Olaf Lampson, Bio-Dynamics, Summer 1980
Known as an obnoxious weed, the stinging nettle; it is hard to kill; it does not even have a flower worth looking at; and it grows where rubbish lies. Not an attractive picture!
Now that I come to think of it, however, it does usually keep out of well-worked beds; and, although it does grow in dirty places, perhaps it acts there rather like a bad conscience; it pricks us when we have the time to tidy up, it hides the mess and improves the soil.
Like a bad conscience, the stinging nettle is an old acquaintance to most of us, and it is often good to have a new look at such old acquaintances.
We can often discern a cluster of stinging nettles from a distance by its dark shade of green. Coming closer, the next thing we notice is the straightness of the stems, which gives an impression of soldierly tidiness. The impression is accentuated by the regularity of the pairs of little branches and leaves sitting opposite each other and alternating at right angles around the nearly square stem. The dark green and tightly interwoven foliage gives a lush appearance but not the lushness of the tangled growth of a clover field. One has an impression of richness, of strength contained, bridled into a nearly geometric regularity of growth.
There is harmony in the growth of a patch of stinging nettles that can be very pleasing to the eye, although in a place where nettles grow all through the year, this impression of harmony is of course not always there. In fall or winter, we may want to pull up the ungainly mass of dried stems and discover that, with those tough and fibrous nettle stalks, we pull up long rhizoma, running in all directions, which hint to us of an elaborate and complicated root system. In this way we realize that the herbaceous part of the nettle is only half the plant, and we can also understand the mass of buds and new leaves that sprout all over in early spring. Watching our nettle patch all through spring we can experience the strength that lives in its root system through this profusely spreading mass of green; there seems to be nothing as yet of the soldierly order.
Looking more closely, of course, we can detect elements of geometry in each part of the plant: the four sidedness of rhizome and stem, as well as the crosswise arrangement of the leaves, is already there, and the round and heart-shaped leaves have symmetrically toothed edges. In May/June the plants begin to stretch but the stem is still hidden by well-rounded, wide-based leaves and the blunt crown of the plant is formed by a cross of four leaves and a bud in the middle. After midsummer, something new begins to happen; the plants still grow strongly but the new leaves do not seem to have the same strength as those that had grown so far. It is as if something touched them that made them whither; they become smaller, more pointed and more sharply toothed. The new part of the plant is more sparsely leaved, so that the stem is more visible and appears more geometric, and now small, lighter green inflorescences become more prominent and form the top of the plant, covering the leaves which are very small and spiky, somewhat like the sepals of other flowers. In late summer and early fall, nettles have the tendency to branch out and also to grow new shoots from the ground; they are among the latest plants to die down when winter sets in.
Observing the stinging nettle like this, we may experience three formative elements which take over more and more; the leaves lose their roundness in spring, it orientates itself in space in three axies perpendicular to each other. There is an unmistakable squareness in the basic geometry. In the leaf growth we find the tendency to become round which is, of course, immediately foiled by an element seemingly coming from above that splits the edges of even the roundest leaves up into teeth and even produces spikes all over the plant. As the nettle grows up into the light of the summer, this formative element takes over more and more; the leaves lose their roundness altogether and stop growing, and the nettle flowers. The little blossoms themselves can hardly be called flowers, but the whole upper part of the plant joins in the flowing process by yielding itself up to the light forces, giving up its roundness and becoming spiky, angular, radiating.
If we now look at the nettle not only in one place but in different parts of the country, we may be able to observe how, a different one of these three formative tendencies can predominate: we may find in the Okanagan, for instance, nettles have long, slender and spiky leaves all through the year; around Chilliwack, we may find very tall nettles with very strong and square stems, and, in the lower Fraser Valley, wide and rounded-leaved nettles. If we ask why this is so, we may of course find quite plausible biochemical or meteorological answers. If, however, we do not pursue the question but remain purely in the aesthetic realm, observing the quality of the whole landscape, we may experience – from the gesture of the trees, the forms of the clouds, and the shapes of human faces – how right it is that the nettle leaves are spiky in the Okanagan and round in the Fraser Valley. The stinging nettle may then appear to us as a sensitive indicator of the formative elements in a landscape.
Having observed the stinging nettle from an aesthetic point of view; we may sum up what we have discovered in the following way:
The stinging nettle reflects in a sensitive way the formative impulses that are at work in its surroundings.
Through this, three general form elements become apparent. Coming from the earth, the growth forces manifest themselves in their orientation in space with three axes of symmetry; in the region of the leaves, there is the element of movement, of flowing of the liquid, manifesting itself in rounded forms; and the light of summer days has its influence on the plant form by producing radiating and spiky shapes.
We noticed the growth of the nettle is something harmonious. The nettle seems able to bring into harmony all these elements and tendencies which are trying to take hold of it.
All this information has come to use though observation.
From natural science we can learn that, through bacteriological and biochemical activity, the nettle builds up humus around its roots, contains much iron, silica, sulfur, calcium, potassium etc. And Dr. Steiner tells us that the stinging nettle works in nature in a way similar to that of the human heart in man. Used as a compost preparation, he says, it makes the compost sensitive to the forces coming from the cosmos and helps it react “sensitively” in its processes of decomposition and fermentation.
The statement that the nettle creates humus, and the comparison of the nettle to a human organ, the heart, may remind us that the plants in general are not only beings which depend on the conditions of their environment (light, warmth, moisture and nutrients) to live and grow; they are also organs of the earth, both receiving from her and imparting to her what they receive from the cosmos.
The thought of the plants as an organ of the earth, although not at all a new one, opens quite fascinating vistas. We may find, for instance, that the relationship a healing plant has with the human organism is closely connected to its function as an organ of the earth. Looking at the nettle with this in mind we may ask: in which respect is the nettle, as Dr. Steiner says, “so wonderfully similar to what the heart is in the human organization?”
The heart reacts very sensitively to all that reaches it via the senses, as well as to that which comes from the metabolism, and Dr. Steiner calls it a “sense organ between above and below.”
But is holds the balance between “above and below” and here the iron, which is in the blood, plays an important part. According to D. Steiner, “the iron is the most important metal that works in man. It works in such a way that it balances and normalizes all that which works in an exaggerated way from one process into another in man’s organism.”
We have observed that the nettle is sensitive to the processes around it, but has the strength to hold the balance between the extremes; and we have learned that it helps restore the balance in the soil by helping to combine organic material with mineral to create humus. We now have only to think of the relationship the nettle has with the iron in the soil, and its power to restore the haemoglobin level in the blood, to understand why Dr. Steiner calls it “so wonderfully similar to … the heart;” because of its relationship with iron, it has the strength to harmonize extremes.
Much more could be said about the nettle, particularly in respect to its ability to unite polarities such as silica, calcium, sulfur and potassium within itself. This assay may suffice, however, as food for thought towards an understanding of the nettle as a compost preparation.
References:
Rudolph Steiner, Agriculture (London, 1977), p. 95.
Rudolph Steiner, Spiritual Science and Medicine (London).
Ibid