Kimberly Gallagher:
You're listening to Herb Mentor Radio by LearningHerbs.
I'm Kimberly Gallagher.
Tara Ruth:
And I'm Tara Ruth.
Today, we're chatting with Lauren Morgan.
Lauren is a community herbalist, a dreamer, an earth-based ceremonialist, and author, mother, and host of the Herbs and Dreams podcast. She attended her first herbal medicine apprenticeship almost 20 years ago and holds a degree in herbal sciences from Bastyr University. Since 2014, she has taught hundreds of students through her Dreamweaving and Herbalism IMMERSION program, and you can learn more about Lauren and her work at herbsanddreams.com.
Welcome to Herb Mentor Radio, Lauren.
Lauren Morgan:
Aw, thank you. Thank you, Tara.
And yeah, like I was saying before we started recording, thank you for being my new herbal sister. It's truly, truly a pleasure to meet you. And I've heard your voice on Herb Mentor Radio and it's truly delightful to be here with you.
Tara Ruth:
Aw. Thank you so much.
Lauren Morgan:
And Kimberly, my sister.
Kimberly Gallagher:
Yes.
Lauren Morgan:
Here we are doing this together.
Kimberly Gallagher:
I know. It's so good.
Lauren Morgan:
You never know where life will take you. Yeah. Yeah.
Kimberly Gallagher:
I met Lauren years ago through a mutual friend who's an herbalist and he introduced us. He's like, "You two have to know each other." And I went out to Lauren's land and we walked around when you had [inaudible 00:01:22] still a baby strapped to your back, and she took me on the trails around her property.
And then when COVID hit, I was like, "Lauren, I need to sit out by the fire and listen to the earth. This is really strange times, and can we start a circle?" And so we did a circle called... What was it called? Children of Gaia. And we did several meetings where we sat and listened to what the earth was wanting to tell us during COVID times.
And then just recently, maybe last summer? Not this last summer, but the summer before that, we were at the Northwest Herbal Conference and Lauren was teaching a class on herbs and dreams, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to go take that class." And so I took her live Herbs and Dreams class and then ended up in her Virtual Herbal Dreaming class and we've been having fun playing with dreams, especially plant dreams for a while now.
And we're working on a class together that we're going to teach in the spring. Yeah, we're having a lot of fun partnering and learning with and from each other. Yeah, such a good connection and really excited to have you here on the podcast today.
As I was looking at your website, you've got this great line that says, "Herbs and dreams are doorways to the wisdom within and beneath you." And I'm curious, how do you see herbs and dreams working as these doorways to wisdom?
Lauren Morgan:
I think the best way I can answer that is to tell my story, right?
Kimberly Gallagher:
Yeah.
Lauren Morgan:
I think that's true for all of us that are... And not just on the herbal path or on the healing path, but it's like our medicine comes out of what we've lived and what has helped us.
And so for me, it's really the plants, the herbs, and the dreams that healed me and that rewove me into a sense of connection, into a sense of purpose, into a sense of belonging, and into a sense of an alive, active breathing relationship with Mother Earth and the web of life.
I was not one of those people who had parents who gave me teas and tinctures. That wasn't my story. In fact, my story was somewhat opposite. I was raised very, what you could say, blah, or at least that's what it felt like to me. I was raised in the suburbs in a Catholic family. I love my family and my parents dearly. We are very, very, very connected and nothing is by chance and they're my destiny parents.
But surprise, surprise Catholicism and a blah square way of life, it didn't feed me. So I spent a lot of my childhood and teenage years feeling really empty, honestly, and feeling really hollow and feeling really like something was missing. That manifested as, is true for many of us, depression and as purposelessness, feeling purposeless and just longing. There was a longing in me.
And so I was so blessed, so blessed that at the young age of barely 20, I was a hippie living up in Bellingham, Washington. I didn't know what I was doing, was just following the moment to moment, and there was this flyer for a botanical medicine apprenticeship at my local co-op and something in me just lit up.
