The Calcium carbonicum – family

Limestone and Marble

Fish and snails, marine worms, shrimp, mussels and clams, besides unbelievable numbers of tiny creatures called bryozoa. They still exist on the coasts, between sea and land. Hundreds of species. And each little creature has a brain, mouth, gut and anus. Each lives its life in a tiny shell – no more than a millimetre big. This “little snail’s house” can be square, hexagonal or oval. Whatever fits best with its neighbours. Because these creatures form colonies. They cluster together at the tide line into bunches, and live – sheltered in their houses – an uncomplicated life. What is special about them is what I love most – they have acquired the gift of resurrection. They live in their tiny shells for about six months, but during that time they die three times. They rot; brain, gut, mouth and anus dissolve into brown slime. Seeming-dead, they decay in their shells – yet amazingly they come back to life after a few days. Brain and gut, mouth and anus take their former shape again. The lid opens and the feeding tentacles emerge. The creature is reborn. They live and rot, live and rot, until eventually they die forever. Brain and gut, mouth and anus fuse into brown slime. The little snail-shell begins to crumble. It dissolves. And in a perfect reversible chain of reaction, dissolution and reappearance, in almost perfect balance, by infinitely small accretions, the colony grows. Isn’t that strange?”

What themes do we find in this text?
- Tiny individuals who are part of a complex colony
- A substance that developed underwater over millions of years
- Life that forms in a tiny shell and then dissolves again
- Birth, death and resurrection

Compare this with the symptoms from the provings of Limestone by Nuala Eising and 9 others in 1994

 “Went walking over fields and hills. Feeling of fear that I will lose myself in the landscape and never escape it. I turn round. I feel as if I have become part of the stones. They are almost invisible because they are part of me – liquid, water, merging.”
“I lie still – only my voice exists. It is like the stillness and quiet of death. I feel as if in a glass coffin, no part of my body moves. Only I am not cold. It is neither unpleasant nor frightening. It feels like the peace of hibernation.”
“Tired, thin body, arms and hands very large, watery feeling, all bodily fluids are in motion, relaxed, mild air, beautiful.”

When we look at the rubrics for Limestone (Lap-c-b) we find the same themes:
Submerged in nature

• MIND AND EMOTIONS, EGO, emptiness of the ego (1)
• MIND AND EMOTIONS, bound, buried in thought
• MIND AND EMOTIONS, interested in the nature of animals and plants (1)
• MIND AND EMOTIONS, monomania (nature; sea; water)
• MIND AND EMOTIONS, love of nature (2)
• MIND AND EMOTIONS, anxiety, sudden variability (1)
• Confusion of mind and feelings, reality, cannot distinguish between real and unreal (1)
• MIND AND EMOTIONS, submerged in fantasies

Diffusion / Dissolution

• Delusion – body, body parts lighter than air
• Delusion – body and mind are separate
• Delusion – body, body parts shrunken (2)
• Delusion – body, body parts melting away (1)
• Delusion – body, body parts enlarged
• Delusion – body, thin (2)
• Head, sensation as if enlarged
• Delusion – everything is unreal
• Delusion – she will disappear (1)
• Delusion – water, under water (1)
• Dream, as if in a dream

Deposition / Being trapped

• MIND AND EMOTIONS, wanting to be at home
• Delusion, enslaved (1)
• Delusion, sitting in a trap (1)
• MIND AND EMOTIONS, trying to escape
• Delusion, he is waiting
• Stomach, vomiting, morning, when coughing (1)
• Throat, pharynx; mucus that is hard to shift

Alienation

• MIND AND EMOTIONS, abandoned
• MIND AND EMOTIONS, alienated from their family
• MIND AND EMOTIONS, alienated, forgets relatives and friends
• MIND AND EMOTIONS, alienated from society
• Delusion, abandoned
• Delusion, she will not be valued
• Delusion, dirty
• Delusion, she is wretched (when she looks in the mirror)

Anxieties

• MIND AND EMOTIONS, fear that her condition is being observed
• MIND AND EMOTIONS, fear of madness, of losing the mind
• MIND AND EMOTIONS, fear of being alone
• MIND AND EMOTIONS, fear of evil
• MIND AND EMOTIONS, fear that something terrible, dreadful will happen

