Playing With Pine
A little tidbit I shared on my Facebook and Instagram accounts
T'is the season of the pines.
'Pine' is commonly used to refer to pine, fir and spruce trees. While they all have similar properties, they are not the same species. Here’s a way to help you identify them.
Pines come in packages - usually 3 -5 needles poking out of one base.
Firs are friendly and flat - they aren’t pokey and their needles/leaves have a flat edges and don’t roll easily between your finger.
Spruce is spiky - ouch! Its needle tips will bite back, but the needles stalk is smooth and rolls easily in your fingers.
The Energetics of pine, firs and spruce - let’s call them all pines for ease.
Energetically, bitter and slightly pungent, pine is a wise, regulating herb. Both pine needles and resin are used medicinally. Pine resins are good at relieving pain, one of my grandfather’s chewed it as gum. For this blog we will focus on the needles.
Pines are neutral in temperature with both warming or cooling potential. It can be drying or moistening. It stimulates, restores and stabilizes the body. What a beautiful often overlooked herb. Their magic expands -
Clears phlegm, opens and clears the Lungs, bronchials, throat, sinuses, and relieves pain.
It resolves thick, viscous phlegm, opens the sinuses and improves breathing. Use it to bust up thick, sticky and dry phlegm. That’s not a contradiction - phlegm dry is a pattern where mucus has become so congealed -think of gravy drying up - that is solidifies and becomes chunky. Indigenous people have long used pine for asthma, pneumonia, sinus congestion, colds and coughs, and other bronchial and respiratory conditions.
Revives Yang and the adrenals
Pine helps revive collapsed Yang. This is a state in the body where you have either burnt the candle at both ends or been struck by a disease that wiped you out. We see it in post viral syndromes, chronic fatigue, and overworking. Pine restoring energy, improving circulation and sexual drive. Check out my When Yang Collapses course for a deeper dive.
Relieves nausea, vomiting and improves digestive vitality
Pine’s moving and stimulating nature frees up Liver Qi and Stomach Qi stagnation quelling sour regurgitation, swollen and painful abdomen and vomiting.
Relieves pain, fights infection, reduces inflammation, and promotes tissue repair
It clears and fights infections anywhere in the body.
It aids in injury recovery and tissue repair. You may find it in topicals - or make your own - for injury, sore muscles and wounds. The resin can be chewed as a gum and packed into wounds.
They are very high in vit C - a close second to rose hips and well above oj.
Use pine by adding needles to hot water for tea, infusing oil for cooking or topical use or infusing vodka for drinks.
Cheers
