What the Spider Taught Me about Healing and Herbal Medicine

By Nathaniel Whitmore

The following is a confession, of sorts. Or, at least it is revealing, for it is a glimpse at my own sickness and my own healing process. It is also a mildly remarkable account of self-healing, containing a fair amount of information on medicinal herbs. Although I lack the space to discuss the herbs to practical detail, those who are students of herbalism should learn quite a bit by considering why I was taking the herbs that I did. Be warned that I exercise very little restraint in my criticism of unhealthy lifestyles, white sugar, and the like hereinafter.

This past July, I was bitten by a venomous creature- most likely a spider. The pain and other symptoms that I experienced at the bite location and throughout my body and mind were truly humbling. I was literally crippled by a creature that is so small that I did not even realize that I stepped by it or that it was perched on my ankle. In spite of my strong symptoms, I did not venture to any establishment of modern medicine, which would more than likely not be prepared to deal with a bite even if I was inclined to go. Instead, I took a dose of my own medicine. Which is, I believe, generally a good practice.

The following is a partial description of my experience and treatment, and an exploration into the healing experience. It is important to realize that healing is an experience, not merely the relief of symptoms. Medicine for healing can be quite different from medicine for symptomatic treatment.

Before I get started, though, a disclaimer: I am not recommending that anyone completely forgo modern medical care because of philosophical, spiritual, or other reasons. I have significant training as an herbalist and a healer, and my decision to treat myself was fairly well educated. I also did consult with various professionals during my healing process. Although, my discussions with doctors, herbalists, homeopaths, and shamans were all more-or-less informal, I did not go without guidance.

I would also like to clearly state a few things that I learned from my spider bite experience before I begin my story. Perhaps, while reading the article, these lessons will become clearer to you.

1. Sometimes it is important to use large doses of herbs. (I already knew this, but it was very much confirmed while I had venom and/or the strange effects of it in my body. This is a very important point.)
2. Sometimes a high dose of herbs has very noticeable side effects. (It seems that most people are generally quite cautious when using herbs, but this is an important point to make, especially to balance the previous one.)
3. Faith is not always easy.
4. Strict adherence to protocol can be very necessary. (It can also be less important, or even harmful.)
5. Care received while debilitated is very appreciated and helpful.
6. All experience is valuable.
7. Sickness is a teacher.
8. Sometimes we must prioritize. (Our health is very valuable. It is sometimes important to focus on our own personal healing, which can require attention on many different levels. If we don’t take care of ourselves, it will catch up to us. This is true for diseases that take years to be formed in the human body, such as heart disease, as well as for so-called accidents and spider bites and the like.)
9. Blueberry juice helps the medicine go down. (And is a powerful medicine itself. I don’t recommend a “spoonful of sugar.” In fact, one of my lessons is that sugar can be a very harmful substance.)

Those of you who know me and are aware of how much time I spend barefoot and in sandals might take notice that I made no mention of the importance of proper foot protection. Crazy or not, I still value my barefooted connection to the earth as an essential aspect of my well-being.

You might think that as an herbalist, I would have grabbed some Plantain (Plantago spp.) right away, but I waited almost three days after I was bit. The poultices were helpful, that was obvious, but they were too little, too late, and I was soon unable to walk. So I fasted. This was due to depleting my store of rolled oats and raisins and having nothing else that I could cook without standing for longer than I was able to stand. I did hop out to the garden (on one leg) to pick peas on a couple occasions, but it was quite tiring and increased the pain. I quickly gave up on fresh poultices because they demanded that I hop outside on one foot to pick the herbs.

I welcomed the lack of food. For one thing, since I was not moving much, I did not need many calories. Plus, I felt like my body needed to work on detoxing and might be able to do so best without the burden of digesting large, heavy, or regular meals. I eventually assisted the detoxing process with herbs, and eventually discovered that I needed large and frequent doses.

I used a lot of Echinacea (mostly Echinacea purpurea), both internally and externally. I used a lot of Dandelion root (Taraxacum officinalis). I used a large variety of herbs that could be found in my garden and around the farm, including Plantain, Purslane (Portulaca oleracea), and others. I dug into my store of homemade tinctures, using large amounts of Scullcap (Scutellaria laterifolia) and others and significant amounts of some lower dose herbs like Goldenseal (Hydrasis canadensis). I tinctured a small amount of Osha (Ligusticum porterii) that I had dried and quickly ran out. Amazingly, a friend of mine had just mailed some herbs from the Southwest to a mutual friend, so my Osha supply was renewed, and I received some other Navajo herbs that were labeled as treatment for spider bites. I am not sure of the identification of those herbs as they were labeled in Navaho, but I used them. The list goes on and on.

Normally, I enjoy taking tincture. As an herbalist, I am very interested in the flavor of plants, for their tastes indicate their medicinal uses. However, taking strong tasting herbs extracted into grain alcohol at a relatively high dose became a dreaded concept after a short while. It tasted very unpleasant, and I did not want to do it. I did realize that I needed to maintain the dosage, though, or I would quickly relapse. I began to use blueberry juice and other such high-antioxidant fruit juices. Although this was somewhat expensive, the juice made the tincture much easier to take. Plus it had the added benefit of the bioflavonoids, which are antioxidant and anti-inflammatory. I think the juice was just as medicinal as the herbs I was using (though the juice and the various herbs all have their specific virtues).

