Connecting to nettle: cordage making workshop

This is an intuitive craft workshop into the magical world of nettle and cordage. It is a blend of practical hands on workshop and of connecting to our intuitive experience to increase our awareness of what happens when we come into relationship with nettle. 

We will start our session with a sacred tea ceremony so that we can land in our bodies, quiet our mental chatter and become  available to what nettle has to offer. Through the use of gentle and mindful movements in response to the plant we will let the energy of nettle flow through our body to open ourselves up to its wisdom. We will work in pairs to be witnessed with the plant . We will finish the ceremony by making an intention to be weaved through our cordage making.

In the second part of the workshop, we will dive into the hypnotising world of cordage-making. You will be shown how to pick, prepare and strip nettle plants to make cordage with their fibres and you will have a go at preparing, stripping and making cordage yourself. We will gather around the fire  and make cordage together.

The workshop will run 2 hours from 6.30 – 8.30pm. On top of that, anyone is welcome to stay an extra hour at the end to just hang out, drink tea and carry on making cordage together if you want to continue after the end of workshop. 

What to expect:

• Learning how to receive your intuition in relation to nettle
• Connecting to your body to tune into a deeper state of receptivity
• Self-reflection and sharing in pairs and in groups about your experience
• Being held in a supportive non-judgemental learning space
• Learn how to make cordage with nettle
• Enjoy time crafting and making cordage together

Connecting to a plant such as nettle in a group settings has the advantage to amplify and reinforce our individual experience giving us a wider understanding of what nettle can offer to us.

All the plants I work with are non-psychedelic plants and are commonly used in herbal medicine. Some are native to the UK, all commonly grow on British land and our gardens. Journeying with common plants can be as insightful and profound as journeying with psychedelic plants with the advantage of being a more gentle process. It does require though a willingness and commitment to drop into our bodies and its sensations in order to tune to the plants’ level as it is a more subtle way of listening.

About the facilitator:

Claire is an insight herbalist who graduated from the School of Intuitive Herbalism in Stroud and offers mentoring as part of the School's online introduction course. She is also a movement artist and eco-somatic practitioner. Her movement art practice is strongly rooted in her relationship with non-human beings such as plants and the ecology of a space. She is the author of How to Be Feral: Movement Practices to Re-wild your Body, a philosophical movement book which challenges our human-centered perspective of the world and encourages us to think with our moving bodies and not just with our mind.

As well as running plant and movement workshops she also offers one-to-one plant meetings and one-to-one somatic movement coaching.

www.movingmeditation.co.uk

www.claireloussouarn.com

@howtobeferal