I called the beautiful woman. My first teacher was a herbalist named Molly Langdon. She's still up there. And I got to spend that spring and some of the summer in apprenticeship with her in a botanical medicine apprenticeship.
It watered the seeds that were so dry in my heart and in my soul, and really did... Heal me isn't even the right word. It reawoke me. It reconnected me. It rewove me into what my soul was longing for, which was somebody to tell me that the plants are alive. And not only them, but the earth is alive. And not only that, but she's your mother. And not only that, but the whole web is your family.
And so I have come to call that thing that happens when we study herbalism. It's like when we're out learning plant identification and harvesting and garbling and making pictures and taking them in our bodies, it's so fun and delightful. And that's a great blessing of the herbal path is that it's just fun.
But it also does this such deeper medicine healing to us. It reweaves us. It restores us. It reminds us that the plants are our kin, they are our family. And that in my estimation, the earth is our mother and the whole web of life is our family. And so in that, the herbs are, they were for me, a doorway into wisdom.
Wisdom being a sense of orientation in life that is beyond the little i. The little i, that's a cultural myth in my estimation that many of us born into dominant modern culture right now we're steeped in, which is that myth of individuality and many of us weren't raised in a stew of connectivity.
The herbs really did help reorient me to that, that I am interconnected, I am a part of all of this.
And the plants too. My God. To call them kin is an understatement. They are masters. They are elders. They're deities. The plants, the ways that they have healed me, there's not even words for. They're just... Yes, it's the body and yes, it's the mind but also it's everything. It's the soul, it's the destiny stream, it's all of it.
In that, the herbs, the simple fun study of herbalism is and can be a doorway to wisdom and connection, reconnection, which in my estimation is what we need right now. It is to be restored into that embodied experience, that knowing that like, "Oh, we are all in this together." We're all in this together and that we all have a role to play in this.
One of the roles that, as I understand it, the plants play, is that they're healers. They are forces of healing on this planet for us humans but also for the whole web of life.
That's the herbal piece of herbs and dreams.
And the dreaming. Another part of my story is that I lost my dreaming, which is to say that I didn't remember any dreams from the ages of eight to 23. That was a huge contributor to my sense of hollowness and disconnection. Even though I didn't have words for it at the time, it felt wrong. It felt like something was missing.
I got picked up by Molly at age 20 and as the plants tend to do, they stole my heart and made me turn my life completely around and follow them. And so I got turned onto the path of healing and seeking. I've been blessed to have many teachers that have taken care of me over the years.
And so as I was in this world of healing and seeking, I kept hearing about dreams. Dreams are really important. And I was just like, "Well, it's not happening for me." And one day, I got it in my mind that I was done with this bullshit of not remembering my dreams, just like, "I'm done. You are coming. I'm going to get this." I had strong conviction.
And so I took some very simple steps that I have since seen many others take and they work, is that I set the strong intention. "I am going to dream and I'm going to remember them." I would say that every night before going to bed, "I'm going to dream tonight and I'm going to remember my dreams. I'm going to dream tonight and I'm going to remember my dreams." I did that before going to sleep.
The next essential step was I had a dream journal, which is essential in my estimation and all dream teachers I know do agree on this one, sometimes, people have resistance to that. I know that I did. So I had my journal next to my bed and first thing upon awakening, I would write down whatever I was thinking about.
The first couple days, it can be still not remembering anything and if that's the case, then I would write down what I felt. "I feel confused. I'm thinking about the color purple, whatever is there." And what that's doing is it's reawakening that remembering capacity that you have and that builds over time.
I also worked with the plant mugwort, which as many herbalists know, is known as the dreamweaver and I think that I thought that that was not real or just a fad, but mugwort has really kicked that out of me. She really is. It's very real. Her medicine of holding that energy of dreaming is very, very real in my experience. So I just tucked a little bit of her under my pillow. Just a little mugwort under my pillow. And within days, I had something to write in my journal and within weeks, my journal was full.
That has completely, completely transformed the qualitative substrate and threads of my waking life to just more connection, more kinship, more direct experience of myself as a spiritual being having a human experience than any other modality that I've encountered. And so in that I have experienced that dreams are also a doorway to wisdom.
