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

Stinging Nettle, Urtica dioica

Urtica dioica -- stinging nettle, a non-binary ambiguous herb ally. 

Nettle family (Urticaceae), Urtica dioica, var gracilis, comes from the Latin word uro, which means “to burn,” because its leaves can cause a temporary burning sensation upon contact. Formerly it was thought the leaf hairs' formic acid was responsible for the sting which is the stinging burning you get from a red fire ant sting bite. I still call it formic acid because that's how i schooled it, it certainly feels like a fire ant bite. Yet the mix of chemicals in the trichomes is much more complex, containing stinging hairs or trichomes, whose tips come off when touched, transforming the hair into a needle that will inject several chemicals including acetylcholine, histamine, 5-HT (serotonin), moroidin, leukotrienes and possibly formic acid. So it's a lot more than a nutritional green. Stinging nettle produce a stinging sensation upon contact, which like anything is going to vary among different people. So be cautious with handling the plant as some people react strongly to it.  

     

https://youtu.be/OLt7yuQKrO0 

     The stinging aspect of stinging nettle is eliminated with cooking, drying, freezing. Always use gloves when handling the fresh plant. The herb has both Mars, yang blood and Venus yin sinew retreating nurturing qualities. Like many plants which appear at first glance to be quite simple but are in fact complete living distinct electro chemical ecosystems within themselves and fundamentally different than any created object. Since so much human two legged stuff in this present moment is factory made throw away eye candy, it can be hard to grasp that living breathing things that twolegs have interacted with for ten's of thousands of years are still here intact and fully present, close by and widely present. Nettle is one of those beings who was there and still is. 

      

The plant favors rich black dark, wet moist soils, often stream side, wet with  sun. Leaves are opposite coarsley serrate, toothed, triangular shape. It can grow up to 6 feet tall by Midsommer. There are narrow leafed shorter varieties so look for the larger leafed, deep green, crinkly, furrowed leaf varieties which are found in wet rich soils. Here found on Turtle Island in Pend Oreille.

     The entire plant, root, to stem, to seed is valuable, as an edible nutritional powerhouse. Full of vitamins A, C and some B vitamins. And while it's possible to document what's in a nettle in verbal terms, the plant has been with BioSpirit for so long it's relational, part of us. Fresh nettles contain (per 100g) 670 mg potassium, 590 mg calcium, 18 mcg chromium, 270 mcg copper, 86 mg magnesium, and 4.4 mg iron but that's just starting to cover it. 

     It falls into the food-slash-medicine plant category and was used as an edible green, fibre cordage plant, and rejuvenate spring tonic wherever encountered. As a food-slash-medicine plant it has a surprisingly complex chemistry. This is a give away, as how many nutritional greens, bite and bark ouch, when you bare handed touch them? So there's a lot going on here. Likewise herbally it is considered bivalent or ambivalent in that in the body it does different things, in different bodies, normally thought to be contradictory as male female, heating cooling, prostate and uterus. etc. Which can be explained astrologicaly in that it is linked to both Mars and Venus, Nettle is traditionally considered a plant ruled primarily by Mars, due to both its "hot stinging" kinda warlike oppositional conflict edge and its activity: sudden, violent, irritating, inflammatory, intense, purifying and acting on the formation of blood.  The secondary ruler of nettle is Venus, by virtue of both its action on the kidney chi sinews and adrenals and its ability to seduce the body into homeostasis, promote and stimulate lactation in women and treat rheumatism and gout. So it is a non-binary herb, both a male and female herb, somehow beyond gender. Nettle has an earthy green slightly sweet salty taste which is noted in the swampy wet varieties. The roots are more astringent bitter noted in the tincture rather than leaf. 

