Months ago, I picked and dried a bunch of plantain to make our own salve for chigger bites and other ailments. When the leaves were perfectly dry, I poured olive oil over them and let them soak in a quart jar.
The leaves were supposed to soak for about two weeks, but then I had no idea where the beeswax beads were to melt to make salve. So the plantain sat in the jar for months--until last week.
Having found the beeswax in the attic recently, I finally made the salve.
It is extremely simple. You just strain the leaves out of the olive oil and add about 1/3 the amount of beeswax as you have olive oil, and let the beeswax beads melt in the warm oil over a double burner pan or, in my case, on a wood stove.
I stirred the oil every so often until the last beeswax bead had melted.
Then I poured it all into little jars or containers. Right now, I'm using it for my thumbs and fingers which dry out dreadfully and crack after chemo, and am keeping it applied to the corners of my mouth and lips, too, that also tend to crack until they bleed after chemo. I'm so grateful for plantain salve that soothes chemo cracks and chigger bites.
I just wish there were a salve for broken hearts.
*************
Oh, Balm of Gilead, where do you hide?
There are hearts that are cracked and bleeding inside.
Where is the oil of love and of grace
To bind up the wounded in every dark place?
Oh, Balm of Gilead, let us now find
Your soothing comfort to calm soul and mind.
Flowing from Calvary, where pain met with love,
Soft as a feather from the wing of a dove.
Oh heart of God and sweet Gilead's balm,
Melt us and warm us until our hearts calm.
Comfort our sorrows, heal us today,
Sweet Balm of Gilead, come now to stay.
Anna Lucas
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