Again, wisdom being that embodied sense that I am more than just the little me, that I am more than just the little me, and that I am connected to it all. I am... There's a soul that is dreaming me.
And then my life has been [inaudible 00:13:40]. So that was now, yeah, what? 14 years ago that my dreams came back on.
I pretty much started bridging the herbs and the dreams from the get-go. Like when that worked, what I did, I was like, "I got to tell others about this." So I did. And I've taught many different kind of iterations and permutations of how herbs and dreams weave together. And it's always changing.
Kimberly, the class that you took with me last fall is way different than it was 12 years ago, which is different than it is now. It's always growing as I grow.
And something shifted in me a couple years ago where I realized that I kept looking outside for somebody that was merging herbs and dreams together like, "Why is nobody talking about this? Who's doing this?" And there was just this thing that happened to me. It was actually informed by some dreams. It was like, "Oh, that's my job. That's my job, is to bridge them together."
I have many different kind of perspectives that can be taken to answer that question of how do they relate and how do we, as herbalists, incorporate our dreaming into our practices and how do the plants show up in our dreams and what do we do with those visitations? And I have many answers to all of those, and I love talking about it.
That's how it all came to be. It just came to be from my life.
Tara Ruth:
I so relate to that. Once I started getting really into plants, then suddenly all this curiosity about my dream started popping up for myself too. And I found that with so many of my peers when I was in herb school too. There's something about as you get more in touch with the magic of the plants and feel their kinship and feel yourself in the web of life, there's, for me at least, this natural curiosity that starts to spring up about dreams and just all these other ways that we're interconnected with each other. And I love how you weave those two together.
I relate too to getting excited about mugwort in the beginning there as I was starting my herbal journey. I remember taking a cup of mugwort tea before bed one time and I was like, "This probably isn't going to work." And then I go to bed and that night, I had a narrator of my dreams, this man who was so loud that he woke me up, because the volume was so loud in my dreams, I was like, "Oh, gosh, I need to turn this down a little bit." And mugwort has this way of being unignorable. I couldn't ignore this dream. It was so loud. I love bringing those plants in like that.
Thank you for sharing.
Lauren Morgan:
That's incredible.
I might ask you to borrow that story someday, Tara, because that's a good one. Yeah.
Tara Ruth:
Of course.
Lauren Morgan:
I just want to pass on about mugwort real quick, that-
Tara Ruth:
Please.
Lauren Morgan:
... people have very different experiences with mugwort and the same person can have different experiences at different times. And I've had that.
My understanding of that is that she really is working with the wisdom gate, the wisdom titration of a given person at a given time. That varies based on where we're at, what we're dealing with, what the messages are that we need to receive, etc., etc. I've had times where I've done mugwort dreaming ritual and it's like, "Oh my God, I just had 12 dreams and my brain is fried." And then there's been times where nothing happens. And so I always trust that.
That's just a way, an orientation that I've learned in general, separate from mugwort to turn towards the dreams is with a sense of trust that what is coming is what is needed for me now, and that can be all over the place. Sometimes, what I need in a moment is to do some shadow work and even if I don't want to, that's the piece right now and sometimes. It's to deal with my anxiety that I have at work. That's why I keep dreaming that. Sometimes, it's to connect with my ancestors and sometimes. It's to go on interplanetary visitations. We never... Anything goes with dreaming.
The way that I've experienced to encourage dreaming to keep it up is to just say, "Thank you, thank you, thank you," and trust that what's coming is what's supposed to come.
That's where we get into what I call... So the body of work that I do with dreaming is I call dreamweaving. And so the weaving half of dream weaving is what we do with the dreams when we're awake, the actions that we take, etc.
Yeah, if you don't like the dreams that you're having, if I don't like the dreams that I'm having, what I will do is work with the dream that I am having, and then that will unclog my dream door so that I can move on. These are complicated topics but that's a quick little tip.
Tara Ruth:
Aw, Kimberly, I'm so enjoying this conversation with Lauren. Thank you so much for bringing her on the podcast.