Sensitivity

• Terrible things and sad stories affect her deeply
• Irritability, excitability from every disturbance (1)
• Annoyed over small things
• MIND AND EMOTIONS, sensitive to noises
• MIND AND EMOTIONS, easily offended
• MIND AND EMOTIONS, sensitive to all external impressions

Violence

• Dreams of America and Africa and of the slave trade
• Delusion, being hurt or hurting someone (1)
• Delusion, that she poisons people (2)
• MIND AND EMOTIONS, delusion, she screams with rage

Note: Calcium-dreams are not included in the Mac Repertory.

What is the particular challenge for Calcium people?
The challenge apparently is to experience a sense of belonging. Calcium people have this feeling of unity that comes from living with nature and with animals. Without ego, simply being. But in the human world they struggle with feelings of isolation and separation; they perceive themselves as alienated from society, as trapped and enslaved. Our little calcium shell dissolves when we are trapped and then released. I received an email from a man who works closely with animals and found that Calcium helped him get through times when he was stuck in this state of separation. It amused me to read this quote as a source in his email: “People usually evaluate the term ‘unity’ positively. But typically they imagine unity as something you have to work towards. But this ‘working in a particular direction’ is not what I am talking about. I speak of a primal unity. I speak about people who enter into dialogue with the world with the feeling of this primal unity, an inseparability and a ... global indivisibility ... ”

The resurrection of Calcium arises from the search for a new connection after separation. From waking to life after being dead, asleep, or unconscious for a long time. It means awakening to our inner connectedness with the human-colony, realising that we were never separated, that separation is only an illusion.

Can Calcium actually raise Lazarus from the dead? Who knows what possibilities lie in our old bones... There are many other ways to be trapped and then freed:

Teeth can be stuck and come out or fall out:

• Teeth, toothache, aphthae, molars

Pus can be enclosed and then drain:

• Ear, discharges, thick;
• Ear, discharges, aggressive,
• Nose, discharge, orange

Menstrual blood can be held back and then flow:

• Abdomen, burning, like hot stones;
• Female menstruation, painful, dysmenorrhoea,
• Abdomen, pain, as if torn, as if slack,

Mucus can stick and then discharge:

• Cough, worse at night, waking because of cough;
• Stomach, vomiting, morning cough

I have given Babies’ Calc to support teething acutely when the teeth were only slowly erupting (Calc.), and to a boy with undefined abdominal symptoms who developed appendicitis within a few hours of taking Calcium. His appendix was removed straight away and his general condition visibly improved. To a young woman who had been abandoned by her family and adopted by another, I gave Calcium for her furuncles, which healed very quickly after two doses. Other members of her adoptive family needed Marble, Anthracinum or Kali iodatum.

We all know the rubric “Egotism, self-worth” in the repertory.
 
Interestingly we find Calc. Carb., Lap-gr-m (Granite) and Lap-mar-c (Marble) there, to which we will return later. Scholten identifies “I” as a theme of the carbons; so it is not surprising that these remedies appear in the rubric. Calcium however belongs to the rubric: “Without ego”.

Why is the rubric “Lacking ego” so important?

If the rubric “Egotism” deals with self-esteem, does “without ego” mean a lack of self-respect? I do not think so. I believe the correct interpretation is “lack of attachment to the ego”.

Eckhart Tolle writes in his book “A New Earth”: “ There is a sense of self, of the I (ego), in every thought, every memory, every interpretation, opinion, point of view, reaction and emotion .... the basis of your identity is insecure, because thinking and feeling are by their nature transient and fleeting... therefore every ego constantly fights for survival and attempts to protect and enlarge itself. The ego is identification with form.” “ You know that your true identity is the consciousness itself ... The ultimate truth, who you are, is not: I am this or I am that, but I AM.” “ When I (as ego) criticise or judge another, I feel bigger and superior.” So the feeling of being “free from ego” could mean something like living “in the here and now”, dwelling in the “I AM” state, in a state of inner calm like that achieved in meditation.