My suffering was a major lesson in compassion. Suddenly, I was in a position that many of my clients have been in – thinking that I needed to take herbs that my body did not really seem to want to swallow. I feel foolish that I neglected such a major point in the past, by not focusing on the flavor of the medicine. Taking tinctures with juice is a common recommendation, largely because of the taste, but I had normally only mentioned it briefly or not at all because generally I do not favor the use of fruit juices. Until I had to take several teaspoons of tincture five + times a day, I never disliked the experience of taking tincture. Now I sympathize with all the folks that I tried to get to take tinctured regularly, who did not like the flavor. Blueberry juice, by the way, has a strong, thick taste for a fruit juice- I think it works better for mixing with tincture than most of the common, more watery juices.

I also developed more compassion for those with debilitating diseases. Sickness can be life changing. When I was face to face with this truth, I realized how important health is. It is a funny thing that humans tend to take things like health for granted. How many people actually take the time to nourish their health? The amount of discipline required to follow through with the exercises and dietary changes that we “know” we should do seems to be unavailable to the average person. Why is this?

When health does become a priority, it often seems too late to take any measures other than those of modern medicine- too late for diet, too late for exercise, too late for prayer, too late for optimism, too late for herbs, too late for the body to simply take care if itself through the mechanisms of homeostasis. This reveals a profound lack of faith and a deep sense of fear. According to ancient knowledge, sickness is the result of separation from the life force. If we are unable to take care of ourselves, it reflects a deeply rooted laziness and lack of respect for life itself.

If we abuse and neglect our bodies, sickness is bound to show up in one form or another. Likewise, if we pollute the environment, the poison will come back to us and destroy our health. If we disrespect other living things, such as plants and animals, we find out that the various species play their role in the environment that sustains our very life. So, why the disrespect? Why the pollution (in our bodies and in our environment)? Surely, it is common to abhor suicide and murder, but is unhealthy living not a form of slow suicide? We go through great pains to remove drug dealers from the streets, lest they should influence our children, yet during major holidays and even trips to the bank, we undermine the health of our children with candy.

Well, perhaps there is a lack of understanding and awareness. Perhaps people really do not understand that donuts and hamburgers are not healthy. Perhaps people don’t really understand that white bread and white sugar lack vital nutrients. If this is the case, then why?

PART II

Health does become a priority when it is gone. In my case, I had to be crippled by a spider bite in order to slow down (it was the end of July, a very busy time of year for me). Then, I had to experience blatantly the benefit of healthy, wholesome food and the detriment of unhealthy food. Even small amounts of alcohol or sugar would leave me in pain. Bread would do the same. Nightshades also. (Nightshades are tomatoes, potatoes, and other plants in the same family.) Even now I find it difficult to completely avoid refined sugar, though its effects are obviously not good. Now that I have mostly recovered from the spider bite, I find it hard to take the time to cook and find myself eating foods from the cafeteria at work that are laced with white sugar. Christmas is an especially difficult time to avoid sugar. Even many items at the health food store are loaded with cane sugar.

It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the harmful effects of white sugar. If you suffer from any inflammatory condition, however, you would probably improve by avoiding it strictly. And, while we are on the subject, it is worthwhile to point out that type II diabetes is a very serious condition that results from the over consumption of refined sugar. This disease was essentially non-existent before the use of white flour and white sugar became common.

One more thing while we are on the subject of sugar- those who will not make brushing their teeth a priority will someday make going to the dentist a priority. It is a rare bird that can make health a priority while still healthy.

I was eventually at the point when I was making myself an herbal decoction daily. I would use some of the herbs listed above along with herbs like Burdock (Arctium spp.) and Codonopsis (Codonopsis pilosula) and the mushroom Artist’s Conk (Ganoderma applanatum). I used Reishi (Ganoderma tsuge) in tincture form and continued using the tinctures listed above and more. I had no choice but to make medicine a priority. One day, however, I took too much of some strong herbs which should have been taken in much smaller doses than I took them in. I took large doses because I was somewhat careless and because I felt a sore throat coming on. A friend who had been staying with me had a very bad sore throat, and when I felt the start of it, I knew I did not want to experience what she did. So it came about that in addition to my “normal” regimen, I took large doses of Black Cohosh (Actaea racemosa), Bupleurum (Bupleurum chinensis), and Wild Indigo (Baptisia tinctoria). I don’t know if it was one of these, or the combination, or what, but I quickly started feeling very strange. I felt as though I was getting the flu. I had a headache and nausea and fell asleep. I then woke up a short while later, relieved of both the flu-like symptoms and the sore throat.

“All things in moderation,” as they say. However, I have noticed that sometimes Echinacea is effective only when it is taken almost to the point of nausea. Generally, it is wise to avoid substances that create nausea, which is a very intuitive thing to do. However, it seems that sometimes it is important to take a large enough dose to produce a significant change, which can be right at the brink of too much. Anyway, I decided that I did not need too many more of those experiences and started to decrease my doses.

For the sake of space, I must end my story here. I consider my self-treatment as successful, though not quite complete- but perhaps that is one of the main lessons here: healing does not happen overnight; it is a process, a journey. I recently learned a little about what astrologers call the Age of Aquarius. It seems that we have just begun a new age and have left behind (almost) the Age of Pisces. The Age of Pisces was the “I believe” age, a time during which we developed belief in religion, medicine, science, and the like. The Age of Aquarius is said to be characterized by “I know.” This means that people are learning how to take care of themselves. In my opinion, healing must be an inward journey, for when it boils down to it, healing is about one’s relationship to life and to God.

This is what the spider taught me.

Nathaniel Whitmore practices herbal medicine and acupressure (shiatsu) at The Honesdale Wellness Center in Honesdale and at Sacred Spaces in Hollisterville. He can be reached at (570) 224-0264.

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