Peace Diaries Workspace

V. UKRAINE
	Chapter 6: Donetsk, Ukraine Specialized School 115 Teachers: Lydia Ni Bondarenko, Irene Ni Krupka, Tatyana Ev Rezanova

	Alexander K. There are many medicines herbs for healing us and our world. It is important to know about the herbs that are right near us. There are many legends about herbs. I would like to tell you about one of them. It is watermelon. Everybody likes to eat watermelon. If you don’t eat watermelon I advise you to do it. My legend was told everybody in our family by each of our grandfather’s. Once a tsar had a son who had been ill since his childhood. And nobody could identify the boy’s illness. Time was flying. The boy got worse, at the age of eighteen he died. He called out all the doctors to diagnose the illness and the reason of the death. It was investigated that the boy’s heart had a horn inside it and which was growing together with the heart. After his son’s death the tsar ordered to cut off the horn and to make the handle to his knife to remind him about his son. One summer day the tsar was cutting a watermelon with that special knife. Suddenly the handle had been dissolved. He realized, the medicine his son had needed was in the watermelon. But as it turned out the horn was just a stone. The watermelon’s juice can dissolve stones.
	Alexey Z. I want to treat people and I’ll do it. I began to gather herbs early in my childhood. It was my Mom who taught me to do it. She told me where and when it is better to gather healing plants. She also told me when and for what purpose I can use each plant. For instance, thyme is better to gather in summer especially in July and August, because it is the time of its blossom. You should be very careful not to damage it. It heals you when you catch a cold. Coltsfoot should be gathered in May not far from ravines as it grows mostly near them. Plantain can be found practically everywhere along the roads. It will cure your wounds. You should also mind that to make herbs dried is a special procedure. For this they need as much air as possible but quite little light. Plants can not only cure you, they may give you a lot of pleasure. Once my grandfather taught me how to cook a very delicious and curing tea from different plants and berries, including currants, cherries and grapes. This tea is of a special golden colour and is very useful for your health. I feel like being tied to the land and I’d love to work being very close for the land. I’m hoping to connect my future career with it.
	Marie T. For two years running I was staying with my aunt in the town of Kirov, in the summer time. Taking a Russian steam bath is one of the favourite past times for the local people. The switch of green birch twigs is the symbol of the Russian steam bath. Russian people say: "In the bath a besom is dearer than money" and "The besom in bath is the Boss for all." I prefer the switch of green birch twigs. Beforehand it should be steamed. It exudes essential oils and other healing substances, favourably influencing the people’s skin. My mom and aunt love nettle besoms, because their joints hurt. After such biting massage you’ll have read spots on your skin but don’t mind them, they will disappear very soon but be sure to improve your blood circulation that will help you not to notice the spots. My uncle’s favorite besom is that made of eucalyptus. Small in size, with solid uninfluenced by time and steam, with dark green leaves, it heals bronchi, lungs and help to cure your wounds and skin diseases. My aunt’s neighbors are from Siberia and they are real experts in besoms. The use besoms of pine needles. This is the top of pleasure. It was they who taught me how to store besoms. It is better to do it in the early July or in the middle of it. The birch leaves at this time are juicy, solid, smelly and especially rich in healing qualities. It is necessary to do it in a dry weather. Otherwise the leaves will became dark and will fall down. You should cut down thin, elastic branches. I have been remembering the bath days in Kirov for all the year.
	Natalia R. It is a well-known fact that the evening on January 19th is magic because God himself presents us with the remedy possessing the unbelievable force, the water without which life can not be on the Earth. This water possesses special characteristics as it is sanctified by the Lord. That is why it is mysterious and of course healing. In the early morning my mother prepares special containers fills them with water and carefully brings it to the balcony nearer to the center of the events. Sometimes it seems to me that in my mother’s hands there is not a jar with water but a crystal vase or Venetian glass. And when my mother brings the christened water in, her eyes shine with a mysterious joy and energy and I see that she is happy at this moment! I get inspired with this atmosphere and begin to believe that this tasteless, colourless liquid will save us from the evil eye and evil spirit only one should wash oneself with it or take a sip of it. This water can clear your house from negative energy, only drop the walls of your house with it, trust the power of the house, it is great. After that the most interesting thing begins. The water from the open reservoirs goes to our flat being christened and we wash ourselves, splash and swash each other with it realizing that we many cure ourselves in such way. Then for all the year we use this remedy, it is always near us reliable, free of charge, tested by centuries.
	Victoria N. Our family has a tradition. Every New Year at five minutes to twelve p.m. we put a candle to each corner of our rooms. So there are four candles in each room. Each of them means an element. A blue candle means the element of water, a red one — the element of fire, a green one — the element of the Earth, a white candle means the element of air. There are four persons in our family, they are: my mother, father, my brother and me, so everybody has got his or her own element. We light the candles and everybody stands near his or her candle and thinks of a wish. But wishes must be kind, not evil, without any envy to other person and must be used for good purposes. If any wish is bad, all the four elements with all their powers will come down upon the person and no wishes of the man will come true. After that you should blow out all the candles in a definite order. But I can’t say in which order, it is our family’s sacred secret.