How do we get closest to freedom from dependence (on the ego)? Through drugs that put us into altered states of consciousness and after which experiences of nature were often described as a “path into emptiness”. We have already noted similarities between certain drugs and Limestone.

One of the provers said: “Time passes so slowly – but that’s all right. It is like experiencing each moment very intensely and savouring life in every instant. I am hypersensitive to everything. I take in everything that happens around me very intensely. I have no protection, no boundaries. In the last weeks I have noticed that I immerse myself completely in everything I do. Every sudden event throws me completely off balance and I feel like screaming, screaming with fear. For example, when I sit in a room with other people and chat – I am completely present there. But if suddenly someone comes in – I just want to scream and scream. I feel that inside, but I do not let it out ... I think I am slowly going mad. I want to move very slowly and treat nature and life gently. I want to hear nothing and not be disturbed. Everything should be gentle and simple and free.”

An interesting dream of a patient, M., shows this feeling of all-encompassing being:

 “My partner and I were walking back to the house when we discovered a snake. Black-yellow head, probably a coral snake, I thought. She went too close to the snake and it lunged at her, so I ran back to help. Now the snake chased me instead. I stumbled and landed face down on the ground with the snake on my back trying to bite me. I pleaded to Adi Da and breathed and relaxed and the snake finally calmed down and slid off my back. It nibbled a bit at my hand like a cat, but it did not poison me. I feel this is a significant dream, although I haven’t analysed it yet. But afterwards I was pleased to remember that in the dream I had called on the Divine. I thought you might be interested in the dream.”
He also told me about his work with a horse that would not be ridden but just wanted to be with him. He too loved the feeling of being together with the horse, simply being.

How do the Calcium themes show in our patients?

A woman, H., who after many years overseas recently returned to New Zealand, describes it thus:

Dissolution:
 “When I come back to New Zealand I leave a lot of baggage behind, I return home, and decide to dissolve much of my personal possessions, I downsize my household. Everything I own has become part of me, and when I decide to give it up, I give up a part of myself as well.”

 Deposition:
 “I have chosen to find my place. Coming home is like slipping into your slippers that you left by the back door; you put them on and you are at home. You simply fill the space again.”

Fear of alienation:
“As a child I was afraid of being abandoned, and when the others left and we stayed at home, I screamed and ran after them. I didn’t want to be left behind.”

The insecurity caused by loss of identity is one of our most important ego-aspects:  
 “Last night I dreamed that my wallet with all my credit cards and ID was stolen. No ID, no proof of who you are. Loss of identity is traumatic, you instantly become a suspicious person. At the airport in Vancouver I left my handbag at a shop counter and the saleswoman took it into the shop. There I experienced how easily you can become separated from society and become a person without identity. When I am at home I can call my relatives, but in a foreign country you have no one except your work colleagues.”

If we are strongly attached to our ego, the inner threat is even greater, as these patients’ dreams show:
“I have dreams of flying. I am being chased and see the chance to land. I could cling to a cliff up there, but actually I should keep flying. There are people who pursue or hunt me. I must force myself to stay in the air. Sometimes it is also beautiful to fly.”

M. tells how he had to do the opposite in order to take off – not to think about it or exert will: “After Calcium I had a dream where I only fluttered my wings and flew off. Normally I had to flap hard, but I mustn’t try too hard or think about it, otherwise it didn’t work.”

When I first saw this patient he told me this dream: “I am a superhero at flying, running and jumping, but I must not try to do it willfully, otherwise nothing happens. Some sort of Terminator chases me, I cannot fly properly; or when I try to fly over trees, I crash into them.”

The idea of escaping danger by means of will fascinated me. That was something I had experienced as a mountaineer in a storm, where every bit of concentration and effort is needed to survive.

Eckhart Tolle speaks of our choice to remain unconscious or to awaken into the I AM state. We only need to want it.

It was interesting to hear what M. describes: “Anger and frustration because I was not heard by some stubborn people who were not flexible enough to accept my offer. And I felt the pain of not being heard, wanted and appreciated.”

