GINGER

Source: The root of Zingiber officinalis. Its Latin name Zingiber is derived from the Sanskrit Singapura, which means “shaped like a horn,” a reference to the similarity between the ginger root and an antler’s horn. In Fiore employs a steam-distilled extract of certified organic fresh ginger from Madagascar. 

Constituents: Sesquiterpenes, primarily alpha-zingiberene, beta-sesquiphellandrene, beta-farnesene, ar-curcumene, alpha, and beta-pinene. 
Tropism: Digestive, respiratory, and reproductive systems. Meridian Tropism: stomach, lung, liver. 

Essential function: Stimulates and warms asthenic (cold) conditions with circulatory deficiency of the gastrointestinal, respiratory, reproductive, and musculoskeletal. 
Traditional Use: Traditionally used as a stomachic and carminative to address gastrointestinal atony, indigestion, nausea, travel, and altitude sickness. Also used as a respiratory stimulant and expectorant for lung congestion, moderate analgesics to relieve spasms, and arthritic conditions with stiffness and pain.

Psychological: Stimulates weakness, lack of motivation and willpower, burnout, emotional coldness, and sexual disinterest. 

Physiological: Warms and invigorates the blood, breaks up stagnation, and promotes menstruation. It is indicated for coldness of the extremities—hands, feed, skin, muscle aches and pains, chronic digestive disorders, bloating, chronic respiratory disorders with cough and sputum—immune regulator, liver detoxicant, and antioxidant. Internal use is best avoided during pregnancy. 

Topical: Ginger is an arterial stimulant to the circulation, diffusing blood flow warmth to the employed in low doses as a capillary stimulant and rubefacient for muscular aches, pains, and stiffness. A 2% to 5% dilution of the essential oil in a carrier oil or a tincture of the root decoction is a deeply warming, invigorating tonic. 

TCM: Pungent, sweet. Rising, warm-to-hot. Ginger strengthens Kidney Yang or Life Gate Fire. It tonifies and warms the interior and resolves dampness. Harmonizes Stomach Qi and relieves nausea, hiccups, and vomiting. Warms and opens meridians, dispels internal cold wind-damp-cold conditions, relaxes the tendons, and relieves pain. 

Chakra Affinity: Base

Anthroposophical: Ginger is associated with the kidneys and the anthroposophical concept of “kidney radiation.” The kidneys are astral organs. Aside from excretion, the kidneys’ second function involves the transforming, or astralizing, of food substances absorbed from the gut into “sensitive,” or “ensouled,” substances. Digested foods must be broken down into their most elemental physical components for optimal cellular utilization and purified of all foreign astral and etheric forces. This astralization by the kidneys is referred to in anthroposophic medicine as “kidney radiation.” 

Kidney radiation, an action of the astral body, mediated by the kidneys, is so-called because it radiates from the kidneys throughout the organism and facilitates the bioenergetic, or dynamic plane level, assimilation of foods. It is a complex of forces that metamorphoses the nutritional stream’s components from mere biochemicals into sentient, or ensouled, substances. Weak kidney radiation leads to inadequate utilization of protein, and, due to its unaltered foreign nature, subsequent inadequate excretion via the kidneys. 

Psychospiritual: Ginger strengthens will and helps connect the spirit body into the physical organism.