Urtica dioica Stinging Nettle Earth Mother

      Back in the biospirit hit zone with an amazing herbal friend, gifted, gifting these first emerging nettle leaves coming up now above ground, rising from a tangle of deeply medicinal roots.

Here we have a blessing, our earth mother has given us a blessing so our 2-legged tribe, our people, our biospirit can walk and talk, above ground. Praise these days of spring, our earth mother heaven sky father for these blessings. Here a dream promise, a stand of Urtica dioica, stinging nettle. https://youtu.be/z8Vb4-68euo?feature=shared

Urticaria nettle family. It’s thick in here along a rich riparian ledge, limestone that occasionally floods, with thick thick deep soil. It’s a stand I have been coming to for a while. Currently in the last week of February, the full moon occurred yesterday, still in a luminous bright full phase, a waning gibbous moon in the astrological sign of Virgo. I am here with this stand of stinging nettle at first breaking, first emergence. Day is breaking in our soul. Along a riparian zone tracing drops of water as we must do, on the east side of the continental divide. Where are we? Here. What time is it? Now. Thank you earth mother for this dynamic teaching person, plant and place. Thank you for keeping me above ground for another season, another moment, another breath, another footstep on this place where you have placed me, in your care, in your hands.

Tracing raindrops: A rain drop falling here along elm creek will flow from Elm creek into the Neosho river. Neosho is an Osage word meaning clear water. It flows south and east. From the Neosho river the water meets the Arkansas river at Muskogee in Oklahoma a short distance from the Verdigris river. The Arkansas river drains the eastern rockies in Colorado and continues east and south Little rock and Pine bluff Arkanas, eventually meeting the mighty Mississippi at Napoleon and flowing into the gulf of Mexico. Tracing drops of water, tracing raindrops is a fundamental practice. Tracing rain drops is the work of sacred land sacred sex that unfolds as our kindred children family. Tracing raindrops is an inner work of seeing prayer, visualization to sky god father and earth mother. Tracing raindrops is the grateful abundance of flowing moving water. Our bodies are these stones and this water meeting as breath, mixed as the fire spark of life that is the vitalism perspective. The healing of the body is the unimpeded, unblocked movement of water. As above as below, on earth as it is in heaven. Our life's work bucket list is laid out, the path of pilgrimage journey to the head waters of our biospiritual place as person, plant and place. Visualize the drop of water falling from clouds as a single rain drop, snow flake, or misting of dew. Visualize the single drop of rain, the single snow flake in your mind's eye. Mix with that seeing abundance, gratefulness in the flowing. Know that you are these same raindrops enlivened by spirit. See how the storms arise with clouds, some from the mist of the Pacific ocean, hitting the coast ranges of california, oregon, washington, moving west on prevailing winds, falling as winter spring snow, on the great basin and inner rockies, follow this rain drop, melting as snow in the Colorado rockies. See the snow as the milky white breast milk of our living mother. Don't forget for a single moment you are among beauty and you are that beauty, beautiful. See and call out to each mountain range. These ridges are the actual body of our mother. Make it your work to physically meet these places as part of your pilgrimage to sacred space, the sacred space that now unfolds your biospirit. You are initiated into this biospirit work, so every choice, every relationship, every decision, every morality is rooted in this path. When you are initiated by fire, by water, by earth, by sun, by wind your mind's eye will open to truth as intuition and decision making. Following water drop way is this path to find your spot, locate outside yourself within the ecosystem watershed. In this way we locate ourselves and visualize our position.

Day is breaking in our soul. Reach out to your ancestors buried as blood and soil for day is breaking in your soul. Bright morning stars are rising, day is breaking in your soul. Follow rain drops brethren and visit the sacred earth prayer places for your people and generations to come.

    The soil here is along an occasional flood zone so the soil is thick, with a lot of limestone deposits, deep and rich. Here is a stand of Urtica dioica, stinging nettle, a first presentation of leaf. What a joyful day to see these leaves emege from tangled roots. Urtica is a perennial plant, native to europe now naturalized locally. The leaf margins are coarsely toothed, deep green. Reproducing by both rhizomes and seeds, it forms thick colonies in nitrogen rich soil, frequently in over burned areas. 

