Calendula Anhängsel
One of its chief uses was for Cancer:
skin/breast/uterus/abdomen/nose/pharynx and larynx, scrofulous and sclerotic tumours,
fungus tumours, fribroma (ingredients of the Rust
Pill: Ferr-o + Brassi-o + Calen)/use for wounds (wounded emotions and mental
faculties?/cancer?)
Separation from mother and child. Calen has a
strong affinity to the reproductive regions). (Calen
has “As if something alive in the womb”).
Suppression of emotions is a key factor in the development of Cancer and
this brings us back to the deobstruent qualities of
Calendula - that of being able to unblock, to let a free passage or flow go
forth. It is this that gives Calendula its essential characteristics - to
remove the obstruction causing pain, to soothe and restore without any
scarring, physically, mentally and emotionally (blinded by false communication.
Pain is excessive and out of all proportion” (someone is almost
hysterical with the pain/cannot tolerate being hurt/SENsitive
to pain: mental/physical/emotional).
Used in the treatment of Bulimia - where the emotional hurt turns inward
and the individual ‘chooses’ to destroy themselves. This is a good example of
the mind betraying the body.
Irritable is another strong emotion - sensitivity = ‘out of proportion’
It gets to be too much to bear so an outburst of irritation sort of
transfers the sensation elsewhere. Being a Heliotrope
(moves with the sun)/relieved from this sensitivity by walking around a lot -
again it distracts. <<< damp and cloudy weather when they can’t see
the light, and so much >>> for the radiance of the sun. Hearing ACUTE
(slightest noise startles).
In injuries Calendula cannot be ignored, in cuts with laceration,
surface or open injuries. Dilute Calen used locally
will keep the wound odorless, will reduce the amount
of pus, and favor granulation in the very best
possible manner/assists the surgeon in healing up surface wounds. Calen is all the dressing you will need for open wounds and
severe lacerations. It takes away the local pain and suffering. You may easily
see we are not now dealing
with a condition that exists because of a state within the economy, but
because of something that is without. There is nothing that will cause these
external injuries to heal so beautifully as the Marigold.
Parents wounded by the loss of a child.
[Joy Lucas]
Positive qualities: Healing warmth and receptivity, especially in the
use of the spoken word and in dialogue with others.
Patterns of imbalance: Using cutting or sharp words, argumentative, lack
of receptivity in communication with others.
The Calendula flower imparts a warm, golden light of healing for those
souls who must learn to use "the Word" as a truly creative spiritual
force. The Word (or Logos) is the source of all creation, ever renewing itself
through
the womb of Nature. Thus Calendula is also known as "Mary's
Gold;" for the golden sun-radiance of the Word must be birthed through the
receptive feminine matrix. In every human communication there is always this
masculine and feminine polarity, of that which is spoken and that which
is heard, or received. Calendula flower essence helps those whose innate
creative potential to use the spoken word often deteriorates into argument and
misunderstanding. Specially indicated for personal relationship work, and for
all healing and teaching work when the art of communication must be intensively
developed as a soul force.
Calendula gives great forces of warmth and benign compassion to the
human soul (to balance the active and receptive modes of communication).
Flower Essence Repertory, Part III. Flower Essence Qualities and
Portraits - Patricia Kaminski and Richard Katz.
Such are the expressive qualities of one of our most well known
homeopathic remedies, and maybe they are suggestive of how powerful and deep
acting this remedy could be. There is creativity, birth, language, receptivity,
communication, spiritual forces and benign compassion - all contained within
the healing properties of this remedy.
Calendula was first used as a deobstruent - to
relieve the obstruction, to unblock, to let the free passage of expression flow
forth - not just of speech but for the birthing of all ideas. As Homeopaths we
all know what can
happen when these acts of creativity are suppressed or thwarted, when
our natural inclinations are deviated into disease. It becomes the first
instance of pathology.
My interest in Calendula is many fold - apart from the wide and varied
physical applications it is the lack of real depth in the mental and emotional
symptoms which are presented in the Materia Medicas; the link this remedy
has with Cancer and the fact that it has only been partially proved,
which really stir my imaginations.
There are many reasons why substances have been chosen for provings and much has to do with how that substance has
been used historically. Plenty of scope here for Calendula then.
The ancients considered Calendula to be a deobstruent
remedy, exerting a great influence on the circulation and strengthening the
heart. It has long been used an an antiseptic,
stimulant and diaphoretic.
Dioscorides: Cancer;
Fuchsius: Toothache.
Gerarde: Inflamed eyes.
