The Coast Salish people of B.C. and Washington state use this plant as a pain reliever. When applied directly to the area where pain and inflammation occur, according to Della Rice Sylvester, an elder and medicine woman of the Cowichan tribe, the sword fern “takes the pain away!”. This traditional use has spread among the hiking communities and youth scouting organizations of the region, where it is a common piece of hiker’s lore that a rash from a stinging nettle can be counteracted by rubbing the spores on the underside of sword fern on the area.
Indeed, the speed with which an individual may expect to progress seems less a function of the number of hours spent practicing than it is a question of the speed with which he or she is able to use the insights gained to release anxieties and stresses within both the mind and the body.
Unlike yoga and other forms of eastern mental discipline, Gateway does not require the infinite patience and total personal subservience to and faith in a system of discipline designed to absorb all the individual’s energies over most of a lifetime.