“Living Remedies” and Living Well

What are “Living Remedies”? And for that matter what is life, exactly?   Professionals and ordinary folk have debated this question for centuries.  I would like, today, to share with you some things I began to ponder on years ago when I first read the book, The Chemistry of Essential Oils Made Simple, by Dr. David Stewart.  This book is a wonderful treatise on the chemistry of essential oils.  However, it is so much more than a science book!

An additional part of this book’s title reads God’s Love Manifest in Molecules.  This addition to the title explains a great deal about the focus of this tremendous book.  It also says quite a bit about the author.  Dr. Stewart is both a scientist and a man of religious faith and upbringing.  His book, simple though he considers it, makes a fascinating – though a rather intense read – from a scientific point of view.  It is also a wonderful treatise on life, essential oils, education, and the ability of the human body to heal itself if it is given the right assistance.

In this article, I want to summarize – and expand on in my own way – Dr. Stewart’s explanation of the differences between living things and inanimate objects as these differences apply to herbal remedies, essential oils, and health in body and mind.

Organic (as in Organic Chemistry)

Compounds created by the natural processes of life was the study undertaken by the discipline referred to, originally, as Organic Chemistry.  As you most likely already know, the word organic has come to mean something very different today.  Today, this term most often refers to plants and products supposedly grown without the application of man-made, laboratory-produced chemicals.  While this distinction is important, I would like us to look at the words organic and natural in a different, more relevant to life on earth, way for a few moments.

The Latin root of the word “organic” is organum.  The meaning of  organum is “to organize.”  The inherent ability to organize is a key part of what makes living remedies (herbs, essential oils, etc.) – as opposed to laboratory-produced, non-living compounds (drugs, etc.) – such amazing and potent healers.  This ability to organize, balance and, therefore, bring about healing is what I want to discuss today.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics

This law states that “natural processes . . . will always tend toward greater degrees of disorder.”   We, as mortal beings, do age and deteriorate eventually.  That is certain.  However, we certainly do not function in the same way that inanimate objects do.  As living beings, we (as well as the plants and animals around us) can take the disorganized and give it both better form and more beneficial functions.  Our bodies, like that of other living things, can take in a chaotic mix of molecules – the food we eat, for example – and organize them into the structures and functions of our wonderfully amazing bodily processes.  This is organization in its highest form, this is intelligence!  This is life!

Living things use their vibrational energy and their chemical make-up to better organize their environment.  They do this both internally and externally.  The words life and light are often used synonymously in Scripture.

Animate and Inanimate Objects

Let’s consider – as Dr. Stewart does – the differences between living things and inanimate objects.  Let’s do this by comparing our amazing living bodies to an inanimate object like an automobile.

Our Amazing Bodies

What do we put into our bodies on an average day?  We breathe in the basic molecular components of air laced with a whole lot of other molecules, both good and bad for us.  We also ingest a variety of foods and drink a variety of liquids.  On occasion, we even ingest things that we know are not good for us.  Nevertheless, we can count on the intelligence – the life and light – the exists within us to organize this mixture of molecules.  Our bodies take what we have given them and use it to sustain life.  In addition, our bodies use this mass of molecules to heal and nourish organs and structures that are necessary for the functions necessary to living every day.  We grow from childhood into adolescence and then into adulthood.  We can learn and retain information, understand cause and effect, and make rational decisions.

An Automobile

Let’s compare that to an automobile.  Can we feed all sorts of solids, liquids, and gasses into a car’s fuel tank and air filter and expect the car to sort everything into its proper place?  Will the car create lubricating oils?  Will it put these oils where there are bearings in need of them?  Can a car, even one well-fed car with the best gasoline, produce its own coolant for the radiator or cleaning fluid for the windshield washers?  Will there be battery acid, brake fluid when needed?  Can we expect to find power to the engine or electricity to the head and taillights?  Can a non-living thing like a car fix scratches in its covering coats of paint?  Will it fix dents or repair parts that might be broken?

