Fig or Fig Tree In Homeopathy - I Am Looking For Links and Informations

[tihana buterin]

Dear members,
I just came back from a place where figs are growing everywhere and I was wondering if this remedy exists in homeopathy. Actually, I was sure it exist, but I couldn't find real information on Google. Does anyone know more about it and can send me links and other information about it?
Many thanks,
Tihana

 

LINKS: Ficus religiosa

Ficus religiosa Neglected Remedy

[Marty Begin]

Hi Tihana

It may be serendipitous, but I just had a follow up today of Ficus religiosis, the first one, and she's had a great start. Referenceworks has 2 provings by Sutji Chatterji of FIcus r and Ficus i, with many other references and more fig species.

Guess you don't have referenceworks?
Would you like me to cut and paste some info. or tell you a bit about my case?

Were you in Greece?

[tihana buterin]

Hi Marty,
yes, please send me informations about all you can :)
I saw this ones (in Croatia):

I didn´t look and google before under the name ficus... wow! so many species!!

[Marty Begin]

Wow looks yummy. A mission fig right? Not sure of the species.

I love making fresh figs just like this one with a honey, red wine, balsamic vinegar reduction sauce next to some good quality vanilla ice cream.

Actually, if you don't have software you can find information on the Ficus r in Clarke, Boericke, and Murphy. There are a lot of species. I don't know/don't think Ficus religiosa produces really good fruit. That was what I used in my case.

My case involves a really sensitive women with palpitations and nausea. She has to really focus to not throw up. She thinks it started with getting parasites. First she had terrible diarrhea and vomiting. It's very distressing to her. There's a lot to the case, but a central feature that made me think of Ficus relig was how she goes into a kind of spiritual crisis. She says this: "I want to fulfill the promise of self-actualizing, but I have a lack of faith, I get mad at God, and a spiritual malaise is tough to deal with. You have your conditioning or history, or you could open up to your destiny: why am I here? Who am I?"

She felt like her mother never loved her or wanted her and has a cold nature, but at 61, she weeps about her duty to her.

In the proving we see things around the rejection by the mother, and family (see below)
Its a very Siddartha like dilemma/story, and this is the tree he was enlightened under to become the Buddha. Her spiritual path has to do with this: There's a loss of identity or ego as an unwanted child, so she needs to find who she is. She has to surrender the ego to find her path to enlightenment, but then that sets her up to feel abandoned so she must surrrender, but she can't.

After 4 weeks of a 200C she feels much calmer, is able to let go more, less anger at God, and her nausea has reduced. There's more that indicates she's got a good start.

Here's the natural history:
The Bodhi Tree - Ficus religiosa
Ficus religiosa is a variety of Fig tree that was already known as the Bodhi tree, even before Gautama Buddha sat under its branches meditating and achieved enlightenment. It is a sacred tree to both Hindus as well as Buddhists. It is the oldest depicted tree in Indian art and literature and it can be said that this is the mythical 'World Tree' or the 'Tree Of Life' of the Indian subcontinent

Common names
Bodhi tree, Bo tree, Peepal, Beepul tree, Pipal, Pipalla, Sacred tree, Ashwattha, Ashvattha, Sacred Fig, Buddha tree. Since there are many different languages on the Asian sub-continent, this tree has a huge number of common names, too numerous to mention here.

Some examples follow:
Gujrati: Jari, Pipers, Pipal
Hindi: Pipal, Pipali
Kanarese: Arani, Ashwatha mara, Pippala, Ragi
Marathi: Pimpal
Sanskrit: Ashvatha, Bodhidruma, Pippala, Shuchidruma, Vrikshraj, yajnika

Nomenclature
'Ficus' is the latin word for 'Fig', the fruit of the tree.
'Religiosa' refers to 'religion', because the tree is sacred in both Hinduism and Buddhism and is very frequently planted in temples and shrines of both faiths.

'Bodhi' or its short form 'Bo' means 'supreme knowledge' or 'awakening' in the old Indian languages.

'Pipal' relates to the same ancient roots which give rise to English words like 'Pip' and 'Apple', and therefore mean something like 'fruit-bearing tree'.

'Ashwattha' and 'Ashvattha' come from an ancient Indian root word "Shwa" means 'morning' or 'tomorrow'. This refers to the fact that Ashwattha is the mythical Hindu world tree, both indestructible and yet ever-changing: the same tree will not be there tomorrow.

