Something From Nothing

You know how when you don’t have enough money to pay for a new outfit, you find a way to make your own or scour the consignment shops instead? Or how you’d never entertain the idea of buying a pie for a potluck gathering, but you would instead pick apples from the neighbor’s backyard tree and make your own? And how in the end, the product was far superior to what you could buy retail?

Having the ability to make something from nothing or next to nothing is one of my favorite things in life to do. And I’ll bet it is yours, too. But there is something else that plays into this. Your new skirt, made from fabric found in the remnant bin, is different from anything anyone else is wearing. YOUR pie used butter or lard instead of commercial vegetable oil … and the house smelled of baked apples all day. What could be better?

And that’s independence. That’s self-reliance; it is pride.

And that, my friends, is the making of excellence.

Before we dash out and buy this or that, we mothers can tap into our considerable abilities.

Well, what if you had that same kind of ability when it comes to curing your family? What if YOU could cure almost anything your family suffers from?

This is the next necessary step in your learning cycle to turn it all on a dime. It’s important to be home with our children, raising them up, making the meals from scratch. But when I was home with little ones, I felt it was equally important for my own sanity to have a creative outlet, an intellectual pursuit, a method to express myself.

I stayed at home and found delight in homeschooling my children. I was proud of my home, my meals, proud of even something as old fashioned as my larder. I loved being a work-at-home mom. And learning and using homeopathy was a significant part of that pride and personal fulfillment.

I was as happy as a clam on a flat.

I had skills.

Then, when I began studying homeopathy, I knew that it was for the good of the family. At the time, we had catastrophic medical insurance only, so I felt it was my responsibility to know how to treat otitis media (AKA “my ear hurts!”), conjunctivitis, colds, flu, teething problems and so on, on my own. It simply wasn’t covered under our policy, but then again…why should it be?

With homeopathy, I simply did not need medical insurance. Sure, it was nice to have the catastrophic insurance in case one of my three rough-playing sons broke a leg skiing, but other than that, I found that the more I knew, the less I wanted conventional medicine.

When my son’s nose was broken, we didn’t use the emergency room. My husband simply gently snapped his nose back into place, and we gave him Arnica 200 and Symphytum 200 for the pain and inflammation. I used each remedy on the hour, alternating between them until the worst of the pain subsided. After about 3 hours or so, we continued with both remedies but every 6 hours. He slept just fine that night and the next day needed nothing until about noon when the pain returned. Once again, we commenced the remedy schedule every 6 hours, and by day three, all was well. No need for more remedies, and our lives continued on.

With the increasing pressure to conform to medical “management,” we need to have options. Something to push back with.

Make a gourmet dish from onions and an apple or a comfortable skirt from a discarded piece of fabric or crack open a homeopathic remedy bottle that costs $8.00 and cure your son. Make something from what looks like nothing for someone else.

Some call it chutzpah.

Some call it gall.

Some call it the American Spirit.

But I could call it simply taking responsibility.

That’s not just something from nothing.

That’s something from the best qualities we possess.