Star Signs for Plants – Welcome to the Wonder of Herbal Astrology
By Hannah Charman, Medical Herbalist, and BFA (Big Fan of
Astrology).
Are your Nettles Aries or Gemini?. What’s your Geranium’s Ascendant?, and are your Daisies ruled by Jupiter or Saturn?. As mad as it seems, plants have star signs and ruling planets too. In days gone by, Astrology was used as a way of understanding the characteristics and properties of medicinal herbs. Since it was an important way of making sense the goings-on in our universe, it was naturally applied to herbal medicine. If a person had a good imagination, and an open mind, they could find similarities between the plants that grew nearby, and the planets that ruled them. Herbal astrology is rarely used these days, which is a shame because it adds a whole new wonderful dimension to all the active constituents and indications that Medical Herbalists are taught during their training. Instead of looking at atoms and molecules and eyes and elbows, herbal astrology enables us to look at the whole plant, the whole person and the whole universe. Each plant has its own character in the same way as people do, and herbal astrology makes choosing the perfect remedy for a patient much easier.
For example, your nettles (or
‘naughty man’s plaything’s’ as they are also known) are actually ruled
by Mars. Mars is associated with war and lots of energy and the urge to survive.
If you were unfortunate enough to be attacked in the middle of some dark, fairly
boggy woodland, you can be pretty confident that repeatedly thrashing your
offender
with a few stems from a handy patch of stinging nettles would send him
running and probably shrieking a few curses as he (or she) went on his way. As
we all know, nettles hurt when you touch them, because the little hairs on them
inject you with formic acid, which, well, hurts when it’s injected into you.
When they weren’t having drunken parties or building ridiculously long walls,
the Romans used to while away the hours whipping each other’s arthritic joints
with nettles to bring all the blood and the body’s own natural painkillers
into the sore bits. This is what we call counter-irritation, and by all accounts
it’s the bees knees when it comes to reducing pain and inflammation (after the
initial agony of being repeatedly injected with formic acid of course). Believe
it or not, there are still people around today who can remember the same
‘nettle thrashing’ rituals going on in more rural areas. If you’re ever
brave enough to try it, please do let me know how you get on. But that’s not
all….
The planet Mars looks red because
it has a lot of Iron in it. By spooky co-incidence, blood is also red because
there is a lot of Iron in it, and nettles are very rich in Iron too. Nettles are
therefore often used as ‘blood food’, to cleanse and nourish the blood, and
they’re probably the best western herbal remedy there is for treating anaemia.
Still, though, there’s more…
The symbol for Mars is the circle
with the arrow pointing out of it up to the right (I don’t have the technology
to draw it, sorry!). Anyway, it’s the same symbol for men and masculinity and
male things (as in the book – Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus). The
whole fighty, aggressive, energetic ness of Mars is so much more male than
fluffy, gentle, lovely, venusian femaleness. And again, by spooky co-incidence,
Nettle roots have recently been found to be fabulously good at treating prostate
enlargement, which is obviously a bit of a boy’s waterworks problem. The
hypothetical nettles we could use to fend off our woodland-dwelling attacker
were growing in a boggy bit of earth. That’s because they love water, not just
in the soil, but in the body as well. They are a good diuretic, making the
kidneys produce more urine, which contains uric acid. Uric acid crystals in
joints are what causes gout and some types of arthritis, so that’s another
good reason to make use of nettles if you’re a bit on the stiff side.
When we touch a stinging nettle, we
swear a bit, the skin gets hot and inflamed, and it looks angry, so it’s not
surprising that nettles are a fire sign. Although I haven’t yet found anything
written about it, the combination of fire and Mars would add up to Aries. In the
same way that you can’t fail to notice when a typical Aries has just turned
up, you can’t fail to notice that you’ve touched a stinging nettle. You
can’t usually fail to see it either, as nettles can get quite tall. The
forward going, strong Arian energy is brought into the body by nettle,
especially when it comes to moving liquids. It not only contains Iron to feed
the blood, but lots of other vitamins and minerals as well to fortify the body
and give it masses of health and vitality. When nettles are used to treat
someone, the results are usually quite dramatic. Nettles, like Aries, are
thought of as being a touch selfish, some may even say a greedy plant, after
all, they have to get all those vitamins and minerals from somewhere. All in
all, nettles are great, and although you probably scowl at them a lot and think
they’re nasty and should be banned, maybe now you can understand why a
Herbalist’s eyes will light up when they see them. They’re almost a whole
medicine chest in one handy plant. So bless them as they grow in that boggy
patch by the back gate, you never know when you might need them.
On that note, one final thing. By
all means drink copious amounts of nettle tea when the fresh young tops come out
in spring (it’s best fresh with a good sized lump of lemon). It will clear
away the winter cobwebs and get you all revitalised for the rest of the year.
You can always steam or boil a few bits and turn them into a nice soup or
spinach substitute as well if the mood should take you. However, if you have
arthritis, or anaemia, or any of the other things I’ve mentioned, you would do
best to see a Medical Herbalist, where you can get friendly expert advice and
medicine tailor made to suit your needs. If you’re in the Portsmouth /
Emsworth area, feel free to ring me on 07763 595879 for a chat, or email me at Hannahcharman1@aol.com.
If you’re too far away, look under Herbalists in the Yellow Pages, and go for
one with NIMH after the name. NIMH stands for National Institute of Medical
Herbalists, and all members must be fully qualified, insured, and adhere to a
strict code of practice. For more information, visit the website at www.nimh.org