     

https://youtu.be/6MmZu7-5nvU

Use only after cooking/freezing, which neutralizes the stinging constituents present on leaves and stem, because it would not be a nice ride in the mouth and throat. Gather the first smaller tender spring leaves if gathering for pesto. If gathering the leaves for infusion use the larger later summer leaves. A large handful of the fresh leaf in boiling water makes a mineral rich alkaline decoction which is flavorful, slightly sweet, distinctly anti inflammatory and mildly diuretic. It also helps to regulate blood sugar both facilitating transport of blood glucose into muscle and supports the pancreas to balance insulin sensitivity. It is useful as a spring tonic especially in northern climes to alkalinize, where digestive stagnation can occur after a winter of meat heavy acidic diet. Nettle tends to invigorate the whole body after winter inactivity. As an adjunct in urinary infection UTI stinging nettle, with pipsissiwa, uva ursi, or huckleberry leaf family plants, stinging nettle helps to alkalize urine and potentiate arbutin present in our UTI plants. Thoroughly dried leaf can be used in cold infusion overnight , 1/2 ounce or so of dried leaf in a quart of water, kept overnight and drunk the next day. The liquid decoction of fresh leaf, or of dried leaf cold infusion, and or tincture can assist with spring seasonal pollen issues, hay fever, stuffy nose. These constituents seem to be concentrating in the seed and root if making an antihistamine formula and combine well with ambrosia species. The constituents promote drainage and lessen inflammation. It works best when used daily. The decoction applied to hair and scalp with yerba del negrita, orange globe mallow helps to encourage hair growth when applied to the scalp and hair and as a hair rinse. 

       Like many now you see it now you don't herbs, the question is how to store nettles. Gather Midsommer plants, tie in bundles, hand upside down for drying. Another method is to gather leaf and freeze, the freezing dissipates the stinging effect but not the stinging constituents. I think that's important to understand, because i think at least some of the stinging has to do with disregulating the delivery system. Once frozen the leaves can be crumbled, stored in the freezer and added directly to soups, blender green smoothies, used for cold infusion etc, I think herbs-a-commerce amounts of nettle isn't enough to do much, as in a gelatin capsule. You need to get the nettle into your body, as in large amounts. 

        Stinging nettle root medicine. Of course it's never possible to have enough nettles. No matter how much you have, you'll use it up. Which leads to stinging nettle root medicine, which of course can be stored. It doesn't have obviously the green nutritional power of fresh but it is a medicinal in its own right. The root medicine can be used for all the above uses, regulate blood glucose, anti inflammatory, diuretic, seasonal allergies, bph in men, hormone regulation in women etc. specifically the root medicine is best for bph, and hormone regulation in women. 

      

The trailing, close to surface root is easily gathered in spring, find a moist wet stand, and these roots tend to be both trailing and tap root. The early spring or late fall is best for root medicine, especially the rhizome close to the surface trailing root. You can often gather the trailing roots in early spring by hand without any digging.  Often times there will be both tap roots and side trailing roots. The root medicine is best used to help support bph issues in men, enlarged prostate and has a hormone balancing effect in both men and women. The root medicine used regularly can assist with bph and aid in ejaculation, strength and hardness of erection. Women have reported it is helpful in regulation of periods. The fresh root gathered, and also the gathered seed heads, since in general stinging nettle root is gathered late summer, so seeds will be present. tinctures 1:2 60-75% alcohol or dried 1:5. 

     Stinging nettle produce a stinging sensation upon contact, which like anything is going to vary among different people. Obviously if you react with extreme hives, that last for days you would not use this method. For me it's more like a 2-4 hour productive counter irritant effect. The stinging sensation is useful as a counter irritant to focus blood flow. The fresh plant is rubbed on arthritic,  rheumatism stiff joints, knuckles, knees, etc. as a therapeutic counter irritant. It's also useful for sciatica nerve pain. You can have someone, using gloves, trace the pain pathway with the fresh plant. Traditionally for back pain, a person removes clothing, lays on the stomach flat, and another person takes a stinging nettle switch, and whips the back repeatedly, rubbing the fresh plant directly on the skin, briefly, then pausing for a minute or so to assess reaction, whether to go further or that's enough. As different people react differently to stinging nettle, some more or less sensitive, always use caution, less is more. It's possible with fresh stinging nettle applied topical, spinal manipulation and ball, mat exercise to get some serious healing with spinal nerve compaction issues. Combined, although not simultaneously!, topical liniments and infused oils such as Heracleum maximum -- cow-parsnip root, st johns wort infused oil, arnica, pedicularis, aconite can be applied at various times alternating with therapeutic stretching, ball and mat work to get some serious healing going on.