Elderberry

“"Mi old but mi no cold" (do not underestimate elders), "Chicken merry, hawk deh near" (stay alert in good times), "Time longa dan rope" (be patient), "Trouble nuh set like rain" (trouble comes without warning). (Jamaican Patwah)”

“In April 2018 Olivia Arevalo Lomas, 81, a Shipibo-Konibo elder regarded as a guardian of traditional medicine, was shot dead at her home in Ucayali. A Canadian man accused of the killing was then killed by community members, and prosecutors later linked him to the shooting. The motive is disputed, and her family said she had stopped ceremonies about three years before. Elijah tells this briefly and with respect, as a reminder that visitors' hunger for the medicine has costs for the people who keep it.”

“Why, in the elders' way: a cluster, not one food. Light food that fills without many calories, sweet potato and vegetables, soy, seaweed, turmeric, lifelong physical work, a lean body, close ties with neighbours. No single secret.”

“Teach it as "what the elders ate before 1960", never as what Okinawa eats today.”

“Vlierbloesem and vlierbessensap. Elder flowers for tea in a cold, cooked berry syrup for throat and stomach. Always cooked: the raw berries carry sambunigrin and the leaves cyanide compounds.”

“Vlier (Sambucus nigra). Flowers for tea in colds, cooked syrup for throat and stomach, berries as sap, jam and wine. Cooked only: sambunigrin in the raw berries, cyanide compounds in the leaves.”

“Elderflower and elderberry (Sambucus nigra). Soc, zova, shtogu, murver, forboz. Flower tea for bronchitis and cough (Kosovo), a drink of flowers steeped 24 hours in cold water with lemon (Kosovo) or fermented with lemon and sugar. The ripe berries cooked into a syrup. Caution: flowers fine raw, ripe berries only cooked, everything else poison.”

“Elderflower or lime flower tea, hot, in bed, the old way to sweat a cold out.”

“Seven or eight parts full (七分饱, qī fēn bǎo, seven parts full). Leave the table able to eat a little more. The Okinawan cousin is hara hachi bu (Dr. Miyagi's kitchen). One line: this is calm, attentive eating, never a diet for children, teenagers, pregnant or breastfeeding women, underweight people, frail elders or anyone with an eating disorder now or before.”

“Yuthok and a seven-hundred-year argument. The tradition honours Yuthok Yönten Gönpo the Younger (1126-1202) as the main founder of Tibetan medicine and generally credits him with composing the Four Tantras. An Elder Yuthok (708-833) also appears in the tradition, though scholars regard his life story as partly legend. Traditional accounts link Yuthok closely with the Medicine Buddha and tell that he departed to the Medicine Buddha's pure land at the end of his life.”

“Never a diet for the wrong person. Eating in moderation is calm, attentive eating. It is never a weight-loss rule for children, teenagers, pregnant or breastfeeding women, underweight people, frail elders or anyone with an eating disorder now or before. For them, moderation means regular, nourishing meals, and the GP or a dietitian guides the rest.”

“Lehyams, kashayams, arishtams. The pastes, decoctions and fermented tonics of the old care. In the family they were made by an elder or a hired helper. She tells them as memory, and anything a mother or anyone else wants to take goes past the midwife, GP or pharmacist first.”

“The books. The daily round is not only the body. Charaka's good conduct (Sutra 8/25) asks for truthfulness, kindness, self-control, respect for elders and teachers, calm speech, cleanliness. The books even count good conduct as a rejuvenation, achara rasayana, protecting ojas like ghee and milk.”

“The Evenki of the north. In the far north of the lake the Evenki hunters and reindeer herders gather the mountain gentian and golden root, give plants freely to their elders, share with anyone from the taiga who asks, and keep the hunting rules for plants too: no noise, no boasting, nothing taken before the task is done, and before leaving they "feed the master of the place" at the fire.”