Westring: Calendula was formerly much requested as a
medicine and was used more especially in carcinoma and scirrhus
with great effect in the third stage particularly in diminishing the pain and
rendering the pus less
corroding. It was also used in chlorosis,
hysteria, epilepsy, jaundice and some kinds of dropsy.
Boerhaave: Uterine diseases/diseases of the kidney and
liver.
Many found it of great efficacy as a lotion to fresh wounds, inducing
union by the first intention. Zorn considered it of great service in throwing
out the eruption of measles and small-pox, and as an application to stop the
bleeding of haemorrhoids.
Used for obstinate vomiting, cardialgia,
diseases of the glands, compound fractures, amputations, suppurating abscesses,
and violent pains of the uterus.
“Modern” usage: gangrene, fractures, sprains, herpetic eruptions,
eczema, nasal catarrh, blisters on tongue, syphilitic ozaena,
gonorrhea, non-specific urethritis,
uterine subinvolution, engorgement of uterine walls,
uterine hypertrophy, suppressed menses, menorrhagia,
chronic cervicitis, warts on the cervix, swelling of
the breasts without pain, gout of the spine, spina
bifida, one sided paralysis, coma, concussion, swollen glands, toothache,
haemorrhages, septicemia, injuries to the eyes, diplopia, insect stings (antidote to Apis),
open wounds, burns and life threatening injuries involving the skin, tendons,
cellular tissues and muscles - healing without leaving
any scars. "Calendula is the greatest non-poisonous germicide,
antiseptic, reliever of pain and healer of wounds that has ever been brought
into use". Dr. W. M. Gregory in Eclectic Medical Journal.
There are also some rather more unusual symptoms worth noting -
deafness, where one can hear better on a train, or hear distant sounds better,
cannot hear 2 people talking together - the pains are excessive and out of
proportion to the injury suffered - bulimia (and maybe other eating
disorders) - and stabbing pains from within to without, like being stabbed in
the back!
Modalities: >> perspiration (unblocking and free
discharges)/sleep/walking about/lying very still/21 - 3 h. (when the flowers
are open); << chill/drinking/damp, heavy and cloudy weather (it is a
heliotrope and follows the sun
so the flowers will close if there is no sun).
Can be thirsty or thirstless.
Chief use: Cancer (skin/breast/uterus/abdomen/nose/pharynx/larynx,
scrofulous and sclerotic tumours, fungus tumours, fribroma,
and it was the main ingredient of the famous Rust Pill which consisted of oxide
of iron,
Colewort, and extract of Marigold. It is the extraordinary successful
application of Calendula, in the use of wounds, which I would like to extend to
those of 'wounded emotions and mental faculties' which might be involved
in the history of someone who develops one of the worst wounds of all -
Cancer. To get there, let's have abit more
history.....
Calendula Officinalis or, the common marigold,
is familiar to everyone, with its pale green leaves and golden orange flowers.
It is said to bloom in the calends of every month, hence its Latin name. Many
think it was named
after the Virgin Mary, but this came later and it is actually a
corruption of the Anglo-Saxon merso-meargealla, the
Marsh Marigold.
Marigold was just one of the flowers associated with Mary, the mother of
Jesus - you will see her dresses adorned with them and it was the flower used
at the Feast of the Annunciation of the Virgin, and she was honoured as the
House of Gold because in her the Blessed Trinity performed such great and wonderful
things. This may or may not be religious idealism and regardless of one's own
religious feelings the virtuous story of Mary, the mother of Jesus, really is
an idealism that is hard to live up to. Pregnant before marriage, had several
children, one of which she had to witness exaltation of, intense prejudice and
suspicion towards and finally observed his painful
execution and disappearance of his remains. Whether she witnessed this
with silent dignity, humility or outrage we do not know but she surely suffered
one of the worse possible woundings - that of losing
a child.
Little is known about how Mary herself died but my thoughts lead easily
towards Cancer. Maybe she experienced an overwhelming sense of gloom and doom
which is associated with this remedy. And also that of separation,
from her child.
This is another theme running through Calendula. A physical wounding
involves separation of the tissues and an emotional wounding can leave many
scars and equally requires the reunion of harmonious forces. It would also be
very interesting to know if she suffered any diseases of the reproductive
organs (as Calendula has such a strong affinity to these regions) and whether
the so called 'virgin birth' had any relevance in this. (Calendula has
'sensation
as if something alive in the womb').
