Today’s blog article is going to be a bit different from what I often write, for three reasons: A) It is a clear example of how the spirit world can impact the physical world, B) It is a story of one way God answered prayer for healing, and C) It involves both our animals – our cat and our horse, and herbal knowledge.
As a born-again, Holy Spirit-filled Christian raised from my childhood as a Spiritual Warrior, the scenario that presented itself was immediately pegged to demonic attack with all the earmarks I’ve seen and dealt with in the past. As old as our enemy is, they are not known for a terribly wide range of tricks in their bag. There is always something that gives them away and this situation began no differently.
Side Note: If you are a believer and unsure about your role in the battle between good and evil, you can buy my workbook: Spiritual Warfare 101, which will walk you through 7 topics as outlined by Ephesians 6, with at least 30 supporting Scriptures per topic and room for you to answer each topic’s question about those verses. If you are in Canada and wanting to purchase, let me know, because I need to move it over to Lulu from Barnes & Noble and this can be done sooner than later if you are wanting to have it shipped to Canada.
The day the attack occurred turned out to be one of our better craft fairs that we’d attended so far this summer (2024). We made a decent number of sales that day of both bags of tea and reusable tea bags, with a couple of cups of tea thrown in for good measure. We had some really fun conversations throughout the day as well.
One conversation was with a lady who had just gotten her RMT training, and she got fascinated with Ashley’s logo for Ashtree Wildcrafting. This woman is the first person to actually realize the symbolism Ashley wove into it, and correctly identify most of it except one. It allowed us to engage in a bit of light witnessing, pointing to Christ, and His love as what sustains us.
However, it would appear that this encounter was not without foreknowledge by the spirit realm, as suddenly several preceding events made sense in a dark fashion, particularly after what we encountered at the barn after we packed up and left the fair. Ashley’s horse suffered a very bad laceration of the type suggesting she was knifed in her elbow! The cut was a bit jagged, but there with no dirt, pebbles, bits of wood, grass or anything else to suggest she may have done it to herself, and we scoured the paddock for any sharp rocks with signs of blood on them and found none. The electric wire keepers are a design that is rounded, not pokey, so she wouldn’t have reared and landed on those to cause the damage. It was a full inch tall, 2 inches wide, and at least a good centimetre deep, but discovering that depth caused it to bleed again.
I laid hands on her and prayed outloud for God’s protection over her and for speedy recovery, that if this was a spiritual attack, that warring angels would stand guard over her as a ward of our care, to prevent further attacks.
When we assessed the age of the dried blood, the size of the swelling, which was baseball sized when we first saw it, the estimated time of damage was around the time of our conversation with that one lady at the fair.
NOTE: Photos we are about to share will be hidden behind the appearance of links. When clicked, the photo will come into view. This is to respect those who are eager to learn how God helped us while not always being able to stomach scenes of open wounds.
We administered first aid, and being as we still had our apothecary in the trunk of the truck, we helped ourselves to our own supplies and one of the mortars and pestles (we have two sets for the apothecary trunk), and we pounded together some topical medicine. Ashley tried to use fir pitch as a bandaid, but it didn’t stick. So the medication was given, but not in a way that could be sustained overnight. We prayed again, asking God for help in facilitating Bella’s healing. After chores were done, we went to give the wound a second treatment before going home, only to find almost a centimeter of skin having shot across from the right edge of the wound! In Ashley’s 16.5yrs of working in the horse world professionally, she’d never seen a wound grow skin that fast!
Even according to MadBarn’s write up on wound care for horses, this was fast! They say:
“Within 24-48 hours after injury, pro-inflammatory immune cells help form granulation tissue at the site of the wound. [4] New blood vessels form and skin growth commences 4-6 days after the injury. [5]”
This new patch of skin had appeared within a period less than 2 hours! We decided to begin documenting this healing journey with photos, at least one, sometimes two photos per day to track her progress and took a second photo to document the sudden appearance of skin. Remember, we were dealing with a wound that was at least 2 inches long by 1 inch tall by at least a centimeter deep where the fistula was found.
We got home really late that evening. Thankfully, my son had brought home dinner, so I was able to set that out and we were able to eat a late meal without much hassle! He would tell us at dinner that the previous Saturday night, the building across from our landlords’ RV pad faced a near miss from going up in flames thanks to a guest who misread instructions and nearly started a fire in their suite. My son and his boss had to replace a dining room table in the suite as a result, due to a very large black burn spot on it!
