Nettle Journey
NETTLE JOURNEY
Plant Colour Rituals: March 2025
Nettle Journey
March 29th - April 13th
An invitation to journey with Nettle each for for 2 weeks, within a held online container, with guidance from natural dyer and intuitive herbalist Babs Behan and the enrichment of group learning and discovery.
Each day we commit to meeting Nettle in a way we choose, which may be the same of differ each day - perhaps a tea, a single mark made with the ink, taking soup or other edibles, bringing Nettle into the home in a vase to admire and sit with or taking time to be outside where Nettles dwell.
We gather online twice, to activate the journey and for the culmination.
Schedule:
7pm (UK) March 29th, 2025 - New Moon - Nettle Journey Activation
7 pm (UK) April 13th, 2025 - Full Moon - Creative Practice Salon
NETTLE JOURNEY INITIATION - NEW MOON, MARCH 29TH
Deepen your relationship with this potent plant, of strength & protection
In community with like-minded folks, from the comfort of your own home
With an introduction to this fortifying herbal dye plant, provided with recipes and guided into a somatic tea tasting ritual followed by 2 weeks practice and a group creative salon to culmiate and share.
You will need:
A cup of freshly brewed Nettle leaf tea and an open mind.
Access to Zoom - (please have a free membership set up in advance).
A sufficient amount of nettle leaves to brew a pot of dye - this can be done before or after this first session.
NETTLE DYE RECIPE from “Botanical Dyes” Book, by Babs Behan
The colours that Nettles offer vary from hues of silvery green on silks & dark olive on protein fibres, more so with an alkaline ph or iron, to muted yellow greens on plant fibres.
Harvest nettle leaves in Spring before they go to flower and the acidity levels rise, bleaching colours and making them inedible.
You’ll need 200% of the weight of the fibre in fresh leaves – eg for 400g (14oz) of fibre, use 800g (24oz) of nettle.
Shake your basket of leaves and allow to sit for an hour for stowaway buys to escape.
Leaves can be blanched with boiling water and then covered with plain water and left to sit overnight, for the deeper minerals to extract in the water, before bringing slowly and gently to below simmering point, for 30-60 mins. Then strained to remove leaf matter, before immersing pre-mordanted fibres, clothing and textiles. Be careful to not shock protien fibres by keeping temperatures balanced.
More info on sourcing and modifiers etc in the session recordeing above.
Excerpts of recipe from the “Botanical Dyes” book, by Babs Behan