Suppression of emotions is a key factor in the development of Cancer and
this brings us back to the deobstruent qualities of
Calendula - that of being able to unblock, to let a free passage or flow go
forth. It is this that gives Calendula its essential characteristics - to
remove the obstruction causing pain, to soothe and restore without any
scarring, physically, mentally and emotionally. It restores the vision when we
have been blinded by false communication.
Cancer has been encumbered by many boundless and unlimited metaphors.
It mystifies and arouses dread. Just the confirmation of the diagnosis
can worsen the condition. It is looked upon as a form of contamination; the
body is suffering an invasion and is under attack and thus requires a treatment
which provides an adequate counter-attack; evil and slow but
uncontrollable growths which one can either fight or succumb to; it is seen as
a form of punishment "why me?"; cancer 'spreads'; tumours are usually
excised leaving
a mutilated body; other treatments are often worse than the disease
itself; people with cancer are often lied to; rich countries have high rates of
cancer; it is a disease associated with affluence and excess; cancer is a
judgement
on the individual as well as on the community - the mind eventually
betrays the body.
In her book 'Illness As Metaphor', Susan Sontag writes about the notion
of disease fitting the patient's character: "Disease can be challenged by
the will. 'The will exhibits itself as organized body,' wrote Schopenhauer, but
he denied that the will itself could be sick.
Recovery from a disease depends on the will assuming 'dictatorial power
in order to subsume the rebellious forces' of the body. One generation earlier,
a great physician, Bichat, had used a similar image, calling health 'the
silence of organs,' disease 'their revolt'. Disease is what speaks
through the body, a language for dramatizing the mental: a form of
self-expression."
Sontag includes Auden's cute poem about Miss Gee, written in the 1930's
(just 2 verses here):
'Nobody knows what the cause is,
Though some pretend they do;
It's like some hidden assassin,
Waiting to strike at you.
'Childless women get it,
And men when they retire;
It's as if there had to be some outlet
For their foiled creative fire'.....
Foiled creative fire is just one obstruence
that Calendula could heal, given the chance.
Sontag also concludes that "the cancer personality is regarded with
condescension, as one of life's losers. Napoleon, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert A.
Taft and Hubert Humphrey have all had their cancer diagnosed as the reaction to
political defeat and the curtailing of their ambitions. And the cancer deaths
of those harder to describe as losers, like Freud and Wittgenstein, have been
diagnosed as the gruesome penalty exacted for a lifetime of instinctual
renunciation. Few remember that Rimbaud died of cancer)."
And so in Calendula we have, Delusion, imaginations he is falling;
Delusion, imaginations he is falling from a height; Dreams, falling from high
places. When we lose our position in life, the safety net - this reminds one of
Veratrum, but Veratrum
develops a highly delusional state to compensate for the loss - Calendula
becomes scarred and riddled with Cancer.
There is a great sense of weight, of burdens, of dark clouds hanging
over, gloom and doom, a deep depression where they cannot see the light. An
overwhelming sense that something bad is going to happen. They become easily
frightened and startled.
With this there is a sense of dullness and a dreamy state which can
alternate with nervousness, anxiety and irritability or of being morose and
taciturn. They carry with them a sense of separation - when wounds cannot be
healed, when union cannot be effected. There is also a sense of being torn and
jagged, as if beaten. Exhaustion results and there is some relief from sleep,
but it is not a sleep of any great quality - restless at night, wakes
screaming, continual waking, general lassitude prevails. Calendula contains
much nitrogen, phosphoric acid and iodine which might explain some of these
disparate states.
Calendula also has:- "Pain is excessive and out of all
proportion" - so you can picture someone who is almost hysterical with the
pain, who cannot tolerate being hurt, so very sensitive to pain whether it be
mental, physical or emotional. It is very interesting that Calendula has been
used in the treatment of Bulimia - where the emotional hurt turns inward and
the individual 'chooses' to destroy themselves.
This is a good example of the mind betraying the body.
Irritability is another strong emotion - it comes down again to this
extreme, 'out of proportion' sensitivity It gets to be too much to bear so an
outburst of irritation sort of transfers the sensation elsewhere. Being a
Heliotrope, always moving with the sun, you can see how they are relieved from
this sensitivity by walking around a lot - again it distracts. They are also so
much <<< for damp and cloudy weather when they can't see the light,
and so
much >>> for the radiance of the sun. The hearing is very acute
and sensitive so even the slightest noise can startle them - they hear and
sense everything acutely.
