Finding The Keys Immortality
When Sean Gardner was 18-years-old, he was riding his bike down a hill in his picturesque neighborhood of Marina, California, when a speeding car crashed into him. He was rushed to the hospital where he was suffered a severely broken leg and was diagnosed with a concussion. The doctors put him on prescription medications like Vicodin. They also told him that it would take five months before he’d be able to walk again.
“I refused to take accept their five-month sentence. I decided to prove the doctors wrong,” says Gardner.
Gardner resolved to find a more holistic solution. He began doing mad research on the different avenues of natural healing. He began by taking a look at his diet. Although he’d been raised on a healthy semi-vegetarian and whole-food diet, in his teenager years, he’d taken to junk-food. He quickly chucked that regime and opted for organic fruits and vegetables, fermented foods, etc. Before long, he realized he had to be pro active about healing his body, and began experimenting with various cleansing and detox practices.
“I was on a journey that led me to hear what was really going on with my body.”
The next step along the path was herbal medicine. Gardner started fighting his fatigue with herbs like American ginseng, Siberian ginseng, and rhodiola. Research showed him that if he wanted to heal his bones, it wouldn’t really help him to take calcium as a supplement, as calcium needs a mix of other minerals along with it to be absorbed into the body. So he began taking nettle, horse tail, and aloe, among other herbs which really expedited his leg’s healing process.
And sure enough – with the help of the diet and herbs, Gardner DID prove the doctors wrong.
“It took me about two months to start walking again. Five months after my accident, I had already gotten back to doing yoga, and mild jogging and hiking (with some difficulty).”
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Fighting The Opiate Fog
Although Gardner made a staunch fight for his health and won, it hadn’t been so easy for him to deal with the intense pain of his broken broken bones and concussion in a a natural way.
“I was taking Vicodin three to four times a day, for at least the first four months. Even though I had decided to not let a particular diagnosis dictate how long it was going to take me to heal, I still remained pretty stuck on taking the drugs,” Gardner admits. “I also needed another surgery to get the rod out of my femur, so I ended up taking the drugs for much longer than I wanted to, making the discontinuation of their use very difficult given the perpetual physical pain I was in. It was only at the end of my five months that I decided to kick it.”
It was a tough battle, because the pain was severe. But Gardner felt the opiates had transformed him into another person – or non-person. They were suppressing his being, and he constantly felt fatigued and short-tempered. So, Gardner decided the next step in his healing process was to focus on rebuilding his immune system – which is what led him to start experimenting with master herbs such as reishi and other medicinal mushrooms.
Health And A Lone Wolfe
Half a year after his accident, Gardner was working at a bagel shop and spending all his free time researching natural health – his new-found passion. Natural health experiments aren’t always so cheap, so it wasn’t long before Gardner found himself broke. He realized it was time to turn this passion into his career.
Gardner decided the best way for him to get in the natural health field would be to work with an expert. At the time, one of his biggest influences was David Wolfe, the expert natural health coach who stood for a positive mental attitude, eco-community building, living spring water, and the best-ever quality organic foods and herbs.
Gardner decided to approach Wolfe directly and ask him for a job. “I basically told him that the only way he’d get rid of me was if he hired me.”
Wolfe was charmed by Gardner’s persistence and hired him to work on the sale’s end of his organization. Gardner spent two years working with Wolfe, and during the time the two of them got to be good friends. Gardner traveled with him, helped out at Wolfe’s many events, and learned a lot from the experience. He witnessed a lot of Wolfe’s clients undergo radical healing.
Immortal Herbs
Gardner was at a party in the SF bay area when his friend offered him some royal jelly. Years before, Gardner had tried some of royal jelly his grandmother was taking, which he thought tasted gross. But the royal jelly his friend offered him was extremely fresh, so Gardner had a go. Immediately, he felt the bee product surging through his body, fueling his brain, and supplying him with tons of energy.
Early on in his research, Gardner had become fascinated by the types of herbs that are beneficial year-round. Many medicinal herbs are only advised at certain points of the year/periods of a person’s life. For example, echinacea is usually only taken in the winter time or on the onset of a cold. It’s actually detrimental to take year-round. However, Gardner discovered that certain herbs, such as medicinal mushrooms, continuously improve your health. People who take such herbs are able to bounce back more quickly if they get into a traumatic health situation.
Gardner found that many people stayed away from these type of adaptogen herbs, as it is hard to classify them under one category of healing. Reishi’s list of benefits goes on and on, from providing overall longevity to cells to improving digestive functions. Even some of the herbs that were commonly taken, such as ginseng, which is usually many people’s energy fix, has 50 other benefits that generally go unrecognized.
This is because adaptogen herbs are smart-wired to go into the body, find out what is specifically wrong, and get to action. In the past 60 years, there have been many studies on the intrinsic ability adaptogens have to protect against radiation, increase physical and mental performance, increase resistance to chemical carcinogens, reduce incidence of infection, and reduce the side effects of chemotherapeutic drugs. No wonder they are beneficial year-round.
An Immortal Legacy
Gardner decided it was time to open his own master herb company, and in 2009 Immortality Alchemy was born. The first product he started with was royal jelly. He did a lot of research on sourcing herbs from the most high-quality, clean, organic and unadulterated processes. Having watched Vanishing of the Bees, he also wanted to make sure his royal jelly came from the most consciousness beekeepers.
His research led him to remote mountain ranges in China, far from the polluted cities. Gardner personally visited this site, as well as another remote, rural Chinese mountain range where Immortality Alchemy’s organic reishi comes from.
Immortality Alchemy has steadily grown in the past six years, and Gardner has big plans for its future. “The world is held back due to a lack of consciousness. Much of the violence, destruction, and environmental catastrophes in the world are a consequence of a general near-nearsightedness and ignorance,” says Gardner. “There is a whole branch of Ayurvedic and Chinese herbs that enhance a person’s intelligence and emotional capacity. Western medicine says there’s no way to regrow brain cells, but our ancestors found natural ways to regrow them.”
The Ayurvedic branch of these herbs, known as rasayana, was used in ancient times by mediators and is said to stimulate the third eye to generate juice that goes down to the spinal cord.
“If people were to take these herbs, while practicing mind/body techniques such as tai chi, chi gong, yoga, and meditation, it would help them calm their mind, turn on their brains, and get out of their animal instincts so they can become super aware and conscious of their environment. It helps to enhance people’s vision so they can look out to the horizon and not the stars.”
Ancient Chinese texts record how medicinal mushrooms such as reishi make the body light, spirit light, help you remember things, and lead to immortality.
“However, when they speak about immortality, I don’t think they mean living forever, but becoming a realized being – a self-actualized person who manifests everything they want to do in their lifetime. This is a way of immortalizing your existence,” Gardner explained.
Gardner is also currently writing a book on this vision of an enlightened way of being based on such herbs and mind-body practices. It’s this vision that motivates Immortality Alchemy and all their future endeavors.
Linda Miriam Aziz-Zadeh is a freelance writer and editor who is passionate about preserving the natural beauty and wonder of our bodies, this planet, and the world. She is the cofounder of Crunchy Buzz, a digital marketing firm that serves the wellness industry.
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