Description:
A medium sized tree with a relatively short trunk (often about the height of human being) and a large crown with wonderful wide spreading branches. The tree is semi or fully deciduous in monsoon climates. It becomes leafless for a brief period in dry habitats.
The trunk has smooth grey bark and with age this trunk becomes irregularly shaped, fluted and often has low buttresses. The bark can have brownish specks and peel off in irregular rounded flakes.

The young tree can be epiphytic. (Epiphytic plants can have aerial roots and do not require soil to grow. This strategy gives young plants many advantages such as plenty of light. Water is obtained mostly via air humidity. Nutrients, such as nitrogen, are also derived from the air and occasionally from decomposing matter such as leaves and dead insects. The roots seek out cracks and crevices where soil, water and rotting organic matter accumulate. In natural circumstances most epiphytic plants may be attached to tree bark, as something to hold on to, but not in any way feeding off the tree. This is probably because the seeds have been excreted by birds who visited this tree. Rocks or buildings are other places the young plants may be found. Once the roots reach the ground they switch over to growing as normal trees.)

Botanical Family
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Urticales
Family: Moraceae
Genus: Ficus

Habitat
Ficus religiosa is known to be a native Indian tree, and thought to be originating mainly in Northern and Eastern India, where it widely found in uplands and plane areas and grows up to about 1650 meters or 5000 ft in the mountainous areas.

It is also found growing elsewhere in India and throughout the subcontinent and southern Asia, especially in Buddhist countries, wild or cultivated. It is a familiar sight in Hindu temples, Buddhist monasteries and shrines, villages and at roadsides. People also like to grow this sacred tree in their gardens. Ficus religiosa has also been widely planted in many hot countries all over the world from South Africa to Hawaii and Florida, but it is not able to naturalise away from its Indian home.

Method of preparation:
Some portion of the branch of Pipal tree along with sticky milky secretion was kept in alcohol for 7 days to get the mother tincture. Then one drop of this was added to 10 ml. of alcohol and given 1 successions to get the 1K potency (Korsekoff's). Further potencies were prepared in the same bottle using 10 ml. of distilled water for the potencies not required and 10 ml of alcohol for the required potencies.

Here's the last part of proving that has most of the summary:

Common Themes
Main sensation and polarities are:-
1) Moving backward and going forward.
2) Losing contact (lost someone forever, separating from family, friends) and Meeting friends.
3) Shunning and getting together.
4) Doing something for others and useless feeling.
5) Attached and broken.
6) Friendship and alone.

Some more common themes :-
(a) Friendless feeling :- In reality prover G missed a special friend and had desire to be with friend with whom she could share her emotions and feelings. Though the fact was that she was being given a good company by her younger sister, still she wanted to leave her practice and go to the friend whom she missed badly.

(b) Desire to meet old, real, special friends : (In this proving, I was surprised by the fact that each and every prover had dreams of meeting old friends). If we put it into the repertory, "Desire to be with old friends" should be a five mark symptom under peepal.

(c) Intense fear of Ghost and darkness : Again if we put it under rubric, peepal should be given 3-4 marks Majority of provers had it.

(d) Strong fear of accidents and death :

(e) Helping and serving others : (Which we were thinking as tenacity but actually we had lot of space for others). Prover B wanted and give slates to the poor children in a locality where he is practising homoeopathy. Prover H gave chance to all the young homoeopath who wanted to be with me to gain homoeopathic experience.

Prover (D) wanted to serve the people through homoeopathy. About it, Dr, Jayesh, Sunil and Dr, Nandita say it is a feeling of serving the mother substance i.e. we got many things from homoeopathy so we must serve homoeopathy.

For prover (H) have achieved many things from homoeopathy so I must serve homoeopathy. If we put it into rubric, it will be an additional rubric because it is not benevolence or sympathetic feeling. It is special way of serving.

(f) Death of Parents and relatives : Prover K had dreams of death of parents and her grief was so intense that in reality, she had high fever after this dream. She was so shocked; she couldn't tell it to anybody - even her brother and sister. As an experienced homoeopath, I could make out something wrong with her and she was forced to tell me after lot of probing. It can be a remedy for silent grief.

Prover E had again dreams of death of parents and she couldn't utter a single word for 10-15 minutes after the dream.

Prover C had a dream of death of brother while mentioning, she also wept and could not express it initially though grief was intense.

(g) Theme of Mother :
Prover C in her dream of death of brother was highly concerned about her mother. I.e. how her mother will be able to bear this intense loss.

Prover E in her dream of death of parents cried when she heard about death of mother. But she did not cry at the death of her father in the dream.