H. describes how she drinks wine to reach a “state of unawareness, of non-presence.” She loved the quiet, the peace, the trees and the river at home – the place where she could be very present.

And M. says: “The challenges I have ahead are about maturing into ‘masculinity’ (whatever that is), i.e. actually arriving, being there and believing that there is a place for me in the world. Perhaps then I could also accept that I have something valuable to offer.”

The feeling of being separated from the ego he describes like this: “My body stretches, my feet seem very far away, and my hands and arms become thick, heavy stone. My body seems thin like a pencil. I am not quite out of my body, but close to it. I think I am afraid of being left – I have pains in my midriff. I feel very solid, immobile, an out-of-body experience, black-and-white, rejected and abandoned.”

These are the same feelings the provers had; a feeling of expansion, thinness, heaviness, inability to move, like being dead, rejected and abandoned.

In her novel "Limestone" Fiona Farrell speaks of life on the limestone reef – about all the tiny creatures living in their little shells – the perfect analogy of human life and especially human life in 2009, connected to the whole world as we are through the internet and mobile phones.

Isn’t it fascinating that our mobile phone is called a “cell phone” in English – we also call a prison a cell. A cell is also the basic unit in the human body, a monk lives in a cell, a smaller area of a larger whole is a cell, such as a honeycomb; a cell is a small organisational unit in nature, and a cell is an area covered by a transmitter within a telephone network.

The bones and shells of marine animals contain lime. It is calcium carbonate, similar to, but much more complex than our old favourite Calcium carbonicum. The sensitive, soft creature inside the hard oyster shell now mixes with millions of others into a complex whole. Like Calcium carbonicum, Limestone has visions of phantoms and animals and suffers from immense fear. Limestone is also sensitive to awful things, violence and cruelty. In Limestone this sensitivity leads to a feeling of alienation from the colony, compensated by integration into nature.
Pearl (Peter Tuminellos), Myt-e-p (Mussel Pearl) and Nautilus are other remedies from calcium carbonate and should be examined alongside Limestone.

Of course Belladonna is known as the acute form of Calcium carbonicum, because it contains lime. In Belladonna we also see the themes of dissolution (Limestone) (e.g. delusion: transparent; delusion: floating in the air; delusion: being enlarged) and delirium with terrible images (Calcium carbonicum / Limestone) (e.g. delusion: sees people, delusion: fires; delusion: phantoms; delusion: animals).

Besides these remedies there are many other calcium remedies to investigate, not forgetting Hepar sulfuris, which is nothing other than burned Calcium sulfuricum in a crucible, with its extreme sensitivity and well-known reputation for suppuration.

When limestone is subjected to pressure and heat, Marble is formed. Similarly with carbon: under pressure and heat it forms a diamond.

Now – what do we know about Marble?

Marble is recommended for use after irradiation. When it had just been proved, it was used for the children of Chernobyl.

Nuala Eising writes: "Before I did the Marble proving, the man who appears in my dreams gave me a lecture about Marble and the people who had been affected by radiation. He said that the way heat, intensity and pressure change limestone into marble is exactly the same process as when someone is exposed to radiation themselves. Marble is metamorphic. Someone exposed to radiation must first endure incredible heat. The calcium level in the body changes and metamorphic versions of what they originally were appear.

Considering the peripheral effects of radiation, Granite is the remedy. But when someone has been left alone with the radiation and the changes have already occurred, then they need Marble.

He said: “Look at the white marble: it crumbles easily, it is translucent.” I would also say: anaemic. He said: “Look at the children of Chernobyl. They are white and translucent, they crumble from the inside. The radiation attacks from the inside. Look closely at marble – it is only the sheen on the surface that holds it together. And that is the same as with the children.”

Nuala continues: “You also get a beautiful image of these children. On the psychological level it means: when they notice that they have nothing inside, they usually become a favourite child, a pet, because of the intense need to be cared for. Marble children know that the only thing they can offer is to be beautiful, graceful and charming, so that everyone must love them and will take care of them – in that way. That is Marble and that is what happens when someone is heavily affected by radiation.”  
I wonder whether Michael Jackson would have needed Marble!