Of course not!  Inanimate things possess none of the ” intelligent organizing consciousness” that is a part of all living things and living remedies.  Non-living things have no life force by whatever name you chose to call such a thing.

Life Force

Inanimate objects like automobiles follow the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  After manufacture, they immediately begin to disintegrate.  They rust.  Their paint fades.  Eventually, they cease to function altogether.  In the scrapyard, they slowly decompose back into basic elements.  They lose form and structure.  Eventually, they decompose into the molecules of air, water, and earth.

When the living spirit, our life force, departs from our bodies at death, our bodies behave in much the same way as the molecules of a motor vehicle.  A human body, devoid of the “breath of life” must obey the same laws of thermodynamics as all other inanimate objects do!  On the other hand, if the body is occupied by living spirit-matter – an organizational force – it obeys a different law.  It is not subject in the same way or to the same degree as inanimate objects to natural laws of increasing disorder and chaos.

There is so much more that I could say on this topic.  I hope I have you thinking just a bit.  Are you asking yourself what all of this has to do with “natural” healing modalities and substances?

Definitions and Labels

Organic chemists and other scientists realized, quite quickly, that carbon is the basis of all compounds created by living processes in nature.  So, instead of Organic Chemistry remaining the study of “living processes,” it became the study of carbon compounds.  This is important so I am going to say it again in just a minute.  Scientists have gained a great deal of understanding about molecular structure.  They have even learned how to manipulate molecules and molecular structures.

Today, Organic Chemistry is defined as “the study of carbon compounds.”  This is true whether the compounds being studied are produced naturally in nature or have been constructed – even invented – in a laboratory.  This is the referral system used by scientists today.  If it has carbon compounds, whether naturally or synthetically produced, it can be called – and labeled – as natural.

Today, we have thousands of carbon compounds that have been created in laboratories.  Their creation had absolutely nothing to do with the natural processes of life and living organisms.  Yet, because they contain carbon compounds and are being studied by organic chemists, they can be – and often are – referred to as “organic.”  Petrochemicals, as destructive as they are, fit as “organic” under this definition.  Petrochemicals are hydrocarbons that come about or are derived from crude oil or petroleum.

Pesticides, herbicides, and a great many chemicals to which we are exposed every day are carbon compounds.  By the chemist’s definition, as well as by too many labeling laws, these toxic chemicals are, therefore, “organic.”

Consumer, Beware!

This ambiguity of terminology can create problems for even the most “label-conscious” consumer.    Most of us assume that a product labeled “organic” is also “natural”.  We assume that it “grew” in sunlight and soil.  We even assume, more likely than not, that it grew without toxic chemicals.   Perhaps, we are right.  But there are no guarantees, in today’s competitive markets, that this is true.

As consumers, we are beginning to realize that not everything labeled “organic” or “natural” was “grown” at all.   We are even beginning to understand that even some “health food store” products were actually engineered and produced in a laboratory or in a factory assembly line of some sort, no matter if the label and/or advertising say “natural” or “organic.”

“Organic,” unless specified and defined by law, is a very ambiguous term.  Even when defined by law as has been done for some products in recent years in the United States, the term is only as informative as the enforcement of those laws guarantees.  And “natural” can refer to ingredients that were totally and completely manufactured in a laboratory.  Labs can – and do – manipulate molecules to imitate flavors, colors, fragrances, and aromas.  Yet, there are no established standards or organic certification for essential oils in the United States.

Why does this matter?

CHEMISTRY, the chemical composition of a substance, DOES NOT completely describe either the therapeutic and/or nutritional properties of a substance.  Substances produced in a laboratory through the manipulation of molecules do not contain the vitality and life force found in compounds when they are produced in nature.  Please read the preceding sentence again!

In the next three paragraphs (and one heading) I am quoting Dr. Stewart’s book exactly.  His words are italicized.  Bolding and parentheses are my own addition.  I make use of them where I want you to pay attention to the point being made.