Kimberly Gallagher:
I'm so glad. Isn't... She's just so fun to listen to.
Tara Ruth:
Yeah. She's such a delight and I love how she brings in this relationship building aspect with the plants and this deep embodied knowledge and wisdom.
Kimberly Gallagher:
Yeah, I think that's one of the things that's just attracted me to Lauren is her deep relationship with the plants, how much she brings them into her life.
Tara Ruth:
I can see why that really drew you to her, because that's so much of the foundation of HerbMentor and learning herbs, so much of the ethos behind just how you've designed all these incredible learning programs.
Kimberly Gallagher:
I know. Yeah. This is what we've been doing all this time on LearningHerbs is really making a way for people to get into relationship with the plants. HerbMentor is all about that. We look at one plant a month in our learning community and really take a deep dive into that plant through the challenges and the quizzes so that people can start to bring that plant into their lives and maybe into their dreams.
Tara Ruth:
Oh my gosh, yes.
And it can also feel a little intimidating too, "A whole month, I'm going to devote this entire month to this herb and do all of these things," but we make it really simple. We have courses like Materia Medica where we just have a two or three minute video about an herb every month and then a little recipe and a little journal page, so you can just get a little taste tester about that herb. And then you get to decide how deep you want to dive, whether you want to bring that herb into your dreams perhaps.
Kimberly Gallagher:
The resources are just always there for you. So you can fit it into even a super busy schedule. You can dive in when you've got a little bit of time.
I think that's one of the things I love the most about HerbMentor is that you can learn at your own pace and you can learn about things that you are excited about in the moment.
Tara Ruth:
Yeah, it's such a comprehensive, rich library of just so many herbal resources, and I love having HerbMentor in my library whenever I want to look something up or whether I want to dive deeper with a certain herb.
So if you want to check out, I highly recommend going to herbmentorradio.com where we have a little discount for HerbMentor. Sign up there, check it out, and you'll get to see Kimberly and I on some nice meetup videos. You can say hi, we'd love to get to know you, so please join us there.
Kimberly Gallagher:
Yeah. I can't wait to see you all on HerbMentor. It's so fun to do the meetups and get to meet our members and answer your questions as you go along in your learning journey. So please do check that out and come join us on HerbMentor.
Tara Ruth:
Yes. Now, let's get back into this conversation with Lauren. I want to learn more about herbs and dreaming.
Kimberly Gallagher:
Oh, I'm so ready.
I know when I was doing the Dreaming class with you, it really changed my relationship to nightmares because you were like, "Yeah, when you have a nightmare, it's just your dream weaver really trying to get your attention like, 'You need to pay attention to what I'm telling you right now, and this is super important for you to listen to." So to turn towards that nightmare and be curious about it, it's like my gut reaction when I have a nightmare is to wake up and be like, "Okay, I just need to completely do something different to forget that that dream happened." I'll get up and go drink some tea or whatever I can do to get it out of my mind.
But the whole idea of being curious about that nightmare was so revolutionary for me to like, "Oh, this is... What is it about this dream that might give me a message that could be useful for me in this moment?" Yeah. I know that was really important for me. And I wonder, do you have other tips for people about transforming their relationships to dreams that might be disturbing, or if they're having trouble sleeping and they're not having dreams and... Just any tips for that fraught relationship that you might have with dreaming?
Lauren Morgan:
Yeah. Yeah.
I guess what I want to say first is that we all dream. We all dream. If you're a human being, if I'm a human being, then our species has evolved with the capacity to dream. Dreaming, it's a natural part of our biology and that we all are dreaming.
So if you're wanting to remember your dreams, if you're feeling out of touch with your dreams, they haven't gone anywhere, you've just developed a habit of not remembering, which is a way of seeing what happened to me. And that dreams are incredibly responsive to our interest, to our attention, and definitely to our devotion. So just turning in their direction tends to most of the time, if not all the time, increase your remembrance of them because you're not seeking anywhere outside of yourself. You are just reconnecting to those parts within yourself that you're already doing. So if you're sleeping, then you're dreaming.