I have often used Marble when a child was very pale or the skin shimmered a translucent white; or when someone had been exposed to heavy mobile-phone radiation, had electrosmog in the home, lived near transmitters, or suffered the effects of irradiation as cancer therapy. It is worth investigating the various ways in which body systems can collapse after overload by radiation. The work of the late Dr Neil Cherry captures neurological disorders, various cancers, problems with melatonin / sleep and even DNA changes. Timely use of this remedy, before functional changes occur in an affected person, can save lives, and it can be very helpful for cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy.

Marble is a great remedy for furuncles that dissolve very quickly after one or two doses when the remedy picture fits. I have also used this remedy for bedwetting, for hypersensitive children, for coughs etc.

In the Marble provings one finds on the one hand hardness, greed, cruelty, inhumanity, unmanliness, sensuality, frenzy, longing for wealth and excess. They dream that they must kill a mouse or that they steal. Dream they are a noble person or a cat. Adulterous. On the other hand there may be great sensitivity to cruelty, criticism or abandonment. Delusion, he is a newborn kitten.

The provings of Limestone and Marble contain many dreams that are not found in the Mac Repertory. The most interesting and curious dreams from the Marble proving for me are these: Dreams of India – with its great poverty and its vast wealth, the Taj Mahal of shining white marble (Princess Diana’s moment of alienation). Dreams of Russia – Cold War, wide white snowy landscape, Chernobyl, warring factions, factions at war.

And do not forget, with Limestone we had dreams of America and Africa. Dreams of America – the slave trade and abolition of slavery, speaking with an American accent. (How many of our teenagers speak with an American accent!)

Dreams of Africa – trapped in slavery, poverty, AIDS.

I wonder whether China fits into the Calcium carbonicum story?

What connection does Calcium carbonicum have with Limestone and Marble?

Through these three remedies of the 2nd stage of the iron series we experience an evolution of consciousness in the world.

With Calcium carbonicum the theme is security. Can we venture out from the security of our family and free ourselves from the judgement of the outside world? Sankaran says the basic feeling of Calcium carbonicum is: “I need security to survive”. One of the most important rubrics of Calcium carbonicum is this single symptom: “Delusion, speaks of nothing but murder, fire and rats.” This delusion shows its fear of people and of dangers that might come from nature or animals.

Sankaran says that carbon, which forms the actual base of the kingdom of the living, represents the survival instinct, the basic reaction of life. The Materia Medica of carbon is stamped by fear, because they perceive their life as threatened and consider themselves too small and weak to compete in the race for survival.

In Limestone we feel a lack of belonging, conveying the sensation of being too small, too thin, too strange and not sufficiently recognised. We yearn to feel part of the human colony and compensate for this yearning by immersing ourselves in nature.

In Marble we experience alienation in the outer world so that “heat and pressure” become too much, and the ego attaches to wealth, cunning, absurd ideas and indifference at the expense of others’ wellbeing.

Calcium and carbon are the basis of a new form of agriculture, called organic farming, which renews the humus of the earth and grows healthy plants to feed animals and people. Farmers traditionally fertilise soils with nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, but now recognise the importance of lime from ground limestone. It is enriched with humates (an uncrystallised form of carbon) to activate the millions of microbes in the soil that dissolve the minerals so they can be absorbed by the plants. Under our feet in the soil there are millions and millions of organisms living buried in lime, which thus rejuvenate and recreate our earth. We rely entirely on this extraordinary connectedness.

Limestone and Marble have become preferred remedies in my practice. I now know how to use these remedies: by doing the muscle test, through my knowledge of the provings, the materia medica and through experience with my cases. Often Calcium is needed acutely to help the body dissolve a blockage or eject a foreign body (similar in use to Silicea). Sometimes the situation requires Limestone to help patients with the dissolution of deep chronic diseases.

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Angela Hair lives and works in New Zealand. She lives with her husband, her adolescent children and many animals in Hawkes Bay, at the foot of the limestone crags of Craggy Range.

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Categories: Remedies
Keywords: Birth, Death, Resurrection, Egolessness, Alienation, Imprisonment, Limestone
Remedies: Calcium carbonicum, Limestone, Marble