medicines down under, in this post she tries to find out a little more about native plants in her area that were used by Australian's first people. After all, it always was, always will be Aboriginal land. She writes in this post that:

I decided I'd explore more about the local trees here and their value. I might not extract the oils myself, but at least I could learn a bit more about them. I've spent years planting them, willing them grow, watching them drop limbs to use for firewood, make structures from them, stand under their shade, watch the bees nuzzle into their flowers, and I've carted water to the young ones, collected the seeds to grow, gone to local plant sellers to find indigenous plants that grow well here. Such practices and such attention to land makes me love this country even more, ties me to the spirit of place so my heart settles and beats along with the extraordinary beauty around me. Finding more about their medicinal value feels like a job I should have done quite a while ago!

@metametheus also explored local medicine used by the Australian first people, enjoying the research and trying to find a plant in Melbourne that just wasn't as common as it used to be. In [this post] he writes about

Contest Entry: Treatment Plan for Tong Sia

@artemislives was on FIRE this week, writing not just one but many posts on local medicines in her home, Chiang Mai. Firstly, she writes about medicine for stomach bugs - something that everyone should know about before travelling in Asia, or anywhere you might likely this kind of bug. If you've ever suffered Bali Belly, you'll know what we mean. In this post, she writes:

I started developing my treatment plan for "tong sia" in earnest 3 years ago when I was diagnosed with Typhoid after eating a salad washed with tap water in the town of Pai in North Western Thailand. It was Mother's Day. Stupid me, who didn't stop to think that many of the riverside restaurants use tap water, which was contaminated with sewerage when the river was under flood. Should have known better. Live and Learn. After 7 days of both private Traditional Chinese Medicine Care and a firm typhoid diagnosis from the regular pathologist, I had lost 8kg and was in the bathroom about 3 times every hour, around the clock. And was facing a visa run to Laos PDR on an overnight bus in the coming days. Even the TCM practitioner asked me if I wanted immodium or the hospital. It made me start googling and reading about natural typhoid cures, and then I came upon the lemon-lime treatment. Hourly, fresh, raw lime juice. Rigorous timing. And so I added the charcoal, it worked, and here we are. :)

Challenge Entry: Paragis

@immorojas writes about in this post about paragis, a weed in her home in the Phillipines which she used in combination with other herbs for her Mum's pneumonia recovery. Extraordinary how the very weeds on our doorsteps can be of such benefit to us and she herself wonders why we'd ever need big pharma with these wisdoms!

She writes:

This shot was taken in our backyard, and those Paragis are not grown nor need looking after. A wild weed that grows in any space they could find so a nuisance in childhood when we were asked to pull them out when cleaning the garden of weeds. Who would have thought back then that they have any value rather than food for our neighbours' goats and perhaps their cows? Found anywhere in people's backyards, along roadsides, paths, by the fields, they are locally found and everywhere! If further research will be done for their health benefits and curative efficacy, will there ever a need for pharma? Interestingly, will the medical practitioners prescribe them?

Juniper

@ofsedgeandsalt is a plant GODDESS and if you haven't checked out her Ground Shots podcasts you absolutely must. You'll find the link to them on her blog, but this week we're curating her awesome post on juniper which you will find here. She always writes with such wisdom and passion, and we learn so much every time we read her work. She writes of juniper:

Junipers are in the Juniperus genus. Many plants called Cedar are also actually in the Juniperus genus, including Eastern Red Cedar. Yet, Western Red Cedar is actually a Thuja, not a Juniper, and not as ‘closely’ related as we would assume based on the common name usage of the word ‘Cedar.’ The common name Cedar actually came from the name for the ‘true Cedars’ of Lebanon that are trees with the genus Cedrus, actually in the Pine family, not Cypress. This word was also used to describe other trees like Juniper even in the Middle East and Europe before the European colonization of Turtle Island. This word came to Turtle Island, and was used to describe things that looked like the Cedars in the Mediterranean that botanists and naturalists recognized. The Cedrus Cedars are even mentioned in the Bible, and even mentioned many times as a plant that held ritual cleansing uses. Even in the Bible, scholars think that they are referring to ‘Cedar’ as actually sometimes a Juniper and sometimes a Cedrus based on studying the actually ecology of the places described. So, this loose use of the word Cedar has been floating awhile for quite some time.

Challenge Entry: Birches

@walkerland, like @riverflows, writes of trees - her beautiful birches in Canada, now covered in snow! Birches are just a tree that have so many incredible uses, and have so much lore attached to them - and even poets write about them. Go check this post out - @walkerland never disappoints with quality posts, and even her photos are taken with a real camera!

She writes:

More commonly known as the white birch tree, named for its elegance, charm, lightness and the mesmerizing aroma after rain. With it's white papery bark fluttering in the wind, the autumn turned golden leaves swirl around in the wind before landing on the ground, the birch tree provides oxygen and shade, heat and countless healing properties. The Birch bark, leaves, sap, fungus's that grow upon them, the roots, all offer us powerful healing medicine.

@samstonehill's a new NM member (thanks for your generous delegation, Sam!) and a huge supporter of natural healing! In this post he writes about how to make toothpaste with 3 ingredients. Go check him out!

We hope you loved these posts as much as we did! Some other notables, and last minute entries into the challenge that we enjoyed were:

trucklife's gorgeous post on olive trees in the Alpujarra
@newcastle's link to his wife's e-book on natural flu remedies - FREE!
@gardenofeden's post on the value of sleep
@eaglespirit's medicine monday posts, coming atcha every monday
@homestead-guru's post on old medicine maps of America - wow!
smithlab's tour around his native backyard medicines

If we missed you at all for your challenge entries, please be assured we'll go over the feed to double check - contest winners should be announced mid week, and new challenge comes out next weekend. You may not have been considered for the larger curation due to getting your post in over the weekend, making it tricky to get curated. We love you anyway! ;)

Please consider delegating to @naturalmedicine by clicking any amount below. The minimum entry for membership is 10SP, and helps support and celebrate your work with natural remedies, healings and nurturings on this gorgeous blockchain!

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