That being said, dreaming does happen when we sleep and so we need to sleep. And even that is a... I could talk a lot about that, but it's not like you have to be sleeping deeply for eight hours straight in order to then be dreaming. That's not the way it works. However, if somebody senses that their dreaming is disrupted because of sleep troubles, then that is a place where our nerve vine herbs can come in just so powerfully and helpfully to just help our minds, our nervous systems, to relax, to unwind, so that we can fall better into sleeps and brace where dreaming naturally arises.
Yes, just thank you Mother Earth for our nerve vine herbs. Don't know what I would do without you in all the ways.
And then your question about nightmares. Yeah, it's a big one. We all have them. I have nightmares. You both have nightmares. We all have nightmares. And for most of us, myself included though, it might be a little more complicated, most of us, they're not our favorite kinds of dreams. We would rather not. So just know that you're not alone.
My biggest teacher, other than Mother Earth, my biggest human teacher around dreaming and dream work was a beautiful man named Jeremy Taylor who wrote the book Wisdom of Your Dreams and he is now in the spirit world, but he left behind an amazing body of work that's present in his book and that I had the great blessing to learn from. He said this, and I agree with it, this is a quote, "There's no such thing as a bad dream, only dreams that take a dramatically negative form in order to get our attention."
That can be a big pill to swallow. I understand that. It has been a big pill for me to swallow at various times. But the more that I've gone into these things and really instead of turning away from the nightmares, I'm trying to... They didn't happen but looking at them, facing them and applying some skillful means, what I would call dream weaving, dream interpretation methods, that you do begin to see that, "Oh, wow, this dream actually did come to help me."
That is like you got to try it to believe it kind of thing and sometimes, for those big nightmares, especially if... There's a couple of things, especially if you're new to this and if the presence of the dream creates a sense of primal terror in your body, then those are great times to not do it alone, to bring in other people. And yes, of course, if you have access to healers, therapists, mentors, then that's great. Absolutely. But also...
This is a thing. I think Clarissa Pinkola Estes says this in her Beginner's Guide to Dream Interpretation, that one of the best ways to discharge a nightmare is to tell a friend. Tell somebody. Tell somebody. Because what that does is it gets that rattling energy out of your system so that it can breathe and begin to move and take shape and form.
Another great tactic is to make art out of your nightmares or nightmarish figures, whether that's painting or writing or whatever your medium is, that also begins to... It helps the dream to... We call it coax open or blossom so that the energies can begin to unleash and move.
Another quote from Jeremy is this, that all dreams come in service to our health and our wholeness. All dreams come in service to our health and our wholeness. This, in my experience, is really, really, really true. It's a muscle of trust that can only grow just like any relationship with time and with feedback really that like, "Oh, wow, I can face down these nightmarish figures and I'm not going to end up in a puddle."
I also want to just presence that we live in a time that is unique in human history in that dreams and dreaming don't really play a central part in our culture. That really actually is unique in terms of human history, that we aren't centralizing the dreams and seeing them as a source of wisdom, a source of connection to what our ancient ancestors would said to the divine, to the gods and the goddesses and to the other realms. The earliest writings in human history, that's how dreams are described as being connection points to the greater worlds.
If it's a surprise to you that dreams matter, then I'm not surprised because we weren't raised in a dream-centric... Most of us, I'll say many of us weren't raised in a dream-centric cultural conditioning. And so there is a step in the journey of a re-mything or a rewiring around what dreaming is and why should I care about it and then once you've gone through that kind of re-mything, then they have you and then you're in for a treat, because it's not only are they a doorway to wisdom but they're so fun. It's just... Yeah. They're downright magical. Those are some wee little thoughts about... Yeah.
Tara Ruth:
For folks who are feeling inspired and are maybe wanting to just start really being intentional with their dreaming practice, or maybe they've been at it for a while and want to deepen more, you mentioned mugwort before. You also mentioned some nervines that people can work with for sleep. Are there any other specific herbs that you like to work with when it comes to dreaming and deepening that practice?