Prover H in reality had severe bursitis and intense pain and because of pain he couldn't sleep a single minute, at mid-night, he remembered his lost mother and wept and to his surprise pain decreased very much after that. In reality, his step mother is excellent, so he never misses his real mother. For the first time he was in touch with his mother. The opposite poles also were seen clearly i.e. indifference to mother.

Prover D had indifference towards mother though she was sick.

Prover E had also indifference towards mother who was also sick.

Prover F and prover G - had quarrels with mother. According to Jeremy sherr, the stem of ficus secretes a milky white substance from which the medicine was prepared. The white milky substance represents the milk which represents mother.

(h) Religious feeling :
Prover G who was not religious had a dream of temple without an idol of God and a very peaceful and nice feeling. And in reality, she wanted to watch a religious serial which she never used to watch before and still continues watching it.

Prover H had a very happy feeling when Lord Krishna came out of a photograph and said him "hi."

Prover E had dreams of Goddess.
(i) Superstitious : Prover H had a dream of serving food and did not tell it to others because felt some harm would happen to family.
(j) Guilt : After indifference to mother.
(k) Lack of confidence/Increase in confidence :
Two provers started their own clinics.
(l) Irritability and abusiveness.
(m) Dreams of white snakes. (Some one interpreted as higher consciousness)
(n) Few provers spoke about ancestors.

Rubrics
1 Desire to meet/meeting old friends
2 Losing contacts and separating from friends and family
3 Moving backward and forward (vital sensation)
4 Mother - concerned for
5 Guilt - in difference to mother from
6 Fever - grief from
7 Fever - from dream of death of parents.
8 Silent grief.
9 Serving
10 Superstitious
11 Fear of Ghost3
12 Fear of darkness3
13 Fear of accident
14 Fear of death
15 Dreams of dead relatives
16 Religiousness
17 Dreams of white snake
18 Delusion - legs are not going to support me.
19 Delusion - legs have become brittle and they would break off.
20 Grief ailments from
21 Abusive
22 Merged
23 Desire for company
24 Desire to be alone.

Another Ficus well represented in our materia medica is Ficus indica.
Here's some info from Murphy's Nature Mat Med:

FICUS INDICA
(Banyan Tree)
PHARMACY - fic-i. Ficus indica. Banyan tree. Vata. N. O. Moraceae. India. Tincture of the bark. Tincture of the hanging roots and buds.

CLINICAL - Colic. Diabetes. Diarrhea. Dyspepsia. Dysentery. Enteroptosis. Gonorrhea. Hematuria. Hemorrhages. Hemorrhoids. Leucorrhea. Nausea.

HOMEOPATHIC - The banyan tree is planted throughout India. It grows to a height of about a hundred feet and is a common roadside tree.
Ficus Indica has being used successfully in all kinds of hemorrhages. Pure red blood. It possesses greater anti-hemorrhagic properties than Ficus religiosa.
Hemorrhage from the throat or mouth. Dysentery and piles mixed with blood. Hemorrhage before evacuations. Acute or chronic bloody dysentery associated with great urging, colic and tenesmus (Merc-c.).
Diarrhea, with nausea. Feels as if bowels were settled down in lower abdomen. Enteroptosis with loose and frequent evacuations. Sick feeling in lower third of abdomen.
Copious hemorrhages during menses. Bloody leucorrhea. Nervous weakness due to seminal discharge. Gonorrhea and diabetes associated with burning sensation during urination and in hematuria.

COMMENTS - Proving by Dr. O. N. Banerjee, Calcutta, India, in the Homoeopathic Recorder, July, 1891.
Dr. O. N. Banerjee wrote "In June, 1888, while visiting a patient in the country I saw in the garden a large tree of the variety known as Ficus Indica. As the tree is considered sacred I regarded it and its branches, which were ladened with ripe, yellow fruit, with the greatest interest, and plucking one of the fruits, ate it upon an empty stomach.

"To my great astonishment there occurred one hour thereafter an unusual frequent desire to urinate, I did not relish my breakfast, there was loss of appetite and sour belching; in the afternoon the urine became phosphatic and I suffered from headache; in the evening I felt an itching of the thighs, heaviness of the head, dullness of the mind, and a burning heat over the body; there was but a scanty discharge of urine during the day.

"After gathering a large quantity of fruit I returned to Calcutta and made an alcoholic tincture thereof. This was distributed among nine provers and two drops of the mother tincture were taken every morning before breakfast for eight days.

"As a remedy it has been used successfully in every case presenting the following conditions: Frequent, at times unsatisfactory discharge of amber-colored or phosphatic urine with discharge of seminal fluid. Headache, heaviness of the head. Itching of the limbs. Thirst. Dyspepsia. Ill humor. Irregular stool. Disturbed sleep."

