Simple ceremony

Gardening is a practical magic.

Every autumn I re-negotiate with the nettles. They lobby with power around here, well-represented in all open spaces including our garden. They’re the plant equivalent of the jackdaws that thrive in the local hollow tree trunks, barns and chimneys - so, everywhere - and like the jackdaws, can be polarising. Personally, I love them both.

As tenants, we’re obliged to keep certain parts of this property accessible to the skilled team that works wonders in next door’s arts and crafts gardens, delighting thousands of visitors a year. This mostly means allowing them to trim the yew hedge that divides the immaculate public space and our feral patch of “Is it a garden, or is it a field?”.

For fifteen years I’ve let the nettles grow on our side. Each September, when they’re six feet tall and heavy with seed, I must cut them back to the ground so the gardeners can come and do their work. It feels murderous to me.

I find nettles to have the personality of the late, great Dame Maggie Smith. They’re beautiful, multi-talented, quietly powerful, and they take no prisoners. Useful in the way that the stings feel to my arthritic hands, in an iron-rich tea that tastes delicious, and also as a barrier between my dogs and the visitors who wander just yards away but considerably lower, thanks to the ten foot drop beyond the hedge. Zoey was happy enough to just teeter along the edge, sniffing for anything edible, like a ravenous circus performer, but both Digby and Dooley would happily have base-jumped - sans parachutes - to meet PEOPLE!, who may or may not have had a picnic with them. By the time I’d cut back the plants, the visitor season was over until the following spring so it was perfect timing. Sadly, all three of the block-headed amigos are running free in Otherworldly gardens now and probably dive-bombing residents with clumsy impunity. I hope there is cake.

This year, as autumn kept texting ahead but not actually showing up, I spent a few hours in the sunny garden clearing out this patch. As usual, I started by telling the plants how much I appreciate them. How I see them and don’t think they’re The Bad Guys. How beloved they are by us and all the insect life they support. How the robins, the rats, the mice, the squirrels and the hedgehogs are grateful for their cover and generosity. Then we have The Talk about how I’m going to have to cut and uproot but I’ll always leave the core to grow back next spring. They show me where.

I’m feeling a deeper-than-ever connection to my garden and everything that lives in it. When my tutor, Deb, asked us to choose Wild Collaborators to work with for our year long nature connection practitioner projects, one of mine was this little space, as a collective. We have a strong relationship. I feel held, protected and known by this patch and its inhabitants. I believe them to be curious about and somewhat entertained by us humans. In return, I care for this place. I keep it and its beings as healthy as I can. I dress it up and make it look pretty sometimes, just for fun. I do not allow certain pushier plants (not the nettles) to take over. We co-work. I say good morning to the garden when I wake, and wish it a good night - usually drowned out by the tawny owls who move in after dark - when I go to bed. I am grateful for all that it gives us.

It’s not just plants and animals. There are spirits here. Of the earth and Earth; of helpers from the Otherworld, and of this place. This 500+ acres we get to live on, as tenants of a tiny, old cottage somewhere in the middle of it.

As I worked in the nettles that day, I was happy. The sun was on me but not too hot, and the work was hard but not too hard. Movement and light are powerful magic, especially combined! I guess my heart and soul were open as I conducted my 2024 deal with the stingers. “Someone” started to speak to me. Nettles? Helpers? The huge cedar tree above us? I’m still not sure, but whoever it was showed me something lovely. They showed me how human beings, in our animal bodies, are conduits. Filaments through which Life moves and expresses itself. We connect. We may not be physically rooted the way plants and trees are (seven year old me was pretty sad about that and considered people to be “snapped off”) but we’re an essential part of how Life works for Earth. Not just us, all animals. 

I practised a version of energy healing for many years, becoming sensitive to how it feels. I think we can all do that if we just keep engaging. It’s a language there for us to learn. A tune for us to dance to. When I feel healing energy it’s beautiful but clean and clear. When the energy of other living beings flows through, their “personalities” and idiosyncrasies feel much more rich, varied and colourful. It changes us on the way through, strengthening that connection.

Tending to the nettles here isn’t just about convenience, or managing the garden. Each year, it feels less like a task and more like a ceremony. I treasure the conversation. The nettles return strong, resilient and adaptable. Reminding me that what thrives here does so for a reason.

Cutting them back wasn’t an end, but a reset to keep the cycle going. This place, and my relationship to it, evolves with each interaction. The nettles, all the other More Than Human beings, and me - all part of the landscape. All thriving for a reason.