Apr 22, 2025
building community (both human and plant)
happy (two days after) 4/20 my friends. this 4/20, i celebrated by respecting the screaming sensitivity of my tender throat, which is torn up and angered from a long week of coughing. this week, i’ve been thinking about how much we rely on one another for healing — the care of plants, old gifts from friends we forgot, rituals that carry us through when we’re too tired to carry ourselves.
while being sick this week has been a really big bummer, i’ve come out the other side of it feeling grateful for what it taught me. things i already knew but had momentarily forgotten. things about care, reciprocity, and how deeply supported i actually am, even when i feel kind of useless and gross. so i’m writing to share a story about illness and recovery — and about returning to the things that support us, even after we’ve forgotten them.
one fun, super helpful, and all around awesome facet of my adhd is that i have an uncanny ability to completely and totally neglect to think about things that i love, even the things that support me the most through difficult periods. i’ll go weeks without journaling only to remember, suddenly, mid-breakdown, that it’s an option, and ask myself, “why don’t i do this every day?”
and then a few weeks later, i’ll forget again.
it’s great.
and so it had gone for the last several weeks with herbs. time was passing (as it does) and i was forgetting to make my teas, to take my tinctures, to allow myself to receive help from plants that want to provide me with support. but as a last-ditch prayer, i returned to herbs for healing this week, and am grateful that i did.
i woke up on monday with my throat vaguely tickling. i didn’t think much of it at first, but as the day went on and that ticklish feeling evolved into an unpleasant scratching sensation, i started to feel more and more nervous.
eventually, i had to admit it to myself.
i was sick.
immediately, i started taking dropperfuls of echinacea tincture with every glass of water. i honestly don’t remember where i got this echinacea tincture from – i believe it was a gift from someone i knew in western north carolina, but i don’t know who shared it with me. moving to the suburbs of philadelphia has really shown me how much i took for granted when i lived in asheville.
in asheville, there was an abundance of natural medicine growing everywhere, and an abundance of people who knew how to harvest it, processing it into oxymels and oils, salves, syrups, and smoking blends, essences and elixirs, teas and tinctures. people just generally understood that they were meant to gift the plants that the land had gifted to them. they crafted these medicines and shared them freely with one another, with their communities.
so much of my herbal medicine cabinet is still made up of things i was given or traded my own homemade wares for. the “heart beet” purple fire cider. the calendula, plantain, and lavender salve, made for working hands. the canada thistle and mimosa flower essences, crafted for those experiencing grief. and, this echinacea tincture, which i’ve held on to for two years now, and which is now halfway gone.
there are lots of natural medicines growing here too, though i’ve yet to find as many people working with them in these ways (PS. if you’re one of those people, or you know one of those people, please reach out! i want to connect and exchange/talk about herbs with you <3).
this isn’t all bad – as a result, i’ve been spending more time connecting personally with plants and land myself to make my herbal medicines. the day before i got sick, i went to a nearby park with a creek (or crick, as folks around here like to say) where i found one of my favorite plants, stinging nettles, growing in abundance.
nettles are a plant that’s taught me so much – about reciprocity, about boundaries, about nourishment and care. when i found them growing by the creek, i harvested the leaves off the top of every stem i found. with many plants, i’d take less, i’d be more discerning, i’d make sure to take far less than i leave behind. with nettles, though, i don’t really feel the need to do that.
this is because nettles actually love to be harvested, and will grow even bigger, bushier, and more abundantly if you do it correctly. you can look for the spot right above a set of mature leaves (called the node by botanists) where tiny little baby sets of leaves grow out of either side.
harvest right above that node, come back in a week or two, and you’ll find that those tiny leaves have unfurled, and what was one stem is now two. you can keep doing this pretty much indefinitely, or until the end of the plant’s season.
nettles are one of the earliest spring greens, coming out of hibernation at the perfect time to help with seasonal allergies thanks to their antihistamine properties. some people say they can help with joint pain caused by conditions like arthritis, and they are thought to be able to lower blood sugar and blood pressure. and, if you ask me, they’re just kind of badass and cool.
nettles have taught me a lot about boundaries, something i’m sure you’ve felt acutely if you’ve ever unknowingly wandered into a patch of them, or brushed past a stem with a bare leg on a walk.
this is because the spines growing on their stems and leaves contain both histamine, the compound responsible for causing allergic reactions (yes, i know, confusing, since i just said they have antihistamine properties (but both can be true!)), and formic acid, the same irritating compound in an ant bite or bee sting.
if you know how to handle them the way they want to be handled, though, you can harvest them and come out unscathed.
once, as a child, i was balancing on a parking block, and fell off into a patch of nettles. i ran inside afraid, unsure of what was going on, and covered in puffy welts. my dad, who isn’t generally an herb-y sort of person, somehow knew that dock leaves counteract the sting of nettles. he collected some leaves from outside for me to rub on the hives that had formed, soothing my irritated skin, and accidentally introducing me then to the magic of herbalism.
so, while i’m still emerging from the tail end of this cold, i’m also returning — to my body, to the plants, and to the practices that remind me how supported i am. even after a winter of being forgotten, the nettles come back to support, to be supported.
next week, i’ll share more about what it means to build those relationships — with the land, with the plants, with the communities we want to grow alongside. until then, thanks for reading. if you can, go find a plant to hang out with this week. it could be a potted flower on your porch, a dandelion in your yard, a nettle by the creek. i promise you won’t regret it.
with care,
— jude (they/them)