Article by the Editor of the Hom. World, in
the Homoeopathic Recorder, May, 1891, Vol. VI, No. 3: "The other day I was
told by a friend that he had, last autumn, chewed a Calendula leaf for a few
minutes; the effect was most marked and very striking. It entirely removed for
some days the difficulty in making water, with which he had long been troubled,
and which is so common in elderly people. I have a suspicion myself that
Calendula affects the spinal chord, from certain unpleasant feelings which I
have when making it from the fresh plant." - C.W. To the foregoing the
Editor of Hom. World appends the following note: In
response to our request for a
fuller description of these feelings our contributor replies that the
symptom was very difficult to describe: "There was such a feeling as if
some overwhelming calamity was hovering over me as to be almost unbearable.
3 years ago, just after making the tincture, my old enemy, the gout,
nipped me in the middle of the spine, and in three days spoiled all my powers
of walking; and then the dreadful feeling became very much exaggerated."
The trouble is - Calendula has only been partially proved.
"The proving of Calendula is so nearly worthless that we cannot
expect at present to use it as a guide to the internal administration of the
remedy. There are only a few things that I have ever been able to get out of
it.
In injuries Calendula cannot be ignored, in cuts with laceration,
surface or open injuries. Dilute Calendula used locally will keep the wound odorless, will reduce the amount of pus, and favor granulation in the very best possible manner, and thus
it assists the surgeon in healing up surface wounds. Calendula is all the
dressing you will need for open wounds and severe lacerations. It takes away
the local pain and suffering. You may easily see we are not now dealing with a
condition that exists because of a state within the economy, but because of
something that is without. There is nothing that will cause these external
injuries to heal so beautifully as the Marigold. Some will say
it is not homeopathic, but these are the individuals who "strain at
a gnat and swallow a camel." If there are constitutional symptoms suspend
all medicated dressing entirely and pay your whole attention to the
constitutional symptoms. Sometimes there are no constitutional symptoms to
prescribe on, but when they are present resort locally to cleanliness and
nothing else. Do not suppress symptoms that you will need to guide you to a
remedy."
One might argue that we do have enough of a full symptom picture for
Calendula but I would like to encourage a new proving, to absolutely confirm
the symptom picture of Calendula and give it its proper hierarchy in the
Repertories and Materia Medicas
- even if it is just for wounded parents who have lost a child.
‡
Folgendes hat anthroposofische Einschlüsse ‡
Frei nach: Markus Sommer
Calen. = Garden marigold one of the best known
medicinal plants today. It has a long tradition as a vulnerary/= part of
numerous body care products in phytotherapy and anthro-posophical medicine. Distributed from the
Canary Islands to
Compositae = outstanding in having flower communities of
a higher order, a kind of "super flower". Include many medicinal
plants (Arn./Bel-p./Echi.) are able to restore order
after injury. The brilliant yellow or orange color of
the marigold flower appeals to us; yet it is not noble like the red of a
cultivated rose nor delicate and pure like the pink of a dog rose, but rather
sturdy, cheerful and unbelievably vital. Numerous small insects are always
found in the inner part of the flower, and the plant clearly knows how to live
with these creatures, some of them parasitic.
The scent of the flower does not suggest purity either; it is musty, fusty,
faintly reminiscent of decomposition (Totenblume).
Growth is not on the disorderly side, lacking a clear central axis between
earth and heaven, nor do the leaves show differentiation as they come closer to
the flower; they remain simple and undivided. Flowering does not mark the end
of the vegetative period for side shoots appear immediately, and this makes the
general habit appear lacking in system and proliferative.
The plant makes few demands on the soil, shows marked vitality. One may be able
to sense why this plant is able to help in areas where inadequate etheric vitalization creates problems with wound healing,
providing a milieu for pathogens. It will sometimes be necessary to provide an
ordering impulse by following Calendula with another substance (Quartz = Sil.) once the wound has cleansed and granulation has
started.
Numerous in-vitro studies demonstrate individual pharmacological actions of
Calendula (for a review, see Isaac, 1992; for most recent findings, della Loggia, 1994), though on their own these do not
reflect its clinical importance. According to Weiss,1988, Calendula is a gentle
herbal medicine, but it will certainly also serve in the treatment of serious
conditions that will hardly respond to the usual medication or where the latter
carry serious risks. Extensive investigations (Isaac, 1992), as well as
long-term practical experience with the use of this plant in humans confirm the
absence of toxic and mutagenic risks. Another important point is that the plant
is not an allergen (Schneider et al., 1991), for unlike some other members of
the family it does not contain sesquiterpene
lactones. ‡
Vorwort/Suchen Zeichen/Abkürzungen Impressum