Lauren Morgan:
Yeah, definitely the mugwort, as I shared.
Rosemary for remembrance. Most of us herbalists have heard that one. And that is a plant that I will bring in if I'm wanting to really reclaim my remembering is bring in some rosemary.
I'm a big fan of a plant spirit medicine approach to herbalism. A little goes a long way. And these plants are very, very, very real beings and so just bringing some mugwort or some rosemary in, sitting it by your bed, or if you have an altar practice, setting it on your altar can help with that remembering awakening.
And for those who may feel burdened by the heaviness of their dreaming material, my favorite plant to bring into, soften and sweeten the dreaming space is rose, is rose. I have done...
My Herbs and Dreams classes usually, they're between six and 12 weeks and usually about halfway through people are dreaming a lot and oftentimes, their dream doors have been a little clogged and so there's this influx and there can be like a, "Whoa, this is a lot, and this is a lot of material, and maybe it's a little heavy." And that's when we'll bring in rose. It's just like sweet, soften, lighten, bless the space. So if there's that heaviness, I love to work with rose. A bath of rose, rose tea, rose elixir, all of these ways just help to bring her in, to doctor the field really, which is what as I experienced that the plants are doing.
And then another is hawthorn. Hawthorn I love so much in so many ways but specifically with dreaming. I like to bring in hawthorn when I'm in a healing process and maybe if the healing process is halted or is just like I keep having recurring dreams and it's like, "Please just stop." It's like hawthorn can come in and just open the way for the healing to flow.
And also I want to say that if somebody is wanting to grow their dreaming and they're in a state of overwhelm, I always say that that is a great time to just hit pause on the dreaming and put your dream journal away for a couple days, couple weeks, until you can come back to a place of curiosity. It should be and feel fun and exciting, and you should have contact on the inner with a sense of childlike wonder that's so excited for the adventure. And if that has fallen out of inner touch, then just hit pause and then come back to it.
My hope is always that our relationship with our dreams can become a long-term relationship, and long-term relationships need to work with the flow of our lives. Overwhelm is not ultimately a sustainable state.
Again, just the nervines, finding the nervines... This is one of just the great blessings that we have, as herbalists, is that we can so custom tailor our matchmaking and our formulas based on a person's unique constitution in this unique moment and which plants are really going to help.
Milky oats and skullcap and lemon balm and chamomile. A nice nervine supportive tea blend, daytime and nighttime, really helps to, as we all know, just feed the nervous system and help us able to keep going. Yeah, those are some little thoughts there.
Kimberly Gallagher:
Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, so many different ways we can bring the plants in and have them help us to dream and then to support the dreaming that we're having.
I know that part of your work is also working with herbs that show up in our dreams. So can you talk a little bit about that? What does it mean when a plant comes into our dreams?
I know when we were doing the class, it's like I hadn't really thought about, "Have I dreamed about plants before?" It's like, "Are they coming?" And just turning your attention towards that and starting to think about it is also pretty revolutionary. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about that aspect of what you do.
Lauren Morgan:
Yeah. I think it's such an exciting topic.
Well say it this way. There's infinite ways, infinite perspectives we can take to look at dreaming, and I always encourage folks and myself to go with the ones that have resonance and juice. And so a way that we can look at dreaming is that it is trying dreaming because it's simply part of our brain, part of our consciousness that we don't normally have access to when we're awake, that dreaming is trying to help our waking lives. Dreaming works in direct conjunction with, reciprocal relationship with our waking life.
If you are an herbalist, if you spend time with plants, if you are serving others in a healing capacity with the plants, then I would strongly assume that you are dreaming, the plants are coming into your dreaming simply because it's what you do when you're awake. It's what you think about when you're awake. It's how you spend your time, it's what your destiny involves. And so you probably already are dreaming with the plants, like they're showing up in your dreams, but again you may just have not thought about looking at that or valuing it.
And I just want to add in that it's my belief that most of our herbal ancestors, the people that we come from who were plant people, did learn from the plants in their dreams. I believe it's a thing. I think that wiring is there in us. And so when a plant shows up in your dream, the first thing that you want to do is not throw it away.