Two compounds with the same chemical formula and molecular structure, one from a laboratory and one created by nature, may be chemically identical but are therapeutically different.  What scientists create and what God creates have different spiritual templates and different subtle energies.  Chemical formulas alone do not completely describe a compound.  This is crucially important when it comes to essential oils that are intended to be used for healing.

Why Natural Oils Heal and Synthetic Ones Don’t

When we use therapeutic grade (really natural) essential oils they manifest an ability to organize.  They can bring healthy order to a confused and sick organ, tissue, or person, dispelling disease and restoring balance to our systems.  This organizing power is what the term “organic” originally meant.  Order is harmony.  Health is harmony.  Disorder is disharmony.  Sickness is when our bodies or minds are in disharmony or out of resonance with truth. 

The power to bring order to disorganized systems in our bodies on the part of an essential oil is evidence of the intelligence, vitality, and life force with which the oil was imbued when it was fashioned in the living plant.  Just as life processes do not behave according to the law of entropy, which brings disorder, neither do essential oils.

By contrast, such harmonizing powers are absent from oils created synthetically and are greatly reduced in natural oils adulterated with synthetic ingredients or diluted with petrochemicals.  Artificial oils follow the natural law of entropy, the law of increasing disorder.  That is why they lack the healing powers manifested in pure therapeutic grade essential oils.

“Organic” Essential Oils

It is illegal to claim an organic certification that doesn’t exist!   Some countries other than the United States do have organic certifications for essential oils.  They are producing some truly wonderful oils.  Sometimes, however, a wild-crafted oil is of better quality than an organic one.  Many times, an oil produced in a country that does not have organic certification standards but where the producers are not using chemical fertilizers as part of their growing procedures, produce the very best quality oil available that year.   It is, truly, all about the subtle organizing energy of the essential oil.  It is not about the word, or the definition of, “organic.”

The only definition of “organic” that really matters with essential oils must begin with the question, “Does this oil help my cellular structure and emotional patterns organize, harmonize, repair, and heal?  Essential oils that do this are “living remedies” and “energetically vibrant.”  However, if the essential oil I am relying on contains even a percentage of laboratory-produced “dead” molecules, it has lost much of its ability to assist me in my healing journey.

ALL the essential oils that you use should be “organic” in this sense of the word.  They should be vibrant and alive and can help you organize and heal on every level!

An essential oil company that has your health as its main concern carries ONLY this type of essential oil.  “Living” essential oils are their regular line.  They are sold at their regular prices.  Nothing else will be tolerated or passed on to their customers.  Butterfly Express, LLC, seeks for life-giving/life-organizing essential oils at all times!

Feeling the Energy of an Essential Oil

The energy of “living remedies” such as essential oils can be felt.  Even relative newcomers to the essential oil world feel this energy very quickly.  A truly healing essential oil, when you first smell it, travels right up the nose and can be felt – if you pay attention – in the head immediately.  From the head, the energy of the oil moves into the chest.  A laboratory essential oil, chemical rather than living in nature, will travel up the nose and feel as though it is lodging – a bit uncomfortably, I might add – right between the eyes.  With a little bit of experience, these sensations can be absolutely relied upon.  A fake feels like a fake!  The nose knows! Learn to trust your nose!  It can become more reliable and trustworthy than any test that looks for chemical composition alone.

On the Other Hand

Drugs!  Most drugs are completely man-made, laboratory engineered and produced.  Some may have originally been based on a plant but even those have been laboratory altered and copied by man-made compounds. These compounds contain no “living energy” at all.  They can mask pain.  Sometimes, drugs can even force a system to behave in a certain way.  However, they do not organize, harmonize, repair, or heal in any true energetic and living sense.

Gratitude

Not wanting to end on a negative drug-bashing note, I want to encourage you to use your essential oils with gratitude and thanksgiving.  Essential oils, the good ones, really are living remedies.  They feel your energy.  More importantly, they respond to your energy.  They will love to serve you as you learn to love them!

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