Three days earlier, our cat’s kidney/urinary tract internal bleeding started back up with hard urine in his litter box. We pounced on that with medicated powder we add to his nightly “tea” and that can be dusted over his food. We also made sure he was getting more urinary care catfood. He gobbled that up very quickly and my son reported his litterbox not getting any worse, so we caught it in time as his urine began to return to normal.
It seriously appeared that the enemy knew of the encounter we would have that day at the craft fair, and began trying to stop it using various means, lashing out at Bella when it happened anyway.
I am familiar with this kind of behaviour whenever in our family growing up we would be on the verge of, or in the middle of planning stuff the enemy didn’t want us engaging in. We had vehicles attacked, sound equipment attacked, health attacked and more. It became a joke that if things started going sideways out of the blue with no rhyme or reason, we were doing something right!!! My own kids have grown up with this happening at times as well, giving me opportunity to explain to them how spiritual warfare works and why the enemy is out to thwart what he can when he can to stop the work of the Kingdom!
So while our cat and Bella had to heal from their respective attacks, I was relieved that our landlords weren’t unnecessarily threatened by fire the previous night.
That date, August 11th, was quite a Sunday! When we are willing to take Church to the street, we have to expect pushback occasionally.
It is important to remember that while we have animals, and while we have 9 years of foraging knowledge and more years than that using food as medicine around the home, we are not veterinarians. A local herbal veterinarian in the Kelowna area is Pawsitive Veterinary Care. We therefore cannot claim to be offering medical advice. This story shares what worked for Bella, but your situation may be different.Ashley has a few books she references when dealing with various situations Bella finds herself in, but she is not trained via official colleges or universities. Her self education extends to old books written in centuries past as well. She too is a born again believer with an active faith.
When our late dinner was over that fateful day, Ashley retired to her room hitting her books while asking God for healing for her horse. Ancient books such as “Of Medicine, in Eight Books” by Aulus Cornelius Celsus, “De Materia Medica” by Dioscorides, Gerard’s Herbal and Dr Culpepper’s The Complete Herbal, had been known to refer to puncture wounds, stabbings, bullet wounds and others, as either fistulas or gaping wounds, so she searched her digital library for those terms. This is different from the occasional modern medical definition of fistula which seems to indicate a large growth instead (see the pdf link later on in the discussion on proud flesh). In times past, a fistula was commonly defined as a fist-sized hole in the body, so it is this definition we will be working from whenever you see the word “fistula” going forward.
God led Ashley to build a list of herbs that had historically been known to help such wounds close in, or “fill with flesh” as they sometimes referred to the action. We all went to bed, and in the morning, after further digging, going over what we have in our household foraging rack and pantry cupboards, Ashley set to work writing down herbs and spices, and spending time over her little double boiler/hot plate setup in our cooking shelter outside, popping in and out of the house grabbing various ingredients which included aromatic oils she’d made in the weeks prior. One of her trips into the house included grabbing my fine ground black pepper by the stove. She added some non-herbal ingredients, blended it all together, and had it ready in a jar for our trip to the barn that day. None of her aromatic oils would have been made if she hadn’t begun experimenting with creating mascerated aromatic oils using methods from several centuries ago, roughly 3 months earlier in 2024. The timing was clearly not of our own making! God knew in advance she would need these oils!
The herbs she put into her Gaping Wound Salve included Hound’s Tongue, Sage Brush and Knot Grass as leaf powders. Her mascerated aromatic oils included yarrow, comfrey, lemon balm, crane’s bill, and pineapple weed. Douglas Fir resin, Pine turpentine, coconut butter and beeswax along with black pepper, were added as well.
Comfrey, Yarrow, Pineapple Weed and Hound’s Tongue are all known today to be effective wound healers.
Knot Grass is a painkiller, as is Black Pepper, Pineapple Weed and the Artemesia family that includes Sage Brush.
Lemon Balm, Sage Brush, pineapple weed and coconut oil are anti-bacterial, with some calling anti-bacterial herbs as anti-microbial or antibiotic.
Geranium, of which Crane’s Bill is known as “true Geranium” is an astringent and known to benefit the skin.
Pineapple weed is also anti-inflammatory and calming. Black pepper, comfrey, Hound’s Tongue, Crane’s Bill and Yarrow are also anti-inflammatory.
Fir is an antiseptic.
The first application of the Gaping Wound Salve, took place after carefully washing away a fair bit of gloopy, bloody weeping that had happened over the past 24 hours. Once the wound was clean, the first treatment was given, and then we did the horse chores, giving a second treatment before returning home. The skin that had shot into place on the right side of the wound was now much more clearly visible.
It should be noted that we are only able to get to the barn once per day. We therefore cleaned the wound and applied the treatment as soon as we arrived, then gave a second treatment before we left to come home with anywhere from just over an hour, to 2 hours in between those treatments.
