Reframing Miracles

the doorways we don't know to go through

One of the most unusual things Ive seen during my time as a herbalist was the uncanny timing and then subsequent response when a random neighbor popped round.

To start at the beginning of this yarn, it was early March and the stinging nettles were popping out from underneath the undergrowth. Now I don’t know about you but I can wax lyrical about these because young nettle just ooze power. Do me a favour and the next time you’re out look in some compost pile or wet soggy rich earth and see if you can find a stinging nettle. If you don’t see it you can always just close your eyes and start feeling through the undergrowth and sure enough it will find you! Haha! Anyway, kissed or not just hunker down and take a peek at all the unpacked, unfurled potential silently resting there, in the bright new green vibrancy of the nettle and feel its vibe. As Olivia and John sang it so well….its electrifying!

(this is pretty much what Nettle would look like apart from it would be green satin pants)

So to get back to the yarn I was out with my friend, I’ll call her Shelly, in her yard plucking fresh young nettles so that we could juice them, rather like you would wheat grass and get all buzzed up with the amazing transformation of saturated soils, air and sunlight into the superfood goodness that are nettles. And when you catch the vibe of nettle, well you’ll know what was going down, we’re all chatty and wired and buzzy from the odd nettle sting when her neighbor burst in like a big huge balloon. Literally, this women’s face was twice the size and her eyes were almost shut and she was crying and her nose was running and she looked miserable. She was miserable, she told us in a voice filled with despair. “Oh God Shelly” she said “I cant stand it anymore, the tree pollen is driving me crazy, Ive been doing this for 3 days and Benadryl wont touch it anymore and I just don’t know what to do”

Well for me this was a bona fide miracle, here this women is, in miserable distress from seasonal allergies and here I am holding in my hands right then and there a shot glass of fresh nettle juice, nettles being something that I will use to help with seasonal allergies amongst other things.

”Well try this” my girlfriend says and we watch as she downs the shot in one. She then seems to wake up, like she had just walked in from another room. She inhaled and started to look around as if emerging from a reality where she had been forced to wear a particularly uncomfortable plushy suit, say barney the dinosaur which had no zipper and never wanted to go back there. Not only that but she started to de-swell. Shelly and I were kind of gawking at her as her check bones emerged along with eye sockets and we felt like we were watching some fancy special effects but for reals.

As she returned back to her normal size, as her brain started to work again and registered the lack of acute discomfort she smiled and said “well that was great” and left.

We laughed because simply the timing of it and also more because we got to witness recovery, a return to normal rather than the usual parade of things unraveling that we tend to remember and base the future on.

But thats not really the most miraculous thing that happened. I bumped into Shelly’s neighbor a couple of months later at the local grocery store and of course immediately asked her if she become a big fan of drinking nettle tea to help her with her allergies. “Oh hows that Nettle working for you?” kind of opening which feels normal to me,.

I’m sorry?” she asked looking confused. (which also feels normal <sigh>) It turns out she actually didn’t even remember the event let alone become a convert. The pain and then miraculous recovery, the bleak despair of overwhelm and then the awakening into the light filled horizon of serenity. Nope nada not a thing. And I understood. The whole experience had been totally out of context. It was framed in a way that had no real weight in her everyday life. No resonance. No connection and so was easy to tuck away as an anomaly and to forget as if it didn’t exist. Miraculous plant healing on your doorstep irrelevancy.

I of course then wondered what do I not pay attention to because it is so left field? Out of context? And what do I do that helps me to be able to pay better attention? What doorways have I forgotten? Or that I might have walked through without realising they are there?

All of these themes resonate with the teachings of the nettle, paying attention, discernment, nourishment. Which I will delve into more this month. For those of us that want to keep our eyes open here are some excellent guides to identifying nettle, preparing nettle and learning about just how good nettles are for you:

If you only want to read one excellent monograph this is a good start: https://www.herbrally.com/monographs/nettle

Nettle pesto from a all round good beginners herb source mountainrose:
https://blog.mountainroseherbs.com/nettle-pesto-recipe