Consider

Instead of seeing organic food as an expense, view it as an investment in your health and a donation towards a safer and better world.
— Source Unknown

After “a dark and stormy night” traveling last week, I woke with sinuses and lungs become mucus-generating machines. Thanks goodness I’d stockpiled a Costco-case of Kleenex. I’ve never had such tsunamis of, well, expectorant flooding from nose and throat. Goodness!

Meanwhile, swaddled in flannel and bundled beneath quilts, I searched Donna Cunningham’s Flower Remedies Handbook for a flower a short story character might plant. Mullein seemed a good choice because it’s for January birthdays and is believed to repel evil spirits. I read that “… monasteries grew it to keep negativity away and stuffed it in pillows to guard against nightmares.”

To make sure mullein looked like a flower this character would plant, I learned that–while way too tall–mullein contains “flavonoids and saponins with proven anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and antihypertensive properties.” Very Well Health also reports that mullein has traditionally been used for ear aches, healing burns and wounds and diarrhea as well as lung and respiratory problems like coughs and colds, asthma, hoarseness and bronchitis.

In “How Mullein Benefits Your Lungs,” the Cleveland Clinic writes that the plant [a member of the snap dragon family],