Mr. Tam Co’s group was used to taking medicine in the mountains, so even though they were vegetarians, they were thin, but climbing the mountain was unharmed. I shuffled behind. Where is the medicine? I climbed up and down. Seeing flower eyes, weak legs. Wanting to complain, but afraid of being kicked back, try to keep climbing. Kick after kick and then kick again. Interspersed in the rock are flat sands planted with clover. The drug is further away. It was almost lunch time, when the group had collected a pack of cigarettes each, I caught up with the group. I hesitantly walked over to take some pictures of people taking medicine. Hesitating every step for fear of long reptiles hiding under the leaves, hidden somewhere in the rock crevices. The more wild the place, the more drugs, the more potential wild animals contain venom. Those who take medicine follow the shadow of each branch of medicine growing in the rock jam, on the cliff to reach, uproot, remove the roots… Dust leads to the other, up and up again. Taking medicine is not easy. The journey of carrying heavy packs of cigarettes down the mountain was even more difficult. The steep stone slopes are slippery, and people are crawling along each rock crevice. When taking a lot of medicine, the whole group had to climb up and down carrying medicine three or four times a day on the narrow road. Uncle Ut Egypt, the leader of the group, wore a bandana and smiled with a crisp black smile: “What’s the point of coming here? We’ve been going to get medicine since we were biking. Pedal here from home for half a day, then climb the mountain to dig for medicine and then carry the medicine down the mountain. It takes a couple of days to get medicine for a couple of days. Then the medicine dwindled, had to go all the way to the island, to Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos. Many people have died from falling ill while taking medicine in the deep forest of poisonous water. But when you see drugs, you are greedy, so go ahead without fear of extremes.” Uncle Ut Egypt is trying to fly over Ba Doi Om mountain. Uncle Ut Egypt is more than sixty years old, good at picking bones for hire. People take the salary of five million, you take two million. Then he spent that money as the cost of going to herbal medicine to collect each medicine cart and distribute it to good doctors in the area. Extremely happy to help life. Seeing the drug ham is like a farmer having a successful crop. People like the group of Uncle Ut Egypt, Mr. Tam Co turn their own lives into the miraculously healthy arms of caring doctors. They replace the hard work of doctors in planting, tending or hunting for precious medicinal plants in places where there is miasma. They replace the doctor in danger to bring back the patients the quintessential medicine that heaven and earth worked hard to mold. During this trip, the group of men looking for medicinal herbs followed the silhouette of a winged tree. Let’s fly. They have no wings but they can fly. As long as the spores are able to settle, life is formed. Looking at each hour trying to lie in the rock, with thick root clusters, containing large tubers overflowing with medicinal resin, people wonder: “How does it live in the drought?”. Drought here, even the ancient trees with large long roots crawling deep in the ground are also bare and bare. At that time, each bunch of people trying to eat on the rocks turned their heads down in the burning sun and kept cherished in small streams of life. The stream of plastic gradually dries up with the water source. Mother’s body has long withered. Before it died, it exerted its last bit of strength to multiply countless spores. The spores hide in the dry body of the mother, lying there or blowing in the wind and then leaning against the cliff to wait. Sunny, then sunny, then more sunny. The germ of life is still waiting quietly. Humans eat plants and then the corpses eventually mix with the soil to grow plants. In plants there are people, in people there are plants. Each bunch of trying to wear a living cliff waits to live like this year after month. Medicinal plants themselves aspire to live, overcome hardships to live, not to flower and bear fruit, and finally to accumulate and store medicines… Living herbs spread somewhere in the mountains, in the middle of the forest, next to the lettuce leaves. Who knows the name of the drug, who knows the use. People just call it trash or worse, a weed. The herb has been smoldering in it so much sun and wind. How many pure minerals of the wind and sky country are received and retained in each herbal body. Yet when it comes to the pharmacy, in the hands of the user, the herbal slices are no longer worth the money. People easily collect hundreds of ladders of medicine, drink it and can’t throw it away. What is wrong with herbs? Every human body is a product of nature. Every drop of herb is every drop of pure nature. For or against it, it is also reversible in nature. No matter how rapidly society develops, it must realize that what nature creates to nurture each other is perfect. Plants that flower and bear fruit feed butterflies, while the caterpillars also cultivate fertilizer for flowers and fruits. Humans eat plants and then the corpses eventually mix with the soil to grow plants. In plants there are people, in people there are plants. The flow of minerals operates like the circulation of water through all life. Herbs, the species that live quietly like flying, like ginseng, such as octopus, sand species …, live not to accumulate essences for fruit but to put all the accumulated minerals year after year for the stems and leaves of tubers. roots. The older, the more concentrated the essence, the more seasoned the drug. Mr. Dien takes care of a medicinal herb garden of about 15 people with more than 20 varieties. The cinnamon tree has been sewn for eight years and is only as tall as a human head. Herbs are a treasure of heaven and earth. But it is precious only to those who belong to it. There was a teacher in the medicine profession who said, “In the fields, people call for herbs. In the hands of a physician, the plant becomes a single element.” But a few doctors can really turn plants into lingzhi. The ominous thing is that we are still plying our trade and praying for good luck and herbs. So drugstores are still rushing to collect drugs, medicinal plants are still being cut down and herbs are still the last place to cling when the disease has reached the final stage. Each herbal treatment becomes a black and red game of chance. We understand so little about herbs. Like the old saying we die on a pile of pills. We understand very little about herbs, so many doctors prescribe them inappropriately, but patients believe that the doctor tries to take them, making the condition worse. We abuse the source of herbs because simply walking out in the summer can fill a pot of medicine with a floating prescription. Both herbs and chemicals need dosages and procedures. Physicians who truly understand their profession and have a real work ethic will monitor the patient’s daily medication use, mastering each of the properties of herbal plants to prescribe and change prescriptions according to the disease’s condition. If not carefully monitored by conscientious physicians, herbs are poisonous. A good physician is a researcher who can understand the properties of herbs, describe the symptoms, listen to the feedback. A good doctor will recognize where the patient’s disorder comes from, and how to get rid of that root. After doing a lot of research to be able to speak clearly, to create confidence in the patient, the doctor gave his prescription fifty percent effective. When the body accepts, a little medicinal properties also make the disease calm down. When the body receives, one can drink cold water and still be healthy, let alone drink the quintessential herbal lines of heaven and earth. Human life lies in the core of the proverb “eat vegetables when hungry, take medicine when sick”. Medicines of the ancients were herbs. We understand too little about herbs to have no faith in herbs. Let’s be our own teachers to accompany the doctor in the path of healing by a benign path from herbs. Don’t let ambiguity push you into the arms of charlatans and don’t let ignorance blame herbs. Herbs are as fresh as the rain and wind of heaven and earth. Herbal equity between rich and poor, good and bad. Herbs are treasures. Let’s open another life because of the old saying. Understand and be at peace with herbs. Articles and photos: Vo Dieu Thanh

