Herb Dreams Are Healing Dreams
When folks first begin turning towards herbs and dreams, the rational mind sometimes grows confused… Wait… am I inviting the plants into my dreams to heal and teach me, or am I taking the teachings I receive from the dreams OUT of the dreams and into the world. The answer, as is usually the case with dreams is - both/yes/all.
When an herb shows up in a dream I’d like to make a bold declaration - the herb is in your dream to heal you, the situation, the field you’re working in and the world at large (all of these of course, are really the same thing right?)
Why? Because my friends, plants are healers.
Have you ever noticed how rapidly forests bounce back following a clear cut, fire, flood or other natural disaster - life returning to barren land within a single season. The land is able to repair so rapidly thanks to the special power of one group of our Earthly relatives : the plants. In the original design of this planet, plants were given the role of healers within the web of life. Plants are healers.
To restore herself, the Dream of the Earth in West Coast forest environments, sourced by an inherent wisdom and impulse towards continued life, sends up the noble alder trees to replant and repair the layers of her damaged skin. Alder trees are fast growing, rapidly reestablishing the conditions for a diverse ecosystem, and providing shade and shelter. Through their symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, alder trees re-nutrify the soil, restoring bioavailable nutrients that allow other plants to grow sooner. By quickly repairing the impact from a massive death, they make possible the conditions for reweaving the very web of life.
Other healers the Earth sprouts to repair herself are those who we often consider weeds - nettles, yellow dock, cleavers, dandelion and chickweed. These hearty plants come in to restore soil structure, prevent erosion, liberate minerals from the soil, rebuild organic matter and generally return robusticity to the web of life. Overtime, though not too long, the plants restore vitality and re-knit the skin of Mother Earth.
The sacred role of plants in this creation is to heal - they heal the Earth, the land, the animals and… they heal the people. They do this on the level of our bodies, minds and our very souls. They open up new pathways of energy for life essence to flow, and in so doing initiate or deepen the process of repair, of restitching and reweaving the strands of life.
Plants will show up in our dreams to heal us, perhaps sent by the Dream of the Earth herself. When plants show up in a dream from now on - you, like me, might giggle with excitement, for one thing we can be sure of : a plant dream is a healing dream. Plants are healers.
Much attention has been given in recent times to animal dreams, but plant dreams are less frequently discussed. I think this has to do with the general trend away from Nature over the past couple generations, with less and less people paying much if any attention to the environment around them.
Our attention these days has simply shifted elsewhere. The plants visit us in our dreams less frequently because we pay them less attention when we’re awake. Animals, however, are harder to ignore. Carl Jung described the animals that show up in our dream as our innate impulses - raw, primal energies that are arising or returning, and beginning to course through our consciousness. He never mentioned plant dreams but I’m here to tell you, that when they show up - they are here to heal. And the more we bring them into our waking lives, the more they will show up in our dreams.
Let’s take an example.
An herbalist friend shared the following sweet and simple dream with me: In my dream, I was holding a wilted white sacred sage plant. I felt moved that it wilted, then immediately thought ‘oh I need to get it some water.’
When she woke up the next morning and went about her business, while running out the door to get her kids to school, my friend spontaneously shouted aloud “wilted sage plant!!!” as the dream memory returned. She shared that it felt like something important, which inspired her to reach out to me.
When I asked for any waking life context, she shared that she had found herself in the middle of some drama that was “frankly draining her” and her hunches on what the dream was about included “disconnection or neglecting the inner wisdom that lies in my soul, allowing myself to be consumed by negative energy and giving energy to something I can’t fix. Not taking measures to protect myself.”
I shared with my friend that all dreams have infinite meanings, but in general following the juice and her hunches is always a wise path to follow. So I encouraged her to go with her own ideas on the meaning, as it seemed clear that white sage was showing up to her as medicine to help with, as she described, inner soul nourishment and spirit protection.
She had, of course, just planted a new white sage plant in her garden - so I encouraged her to leave an offering to the plant, thanking it for the dream and the healing. I also suggested she up her daily smudging practice and even wear a pinch of the plant, especially when entering into the negative situation. Finally, I suggested she do a bath of white sage tea while blowing the spirit of the dream into the bath, and receiving the healing and cleansing medicine the white sage spirit brought her
I followed up with her a few days later - her response, “I saged the hell out of my house and everything is far better.”
The white sage showed up to heal this lovely woman, returning her to a sense of self and interconnection, restored into the flow of life. This is a woman who helps many people and causes, a true asset in every kinship circle she has membership in. The white sage showed up to help return her back to the ability to perform the important work the Earth needs her to do, to play her role in the web of creation.
My friend could have ignored or forgotten the dream, not taken any action or honored the white sage’s healing visitation. But because she listened to her instincts, and had an authentic relationship with the plants to ground the connection, her healing happened much more rapidly than it may have otherwise. All of life benefits from the return of her soul connection and ability to use her energy in the ways she is meant to.
Welcome to the magic of dreamweaving with herbs.