RELATIONS - Compare: (1) Merc. cor., Chin., Phos.
REFERENCES - Boericke. Ghose.

There's a lot of info to cut and paste.
You really should get Referenceworks. Its sold by KHA.
Have you been doing homeopathy for long?

[tihana buterin]

Many many thx! I think the fig from my picture is Ficus carica. I am still studying and the fact was I was not looking under the term "ficus" so I couldn´t find many informations - still there are so many species and I easily get confused. Also I never connected banyan tree to fig trees...!
Really a too huge topic to discuss here....Thx again that you took time! I think now some connections happend in my head :)
It is funny but last days similar symptoms occured by myself, can it be just because of being in the area of fig trees?? I had unexplainable fears and woke up one day with tears because I thought a dear person is dead.....!!

[Marty Begin]

Maybe you should take it!

At the very least, you might learn more about it personally.
At most, maybe it will be very healing for you.

[Dr. Ghanshyam Kalathia]

Very very informative post...

 

I had one case of acute panic attack which was clear very soon by fic-i. She had constant feeling that someone sitting on her chest and sensation of very heavy feeling. She responds these attacks with very very frightening way, so I prescribe the remedy Fic-i and she respond well, her panic attacks reduced very soon and gone withing three months and till today she is all right.

 

This is one more fig... Ficus macrophylla proved by Gray Alastair, ...very very interesting proving.

Ficus macrophylla

 

[Dr Dushyant Kamal Dhari]

Ficus Religiosa – A neglected hemorrhagic remedy.
Ficus religiosa

[Debby Bruck]

More information about the Cluster Fig and how to grow

CULTURE

Location: Figs require full sun all day to ripen palatable fruits. Trees become enormous, and will shade out anything growing beneath. Repeated pruning to control size causes loss of crop. The succulent trunk and branches are unusually sensitive to heat and sun damage, and should be whitewashed if particularly exposed. Roots are greedy, traveling far beyond the tree canopy. Figs are not a fruit tree for small places. The fine roots that invade garden beds, however, may be cut without loss to the tree. In areas with short (less than 120 days between frosts), cool summers, espalier trees against a south-facing, light-colored wall to take advantage of the reflected heat. In coastal climates, grow in the warmest location, against a sunny wall or in a heat trap. For container grown plants, replace most of the soil in the tub every three years and keep the sides of the tub shaded to prevent overheating in sunlight.
Irrigation: Young fig tees should be watered regularly until fully established. In dry western climates, water mature trees deeply at least every one or two weeks. Desert gardeners may have to water more frequently. Mulch the soil around the trees to conserve moisture. If a tree is not getting enough water, the leaves will turn yellow and drop. Also, drought-stressed trees will not produce fruit and are more susceptible to nematode damage. Recently planted trees are particularly susceptible to water deficits, often runt out, and die.

Pruning: Fig trees are productive with or without heavy pruning. It is essential only during the initial years. Trees should be trained according to use of fruit, such as a low crown for fresh-market figs. Since the crop is borne on terminals of previous year's wood, once the tree form is established, avoid heavy winter pruning, which causes loss of the following year's crop. It is better to prune immediately after the main crop is harvested, or with late-ripening cultivars, summer prune half the branches and prune the remainder the following summer. If radical pruning is done, whitewash the entire tree.

Fertilization: Regular fertilizing of figs is usually necessary only for potted trees or when they are grown on sands. Excess nitrogen encourages rank growth at the expense of fruit production, and the fruit that is produced often ripens improperly, if at all. As a general rule, fertilize fig trees if the branches grew less than a foot the previous year. Apply a total of 1/2 - 1 pound of actual nitrogen, divided into three or four applications beginning in late winter or early spring and ending in July.

Frost Protection: In borderline climates, figs can be grown out of doors if they are given frost protection. Brown Turkey, Brunswick and Blue Celeste cultivars are some of the best choices. Plant against a wall or structure which provides some heat by radiation. Or grow as a bush, pruning the trunk to near ground level at the end of the second year. Allow several stems to replace the trunk, and grow as you would a lilac. For further protection, erect a frame over the plant, covering and surrounding it with heavy carpet in winter. Keep the roots as dry as possible during winter, raising a berm to exclude melting snows during thaws. In northern climates, the fig is best grown as a tub or pot plant that can be brought into a warm location in winter and taken out again in spring. Dormant buds are more susceptible to freezing than wood. Freezing may also create a trunk without live buds; regrowth is possible only from roots.