That's what we want to do with all the symbols in our dreams, with all of our dreams, really is catch that impulse that we all have to be like, "Well, that was random. That was weird. I don't know what that was."
Dreams are not supposed to make sense, and that's a very important step in the re-mything process that I've experienced and seen in others, is that many of us have trained our minds, our minds have been trained to throw away dreams because they don't make sense, but they're not supposed to make sense because again, this is Jeremy Taylor, "No dream comes to tell you what you already know. They all come to teach you something new."
Anyway, when a plant shows up in your dream, don't disregard it simply. It's like, "Oh. It could have been any dream, but it wasn't any dream. It was this dream, and it could have been no plant, but it wasn't no plant. There was a plant and the plant was mother. Okay, wow. Motherwort is here." So that's the first thing, just catching it.
And then as we herbalists know, the plants are very real beings and when they show up in our dreams, we are very lucky. We are very... It is a gift and so give thanks. Thank you, motherwort, for coming in my dream. If you have motherwort in your garden, then you might go and visit her flesh to flesh, and you might bring a little gift and say, "Thank you. Thank you so much for coming. Oh my gosh, I'm so grateful that you reached out to me." If you don't have access to her body, then you can send her a gratitude on the inner. "Thank you, thank you, thank you." Those are the first steps.
And then you want to see that dream as though... Well, I'll say it this way. The plants, as I understand it, especially the herbs, the healing ones, they're healers. So they come to heal. And so in dream work, we say that within every dream there is a seed of healing or medicine. Every dream comes to heal. And so it's very, very likely that if motherwort is showing up in a dream, it's because she's there as the healer of the contents of that dream, of the contents of that situation.
What that dream is about could be something that you're dealing with in waking life. It could be something if you're in a service role to other people or situations that is coming as medicine for that, but you want to look at it in that way.
And so do you go immediately and just guzzle motherwort because she showed up in your dream? No. No, you don't. If you feel called to include her, incorporate her into your life, your situation, then you definitely look to your resources. Vet it. Is this safe? Is this appropriate? Is this good for me? And really do that due diligence. And if all of those things track check, then it might just be that she is coming to help you with a situation that you might be in we'll say. That's the first thing.
But even that is just the tip of the iceberg, because with dreams, we... All dreams have infinite meaning. So they never just mean one thing. And what that means is that we can look at a dream from many different perspectives.
Something that I'm really excited about that I've developed and been working with is how it is that we can learn more about the medicine of these plants from our dreaming, because when we are dreaming, we're in the dream state, we are more receptive. We're more open. We're not beholden to our ego-waking filters so we can learn better honestly. The plants have a great way to teach us.
And so a way that you can do that, if this is of interest to you, is to first consider, okay, the motherwort is here to help me heal this situation that I'm in, that we could call the personal perspective. But you can then take your personal process out of it and just look at it all symbolically. This is motherwort that's coming to teach me about herself, about fields that she can heal, situations that she can heal, that maybe I wasn't aware of previously.
And what I have found with this is that the amount or the quality of teachings that I received from the plants and the dreams is so next level, so much broader and ways that I couldn't have received when I was awake. And so then if I have done all of that and looked to the dream and considered it in these ways, then I now walk with that medicine that motherwort brought in that dream.
And so as an herbalist, if I'm in service to other people and bringing the fruits of my relationship with these plants, then that dream walks with me. It walks with me. And I can share that medicine that came from that time she visited me in my dream.
And really anything goes in the dream time. I've had dreams where plants have sent me emails. I've had dreams of... One common motif that happens for me is that it's like...
The way my dream journal will read is all of this was taking place inside of a Devil's club plant. So it's like a scene inside of a plant. I think that's the way that they have figured out to let me know, "Lauren, this is a teaching dream." And sometimes, they do actually give me direct teachings like cottonwood coming and saying, "I helped to heal the throat chakra." "Wow, thank you. I didn't know that." And sometimes, it's not as overt. Sometimes, they just show up.