     It is a nutritive plant for our bodies with a long history of folk usage as a textile, as a soup green vegetable, as a nutritive broth, in addition the below ground roots are known to be supportive of both male and female reproductive systems, in men the roots for BPH. So to understand stinging nettle it is important to understand where ever it has been found it has been used to potentiate biospirit. Several invasive plants like stinging nettle, japanese knotweed, and teazle off the top of my head have recently been found to address unusual ‘invasive’ type lyme disease. The earth mother herself is a living person, a worshipped goddess who has compassion for our ailments and problems. Recently stinging nettle has been used in aquaponics farmed fish to increase their immunity, fertility and adaptation to controlled, highly stressful environments. Immunity to what? Immunity in the sense of resistance to highly controlled manipulated environments. Immunity to warped crowded life denying conditions, think in the modern gestalt homeless school children. Unwanted, unloved, throw away people in the throw away world. The lesson here is that our current mode of living for many is very much like a farmed fish, crowded conditions. Living in society is being around a lot of angry, violent, aggressive, highly competitive people who frequently harbor grudges called dis-ease. People are not at ease. People who are not happy campers. Stinging nettle and a lot of these so called invasive plants are precisely remedies because they are marginalized plants able to handle being marginalized. Their doing well-ness under these conditions transfer to us. Saint John’s wort is another one of these marginalized plants coming to the foreground as important. Again none of these plants are connected botanically. What connects them is your connection. Stinging nettle is for the emotional heart, the mind, the whole biospirit. It makes a nutritive herbal broth, a rich soup early green. It is used as a counter irritant externally to increase blood flow to arthritic joints, hence the stinging nettle name. Both cooking to boiling and thorough drying of the leaf eliminates the stinging effect. 

    The area here is an Appalachian Ozark type oak woodland with walnut, elm, oak as the upper story of trees.

Mixed in with the stinging nettle are some interesting understory plants, Corydalis flavula, Fumariaceae family, sometimes placed in the poppy family; Conium maculatum, Apiaceae carrot parsley family, poison hemlock;

Euonymus fortunei, climbing euonymus, Celastraceae Bittersweet family;

Smilax tamnoides, bristly greenbrier, Greenbriar Smilacaeae family;

Symphoricarpos occidentalis, western snow berry, Honeysuckle family Caprifoliaceae;

Allium canadense, wild onion, onion family, Amaryllidaceae family;

on the ledges climbing down to the bottom were Yucca arkansana, Agavaceae, a yucca found in Kansa, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas favoring dry limestone ridges.

    Concentrating on the earth mother, concentrating on these amazing plants she has given us. Giving thanks for our flat earth prairie vitalism of the earth mother. You will see a lot of this stinging nettle four or five feet high. Again a nutritive rich mineral formula, giving thanks. Infusions, cooking as a vital broth, what a gify we have with our earth mother, Urtica dioica, stinging nettle. 

     

You know some one asked me a short time ago, ”How do I get close? How do I get close to the earth mother? How do I deepen my relationship with this transformative goddess that is the spring time?How do I reach out to the earth mother?” Well here we are with, one of our important medicinal plants, stinging nettle. The way, the way you reach out to the earth mother is the same way you reach out to any woman, any goddess figure you adore. You praise her. And say, “I love you earth mother. I love you more than anything. You take her plants. You use her plants. You share her knowledge of these plant medicines, on this medicine road. On her medicine road of the earth mother. You give thanks. You give offerings to the earth mother when you see something like this Utarica, this stinging nettle. You say, “Thank you earth mother. Thank you for making this beautiful plant. This nutritive herbal remedy. You’ve placed it here to heal our biospirit. Thank you earth mother. I love you so much earth mother. 

     Finding your spot is the most important activity, right now,  at this time. Wherever you are, seek out these remnant  places, these remnant prairies, the remnant forests. Engage with them face to face. To engage with the earth mother and her beautiful plants. Her gorgeous lovely medicinal plants. All her power of spring time, coming to fruition right now, in this present moment. Find your spot. Dig in. Dig in. Dig deeper. Deeper into the earth mother...the earth mother on the medicine road.

     The following is the story of William Atkin of the 1859 Rowley Handcart Company, as recorded by his granddaughter Luella M. Atkin.

“[Your grandma and I] traveled on until dark and again camped alone. Although we were in Indian country and nearly every white man we met was an avowed enemy of the Mormon people, yet we were not afraid, but laid down and took sweet rest.

“In the morning we started out early and on arriving at the Green River, we found that our company had crossed it the night before and they were gone out of sight. Your grandma and I looked at the river and I said to her, ‘We cannot cross this river alone.’ She replied, ‘No, but the Lord will help us over.’ At these words my heart seemed to leap for joy and I said, ‘Yes, He surely will.’ We then knelt down and in all humility told our Heavenly Father that we were doing all in our power to keep His commandments and to gather to Zion; and now we had come to this river and could not cross it alone. We knew He could help us and we now relied on Him to assist us over. Your grandma and I then pulled our cart into the river, which was swollen; we could see the deep water just ahead of us, but every step we took the deep water was still one step ahead of us, and we landed on the western bank without even wetting the axletree of our cart. Our hearts were full of gratitude to our Heavenly Father for thus again answering our prayers.”

De Vico G, Guida V and Carella F (2018) Urtica dioica (Stinging Nettle): A Neglected Plant With Emerging Growth Promoter/Immunostimulant Properties for Farmed Fish. Front. Physiol. 9:285. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2018.0028