The injury had Bella in quite a bit of pain in the first few days, so much so she could hardly walk on her leg. I tried leaving water for her at her shelter, but she insisted on walking down to her main water trough, which is downhill from the shelter. I was scared she’d stumble more than a few times, but she managed, inching at times, but managed to reach her water without stumbling.
We would continue to treat the gaping wound with the fistula salve, and on August 18th, a new threat began surfacing. Proud Flesh! In the horse world, proud flesh can form in the body’s effort to close an open wound. It often occurs on a horse’s leg below the knee or hock, where skin is normally already taut around bone and sinew.
“Wounds on the lower limbs are more prone to developing proud flesh than other locations, largely because of reduced blood flow.”
These areas, when cut, can result in large openings that are difficult to suture, though some vets may attempt to do so. If on a joint, the sutures often pop free, tearing the wound worse. We did not opt for calling a vet out to do any suturing. Ashley observed the proud flesh approaching and we began talking about what to do about it. Typical advice for horses is to keep it clean, keep it free of infection, cut it out if it gets too large. If cut out, proud flesh often returns with even more force, but for some reason it remains a common piece of advice among equine vets.
I remembered a recipe that a client had passed on to me for sale to future clients. This recipe had helped her Dad heal from Basal-cell carcinoma, and was a recipe that God had led her to when she’d sought prayer for her Dad’s healing. I’d helped her with aspects of the formulation, so her giving me the recipe to sell was in thanks for my assistance, as her Dad’s surgeon wanted to buy it from her after seeing how quickly it healed her Dad’s situation.
While proud flesh is not typically referred to as a cancer, it’s behaviour reminded Ashley enough of cancer, that she began researching both the herbs the ancients used to treat “hard swellings” and whether or not there was a link between proud flesh and cancer. It turns out that proud flesh is also known as hyper-granulated flesh, and at least one scientist has descrbed hyper-granulated flesh as a type of malgnant/benign cancer- malignant while a wound is open and benign once the wound closes. This has been observed in humans in supposedly very rare circumstances. Interestingly enough, running an online search for “basal cell carcinoma “hypergranulated” tumor” brings up studies where the skin cancer is described as hypergranulated tissue.
This is important information, because both the animal and human mainstream medical understanding of proud flesh is identical, with near-identical recommendations for treatment.
Another veterinarian has come out in an article by Equus Magazine, to share the following:
““If you compare two wounds, one with proud flesh and one with a sarcoid, they can look identical, but the treatments are diametrically opposite,” he says. “You need to treat the tumor with cancer drugs; if you try to cut it out like proud flesh, you’re going to make it worse. I believe veterinarians should do pathology on every suspected case of proud flesh to ensure it’s not a tumor.””
However, with what is now known regarding hypergranulated tissue and cancer, we now suspect that proud flesh itself, is a type of tumor, particularly when you regularly hear that trying to cut out proud flesh often causes it to grow back worse.
As we didn’t have all the ingredients on hand that the recipe called for, Ashley took what her history books shared about “melting away the hard swellings”, and crafted an anti-cancer salve for her horse. The first application would be the evening of the 18th. This would be the first time I ever saw proud flesh literally bubble and sluff away from a wound! “Melting” seriously could be an accurate description. The bubbling reminded me of how a skin burn can appear to “boil” the skin.
Ashley’s proud flesh anti-cancer salve included a long list of herbs:
Purple Dead Nettle, dandelion, golden rod, burdock, turmeric, ginger, birtch bark all in powder form, and garlic, pepper, Douglas fir resin, and pineapple weed as aromatic oils. She also added lavender essential oil, coconut butter, beeswax, and sunflower oil.
Garlic, burdock, ginger, and turmeric are listed in my own database as being anti-cancer, along with many of the ingredients in the fistula salve as well.
Lavender and pineapple weed were added to soothe the skin.
Dandelion has been noted to treat melanoma cancer, with ginger, birch, burdock, goldenrod (also known as woundwort where wort means herb), and turmeric all noted to have successfully treated skin cancer both in studies and in historical writings.
Purple Dead Nettle is an anti-inflammatory.
The pepper aromatic oil was to boost the efficiency of the other herbs in the salve. Piperine is a synergistic compound that is often paired with turmeric to aid arthritis sufferers.
The morning after that first treatment, the proud flesh was noticeably reduced. Her farrier visit was also that morning, just over a week after the injury. That same week after her injury, Bella was feeling pretty good, it was nearing her yearly photo date after her farrier visit, so we thought to see if she could stretch her legs a little by going for a walk. We took her photo, then she decided to roll, which wasn’t a good idea, having to figure out how to rise using only three legs. This set her leg’s internal recovery back by almost a full week again, but somehow, the wound remained free of grime and infection!
