Oose Bainke (Thank you Stinging Nettle)
By Nikki McDaid
I craved your touch
Your electric sting licking my skin
Hurting and healing
And ultimately transforming
A lesson about life and death, birth and rebirth
I was reborn from your jagged edges when I first purposefully brushed up against you
Your touch needling into me
Tingling and biting in a way that I can’t forget
Millions of pin-pricks connecting my being to millions of pinhead lights in the sky at night
– Ancestors
They help me endure greater pain than you could ever cause
For the pain you cause is the midwifing pain that, in the end, gives life
When I longed for you
You came to me in a dream
In a sea of snakeroot and clearweed
I searched everywhere for you and touched every look-alike
Seeking the stinging sensation on my fingertips
In a moment where I felt most alone
In which I questioned whether I had made the right choice
In which I longed for my homelands
I touched the next spindly limb
And it was you
I knew it immediately from the energetic burn on the pads of my fingers
You woke me right then
Feeling hope and not so alone
My heart full
Reborn
And my finger hurt-healed from your touch for days after
This hurt-healing rebirth is an inter-generational cycle of strength
Strength for our ancestors
Strength for our people
Strength for the ones to come
As we live and love your touch taste healing
We sing songs that scare away the harshest of beings
We sing songs of resilience
We survive
We thrive
–
Healing
–
This is healing and love
This is connection and life
Today, your children sprouted from the Earth where I stood
Seeds I had sown
Rebirth
Again
Their infant bodies joyfully stinging from the moment they’re born
Ancestors within them
Healing me and us
Healing the world
Again.
Oose, Bainke (Thank you, Nettle).
Oose Bainke (Thank you Stinging Nettle)
Love your poetry and meditations Nikki! Keep it coming 🙂