A Message From Stinging Nettle

Is anyone else experiencing a super charged time lately?

Recently, we’ve had the Summer Solstice, the Ritual of the Form (a ritual celebrated in Damanhur to honor the passing of Falco Tarassaco and explore the continued growth and expansion of Damanhur itself), and then the Rite of the Oracle Full Moon ceremony.

I’m energetically full already.

But truth be told, this highly charged time actually started for me a few Saturdays back. 

In the summer heat, why is it so chilly?

It started at my favorite farm-to-table restaurant in all the Canvaese: Ca’ Praudin. The view from here is breathtaking and the food is deliciously traditional!

That’s where we met to get ready for our hike up to an abandoned town called, “Cantoncello”. The restaurant is in a town named Inverso, which means “opposite” or “flip side” in Italian. Any guess why it is called this?

If you thought it’s because it’s on the opposite side of the mountain, you’d be right. Towns with this name—of which there are several in Italy—usually only get the northern sun. Throughout the year, they stay relatively fresh, getting downright cold in the winter. A name can tell you so much about a location, so pay attention!

Where the wild things grow

We started our adventure at an altitude of 738m and spent the majority of our three hours going steadily up. Under the canopy of Birches and Beeches, 

with the occasional flowering Golden Rain (Laburnum anagyroides) and Whitebeam (Sorbus aria), with a dense underbrush of wild rhododendrons (Rhododendron ferrugineu), Arnica flowers, Ajucca, and many other wild herbs, it was cool and muggy. Being from Miami, I like sweat, which is a good thing, since I was drenched by the end.

It was beautiful… magickal even, with so many medicinal and edible plants to connect with:

The occasional toxic plant:

And the wild counterparts of known flower friends, like these Field Forget-me-nots (Myosotis arvensis):

CANTONCELLO – altitude 1177m

When we finally arrived at our destination, we didn’t expect what we found. To start with, the entire town is surrounded by a moat-sized field of Stinging Nettle. 

Seeing them everywhere triggered something in me. Honestly, I had this super strong feeling to jump into kin’s sea. Of course, I didn’t, since I don’t think my body could actually stand that much stinging. But the feeling was super strong. There is something kin wants me to know, and since then, I have received various messages from Stinging Nettle directly from kin and from others who feel the urge to speak to me about this powerful Spirit Wild Plant.

What are Kin saying to me? 

How can I put into words the message of Stinging Nettle? It’s kind of personal. Not secret personal, more like that inside joke that only you would understand. That kind of personal.

In a nutshell, it’s time for me to use my sting to create movement. But before I do it, I have to have the anti-sting remedy ready to take away the bitter part of the pain and help people see why it was time to move. Trust me, it makes perfect sense to me.

I think kin were trying to share this message with me the week before in Survival Training when I came across a smaller sea of plants, but I wasn’t ready to listen. Kin probably lured me out on this walk, in an environment that is different from where I usually come across kin, to make sure I would listen this time.

Back to Cantoncello… 

high up on the north side of the mountain, it is not really clear when this town was fully abandoned. There is one house high up that is still used as a summer refuge. For the rest, it is a literal ghost town…

Time stops here. Buildings, stairways, and stone archways are held together with old homemade mortar and growing plants, giving us hints at how time passes.

Particularly curious are areas called “crotin” where dairy products were once kept. These were so cold that it felt like you were going from a humid oven into a dry freezer. Apparently, these unique pockets are some of the coolest parts of the whole valley!

We stayed up there for about half an hour. I kept getting called back to the Stinging Nettle on the outskirts of the city. The sea of green leaves whispered to me constantly. I lay on a rock and listened… letting my body receive the download without interference from my mind.

Integrating Stinging Nettle’s message does not require mental processing

As we walked down, I found myself at the very front of the group. There, I could move ahead of the conversations being had behind me. It was my way of getting some alone time to let Stinging Nettle’s wisdom enter into my body.

By moving my legs instead of sitting there trying to “understand”, I could allow my True Nature to commune with the plant wisdom uninterrupted from human logic. 

When we finally made it down to Ca’ Praudin, before going home, my happily tired body sat on a lawn chair with a good beer and my favorite woods guide, Muflone, soaking in the last bits of what this magickal place had to offer.

In the days after this connection, Stinging Nettle has reached out to me various time to make sure that I am integrating ki’s wisdom wisely. I’ve received an email from a person that took my Spirit Wild Plant quiz and wanted to share with me a personal experience with his nettle guide. I was even offered Stinging Nettle based food at a local event, reminding me to focus on the transformation, not the sting.

Only today, as I talked with a colleague and then wrote this article, are the piece of the message finally coming together. That’s how it works—not all of the message is clear from the very beginning. It is a slow drip that fills your being with understanding, so give yourself time.

Have you had a recent experience with your Spirit Wild Plant? I’d love to hear about it.