We would continue to use both salves until August 21st, when the fistula finally finished filling in. By this time, much of the proud flesh had disappeared. The body appeared to be pushing it out through the open wound even as the wound got progressively smaller, healing in from the right edge. Her ability to move about freely with no discomfort or pain finally returned on August 26th and we observed her trotting with ease on August 30th.
Initially, we anticipated that physio might have to come in small baby steps, but when she trotted around without issue, we realized that even her need for physio had been reduced. We were able to begin engaging in light lunge-line exercise sessions taking place roughly every 3 days, with two days rest and recovery in between each session. The time needed to recuperate rapidly shrank.
Use of the anti-cancer salve would end on September 9th when the wound, very tiny now, finally sealed over. Here we’ve shown three photos showing the progression using the anti-cancer salve.
We’d begin using our own Argon oil blend to aid the skin in recovery around the 14th through to the 22nd when what was left of the wound reminded me of an albino gerbil’s eye.
At this point, we stopped all topical treatment of the injury.
By September 29th, all that would be left is a small scar. This was much faster than is typically understood in the world of horse health. MadBarn, linked to earlier, says this about the body’s remodelling phase:
“Maturation/remodeling phase: This phase begins two weeks after the injury and is characterized by wound contraction and scar tissue formation. [4][5] Remodeling may continue for up to two years, with tissue becoming more organized and restoration of normal collagen. However, scar tissue remains 15 – 20% weaker than the original tissue. [5]”
They actually recommended stall rest for injuries of this type, but we were unable to provide that for Bella.
Equus Magazine, in their article on wounds that won’t heal, say:
“Tissue that doesn’t remain still cannot repair itself, so wounds on a high-motion area of the body may be slow to heal or not heal at all.”
As noted earlier, Bella did not remain still! For the first while, we knew how active she was by how much weeping the wound was doing! However, in spite of all that, her wound healed remarkably fast!
She was ridable by October 1st, but due to another ferrier visit, that first ride was put off for later that week. Since that first week of October, her rides have been following the same timeline as the lunge-line work, with two days rest between each ride minus inclement weather and schedule interferences. Her injured leg has been steadily getting stronger, and we are regularly reminding Bella with each ride, not to push harder than she should, that with physio, you push a little further than last time, but don’t overdo it. She wants so much to be back at full capacity that even her stretches are opportunities for her to attempt pushing the envelope.
Over all, every stage of healing to date has taken a much shorter length of time than usually observed in the horse world. From the fistula filling in within a 2 week period, to the proud flesh literally melting out of her body and washing away within 4 weeks, to the tiny scar left behind and now her soft tissue internal healing moving forward in leaps and bounds, almost literally! To see her playing at the end of the lunge line has been a joy! Her in-saddle, weighted physio brings her journey to 7 and 8 weeks and bringing marked improvement every time!
We give God all the glory in her recovery, from the recipes He gave Ashley, to facilitating faster- than – expected recovery times at each stage. We share the herbs God led us to here, and the knowledge discoveries made as well, in the hopes that such information will be useful to others out there.
We don’t promise that the results you get from these herbs will be just as fast, but we do promise that what God has created for our use, what history reveals around those who put those resources to use, and what modern research has uncovered around these herbs’ capabilities, is that they will do for you what they did for us if you’ve experienced the same problem. Cause is important. While the symptoms of a given cause behind an injury or illness can be similar and use the same or similar herbal remedies to address both cause and symptom, other times, the cause behind what looks like a similar issue is so different that different herbs may be necessary to address it. What works for one person may not work for another due to sensitivities, allergies, location around the world, and more.
It is our hope in sharing Bella’s story of injury and healing, that you are inspired to look to herbal answers for your own animals’ wellbeing. The fact that animals are different from humans does reveal itself in various ways. But there are enough similarities in how their bodies process nutrients that often, what works for us also works for them. There are exceptions of course. While cocao has amazing benefits to the human body, it can kill a small animal or make them quite sick, as one example. But the herbs listed here with uses beneficial to the human body, worked exactly the same way for Bella.
Our journey into foraging began with Bella 9 years ago, led to my Natural Health Practitioner designation, and soon will lead to Ashley getting her herbalist certificate. The herbal knowledge gained over those years allowed us to become partners with God, listening to His voice tell us what herbs to use, how much of each to use, in what formats to use, and then to be consistent in their application at each stage of this story to benefit “the horse that started it all!”
