Stinging Nettle

Sacred Sting

I’m listening to the nettles. They first made themselves known to me at Beltany Stone Circle, where they grew abundantly in patches all in and around the stone circle. A few days later they caught my attention as I was walking Newcastle Wood Walk near Uisneach, where they abundantly lined the walking path in several areas. Then the following day, as I toured Hill of Tara, they announced themselves once again, guarding Hawthorns at the sacred site.

Before doing any research or defined listening, I knew that Stinging Nettles help us to deal with the stinging things in life. What I discovered through my ongoing listening was a dual medicine that unsurprisingly mirrors life.

This theme presented itself in the three days I attuned to nettle: they showed up in large, abundant patches seemingly as protection of sacred spaces. Inside and around the sacred site of the Beltany Stone Circle, underneath and around the Hawthorns, Oaks, Elders, and Ash Trees at sacred site Hill of Tara, and guarding some of the only Hawthorn and Ash trees in the Newcastle Wood Walk. Nettle’s role as a protector of the sacred felt potent throughout.

Essence Transmission

As a protection essence, stinging nettle helps us to have available the defense mechanisms we need to keep safe that which we hold sacred. We aren’t looking to go around stinging with our prickles, but we don’t hide them away either. If someone comes too close or attempts to enter where they’re not welcome, our prickles are an appropriate defense to keep our sacred safe, letting the encroacher feel the sting of their own folly.

As a transformative essence, stinging nettle helps us to endure the sting we incur. When life stings, we understand it as part of a bigger picture, and we choose to find wisdom as we endure that sting until its process is complete. There is sweet, sacred truth beneath the prickly defense, and unfortunately sometimes it takes a sting for us to find our way to it.

Nettle will protect what is sacred, with a sting if necessary. By enduring the sting and learning from it, we can find the sweet and sacred truth beneath it.