Lam Dong has suffered a lot of heavy rains these days, so that’s why the land of thousands of flowers is less brilliant. However, throughout the strip of land on Lam Vien plateau, many flowers are still blooming. To affirm to be worthy of the title “land of thousands of flowers”, so despite rain or wind, many flowers still show off their fragrance and bloom. Cherry blossom also contributes to help this land bloom all year round. Located in the premises of Bao Loc Silk and Silk Company (VIKOTEX), the cherry tree was planted by factory workers 20 years ago. Up to now, after nearly so many seasons for flowers, the cherry trees are still engrossed in silk, not only beautifying the landscape but also contributing to cleaning the air here. The scientific name is Cassia Javanica, a legume, native to Southeast Asia. In Vietnam, Muong Anh Dao is distributed mainly in the forests of the Central Highlands and the Southeast. Muong Anh Dao is called phoenix by the people of Lam Vien plateau. It is a woody, perennial tree with a maximum height of about 20 m. It is a compound tree with broad umbrella-shaped leaves and gray-brown bark. Cherry Blossoms bloom in clusters, 15 cm long or more. Flowers bright pink, stamens 10, not equal. According to the security guard of the company VIKOTEX, many tourists passing by stopped to ask to take pictures of the cherry trees on the premises of this company. Despite the heavy rains that hit the wide and luxuriant flower canopy, for nearly 2 months, this cherry tree is still fresh and pink, still blooming in its own way. The cherry trees have become familiar to the people of Bao Loc city every summer.

Artwork / INT

New sunshine resounded in me a region of distant childhood memories in my beloved hometown. The internal shadow suddenly appeared in the nostalgia that was deeply embedded in the subconscious, just a light touch was sobbing and tearing.

Every time the sun dances, cheers filled the yard, he brought blankets and cold clothes to wash, filled with clothesline, hedge. The vibrant colors of the floral blouses and fragrant soap invite bees and butterflies to fly home.

The paternal body is undulating, undulating, white hat, algae like many women from my hometown. In love, his daughter-in-law struggled in the field early into the night, so she took all the housework to go home. Grandpa was excited and cheerful, so he praised the new sun, but it was golden and fragrant, but he did not let my sisters run and jump in the sun.

I wondered that while my grandfather chewed betel nut, he said “if children do not adapt in time, they easily get heatstroke and headaches”. The Cabinet only allowed us to clean and scrub every corner of the three-room tiled house. The windows that were closed during the monsoon season were suddenly opened to welcome new sunshine into the house like welcoming guests for a long time.

As the grandchildren cleaned up the house one day, the whole house was lit up and had a strange smell. Looking through the window, a clear sky appeared before my eyes. I spread my small hands through the bars to catch the sun. I wish I could fly up like a chili dragonfly out there.

At the end of the day, the cabinet picks all kinds of grass leaves available in the home garden from basil, amnesty, grapefruit leaves, betel grass to bamboo leaves, chrysanthemum … boil a pot of fragrant water to bathe and scrub the children. I splashed the perfume on my face and on my body while inhaling the rich scent, questioning it.

How pleasant and refreshing, it feels like I have been emptied of the dust that has accumulated for days to become pure and pure. My hair is black, shiny, and always in the country thanks to her loving, caring hands.

But then, the new sunny seasons on that childhood day only flicker in nostalgia and are replaced by distant dreams. I left my hometown to do floods, goodbye to the laborious fields of rice and potatoes to go to school in the prosperous city, carrying my own beliefs and hopes for a “life change”.

The chaos and chaos, the hustle and bustle have taken up all the time to return to my hometown. The fascinating fun, the full bustle has kept me from staying in the flashy city. The four seasons passed like a passerby.

I happen to be in front of the changing seasons. I am indifferent before every new sunny season. I forgot the whole pot of water with fragrant leaves in the garden. Only when my mother called to urgently say, “Go home, baby, my grandfather is seriously ill”, I startled.

I returned, rushing into the inner bed like a wind. Holding my bony hand, my gut and intestines tighten. Noi goes as fast as the end of the day. The inner realm of purity, lightness like a fairy left a painful feeling in me.

Thank you very much in the following seasons, no longer paternal grandpa! But since then I always come back, sitting on the steps of the house waiting for the sun, watching the figure of my mother drying clothes and remembering the inner year. Outside, the new sun is burning …