We're blessed with black mulberry trees in our messy, overgrown Northern Thai garden. Three of them. Black mulberries, Morus nigra, start out green, turn red in their immature state and are almost black when they are succulent and ripe. They're NOT to be confused with the Chinese white mulberry, Morus alba, which starts out white and turns a pinkish-purple when ripe.
The unripe fruit in our Thai garden looks like this right now:
Black mulberries are amazing natural medicine, of themselves. Primarily black mulberry regenerates blood, and corrects the function of the kidneys and spleen (the blood engine room). Black mulberries are also a rich source of the powerful antioxidant, resveratrol, which is found in red wine and lowers blood pressure, reduces risk of heart disease and is revered for its anti-aging properties. Rich in both protein and calcium, black mulberries are incredibly high in both iron and vitamin C, as well as a whole host of phytonutrients and flavenoids..
I have a sweet personal story about black mulberries and the natural intuitive healing of children, but first let me tell you a beautiful Greek mythological story about black mulberries which hails from Ovid and his Metamophoses.
Pyramos and Thisbe were young lovers from the Assyrian city of Babylon. Their families did not approve of the match and forbade them to see one another but the pair could not bear to be separated. And so they arranged for a secret tryst under the white mulberry tree, just outside the city gates. When Pyramos arrived, he saw a lion which had Thisbe's shawl in its huge mouth. Believing the lion to have devoured his beloved, he felt such loss and sorrow that he plunged a sword through his heart and took his own life. When Thisbe arrived, she was grief stricken to find her lover dead at the lion's feet, and so she picked up his blood-soaked sword and plunged it through her own heart, that she might walk with him in Paradise. Their blood soaked the earth and the mulberry tree drank it till it stained the berries almost black. And thus the lovers live on, each time a black mulberry stains your tongue till it looks like blood.
Chinese legend too, has stories about the 3 legged bird which holds the sun, and how it roosts in the branches of the mulberry tree.
But my favourite mulberry story comes from when my now 14 year old daughter was having her 6th birthday. She was in hospital, very sick with Dengue Fever and wanted nothing more than for her estranged father to visit her. He promised but didn't make it on her actual birthday. He turned up the next day to find his little girl with two IV lines - one into her leg for fluids and one into her bruised, swollen little arm transfusing my blood. She was on strict "NIL ORALLY" protocol as she had the hemorrhagic kind of Dengue and had been vomiting blood. I explained to her Thai father how she was strictly NOT allowed to eat anything, and why, and then left her in his care while I positively flew back to our nearby house for some clean clothes and a shower, having slept at the hospital alone 24/7 in the same clothes for almost 4 days. I came back 90 mins later to find Little Miss 6 feeling very poorly, having eaten the birthday cake he had sneaked in for her. He apologized and left, unsure why I was 'over-reacting', and then the vomiting started again: cake and a whole lot of old blood from her stomach. The Dr sedated Miss Ploi and gave her more IV anti-vomit meds. It was a tough 24 hours that followed, and I stayed by her side. When she eventually woke the following day, the raging fever had finally broken and she was able to weakly sit up. She said she was hungry and asked for mulberries!! They were - and remain - her favourites. And so instinctively, my little princess knew she needed a heck of a lot of iron and fresh vitamin C to nix the virus and start rebuilding her red blood cells. Her body knew exactly what it needed to heal! She ate bowls and bowls of them in the following days and made a full recovery. I still smile from my deepest heart when she eats mulberries now and sticks her tongue out cheekily to me - it looks like she has blood on her tongue. She always does it and I still always see my brave Little Miss 6, cheekily sticking out her red tongue, dwarfed by the big hospital bed, getting on with the business of getting and being well.
Looking forward to mulberry season which is imminent, and to stained fingers and stained tongues.
BlissednBlessed in my Thai natural world.
The post was prepared as part of @naturalmedicine's Medicine Stories Challenge: You can read the challenge post - and lodge your own entry! - Here.