Propagation: Fig plants are usual propagated by cuttings. Select foot-long pieces of dormant wood, less than 1 inch diameter, with two-year-old wood at base. One-year twigs with a heel of two-year branch at the base may also be used. Dip the cuttings in a rooting hormone and allow them to callus one week in a moist place at 50-60° F. Summer cuttings may also be made, but they do best if defoliated and winterized in a refrigeration for 2-3 weeks before potting. Leafy shoots require a mist bed. Particularly rare cultivars may be propagated on rootstocks, or older trees, topworked by whip, cleft or crown grafting, or chip or patch budding. Rooted cuttings should be planted in 22 to 30 feet squares, depending upon the capacity of the soil and the ultimate size of the tree. Keep roots moist until planted. Never transplant or disturb a young tree while it is starting new growth in spring, as this is likely to to kill it. Cut the tree back to 2 ft high upon planting and whitewash the trunk.

Pests and Diseases: Fig tree roots are a favorite food of gophers, who can easily kill a large plant. One passive method of control is to plant the tree in a large aviary wire basket. Deer are not particularly attracted to figs, but birds can cause a lot of damage to the fruit. Nematodes, particularly in sandy soils, attack roots, forming galls and stunting the trees. Mitadulid and Carpophilus dried fruit beetles can enter ripening fruit through the eye and cause damage by introducing fungi and rots. They frequently breed in fallen citrus fruits. Keep a clean orchard by destroy fallen fruits and do not grow near citrus trees. Euryphid mites cause little damage but are carriers of mosaic virus from infected to clean trees.

Mosaic virus, formerly considered benign, probably causes crop reduction. Symptoms resemble potassium deficiency--leaves are marbled with yellow spots, and the veins are light colored. Symptoms are often not apparent until the tree is older or when it becomes heat or water-stressed. Do not purchase infected trees and isolate those which show symptoms. Botrytis causes a blast of branch terminals, which dry out and turn charcoal-like. The attack usually starts from half-grown fruits damaged by the first frost of winter, then enters the main stem as a reddish expanding necrotic zone. The infection is generally self-controlling and stops in the spring. It can be prevented by removing mummies and frost damaged fruits as soon as they are observed. Fig canker is a bacterium which enters the trunk at damaged zones, causing necrosis and girdling and loss of branches. It usually starts at sunburned areas, so it is important to keep exposed branches whitewashed. Rhyzopus smut attacks ripened fruits on the tree, causing charcoal black coating inside the fruit, and is worst on cultivars with large, open eyes. Most ripe fruit losses are from Endosepsis (Fusarium) and Aspergillus rot which is introduced by insects, even pollinating wasps. The fruit appears to burst, or a ropy, mucus-like exudate drains from the eye, rendering the fruit are inedible. The best control is to destroy all crop for one year, apply diazinon granules beneath trees to eliminate insect vectors, and destroy adjacent wild trees. Penicillium fungus will attack dried fruits in storage but can be controlled by keeping them dry, or sulfuring before storage.

Harvest: Figs must be allowed to ripen fully on the tree before they are picked. They will not ripen if picked when immature. A ripe fruit will be slightly soft and starting to bend at the neck. Harvest the fruit gently to avoid bruising. Fresh figs do not keep well and can be stored in the refrigerator for only 2 - 3 days. Some fig varieties are delicious when dried. They take 4 - 5 days to dry in the sun and 10 -12 hours in a dehydrator. Dried figs can be stored for six to eight months.

Commercial potential: Because of losses in transport and short shelf life, figs are a high-value fruits of limited demand. The best outlet is direct sale at roadside or farmers markets, but do not permit handling of the fruit. Figs for shipping are collected daily just before they reach the fully ripe stage, but yield to a soft pressure, usually indicated by small cracks in the skin. They should be immediately refrigerated. For commerce, choose a cultivar that parts readily from the branch and does not tear the neck.

[Debby Bruck]

Wondering if WASPS play a part in the FIG proving.

Wasps also play a crucial role in ecosystems as specialist pollinators. The relationship between figs and fig wasps is arguably the most interdependent pollination symbiosis known to man. Without one another, neither the fig nor fig wasp can complete their life-cycle – a textbook example of co-evolution which is estimated to have been ongoing for at least 60m years. Figs are keystone species in tropical regions worldwide – their fruit supports the diets of at least 1,274 mammals and birds. The extinction of fig wasps would therefore be catastrophic in tropical ecosystems.

• http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/in-defence-of-wasps-wh...