I had a dream I was wearing a dress that had roses on it but I knew, I was like, "Oh, this is rose. This is her teaching me." And so much about it... And this is true for dreaming in general, not just with herbs, is about our receptivity, the perspectives that we take and the due diligence that we do when we're awake to receive the medicine that's coming in the dreams. So that's a little bit...
Tara Ruth:
Thank you. Wow. This is getting me so excited to get back into my dream journal.
I'm thinking back to you were talking about in your early twenties, just diving into the plants and dreaming, I want to go back to that time, and I'm wondering if there were any plants in that time in particular that really you had these pivotal connections with, or "These were some of my first herbal allies that were these gateways into my herbal path?"
Lauren Morgan:
Yeah. So many come to mind.
I will say this, that my first herbal teacher, which was back when I was a child and of course, I didn't have those words for it but was cottonwood. I had a grandmother cottonwood tree, she was huge, that grew outside of my childhood home. And it was kind of like what I was describing with that dream motif. It was kind of just like my life was in her. She was huge and covered our whole backyard, and we smelled her and got her buds stuck on us and...
Anyway, she's really, really been a lifelong deep, deep ally for me. She's got those heart-shaped leaves that at times when I've really needed it, when I've been in doubt about maybe a choice or a situation through seeming magic, I'll see a heart-shaped cottonwood leaf that just is on my windshield or whatnot. And what she has taught me is to trust my heart, to trust the wisdom that's in your heart. Your heart knows the answer. And so she has been a great teacher of mine.
And also just so freaking medicinal. If you... There's been years in my life, and I'm an herbal teacher where the only salve I've had in my home is balm of Gilead, cottonwood bud salve, because that salve just does it all. Heals the infections and the sore muscles and the diaper rash and the acne and the pain. Really just such a healing powerhouse, the cottonwood poplar buds.
And then another long teacher favorite buddy is hawthorn. The hawthorn tree. I'm a Beltane baby. I was born on May 1st and in the Celtic wheel, the hawthorn is actually the gateway to the other world on Beltane on May 1st. And so hawthorn is really, really a deep ally of mine.
I have a lot of heart energy you for better and worse and so hawthorn really has been my teacher about smoothing out that heart energy, how to be open-hearted, but still maintain myself with boundaries and protection. Yeah, those are just a couple that come to mind.
Kimberly Gallagher:
Thank you for sharing those. Those are two of my favorites as well.
Lauren Morgan:
Same.
Kimberly Gallagher:
Yeah. I remember sitting by a cottonwood tree for day after day after day. It was my first secret spot as I started to get into connecting with nature was next to this cottonwood tree by the lake. Yeah, they just become part of our lives, these herbal allies. It's amazing to have the relationship with the plants.
I think one of the other things that impressed me about your work, and I know we're getting towards the end, so maybe we're wrapping up a little bit, but bringing things from the dreams into your life, making the dreams part of your life, what you learn from the dreams and that starts that weaving process that you've been talking about, just touching on a little bit. So I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about the weaving part.
Lauren Morgan:
It's like the dream weaving. The dream part is I'm a dreamer. I am going to remember my dreams. I'll write them down, read the thing that I was talking about just like, "Okay, I'm a dreamer." I have a practice of recording, catching them.
And then there's this whole huge section, which is seeking and making meaning. So how do we figure out what these seemingly random images, stories, symbols mean? That is a huge topic and a really, really, really important one that we have techniques for translation from the dream world, and there are many people...
Many of us have different ways, and I don't think we'll go into that now, but you got to have some way of interpreting, whether that's through learning how to reenter your dreams, or how to free write about your dreams, or if you're blessed enough to have a dream circle with other kind souls then people can share their thoughts. And that's the kind of seeking and making meaning.
And then once we feel, and I use that word on purpose, feel as though we have found a meaning that has resonance, that has juice. In dream work, often call that the aha. The aha is when my body is like, "Oh." It's like, "Oh, there's resonance here." And whether that's heart flutters or tears or goosebumps, it's like, "Oh, this. This is a path to follow."
Then we follow it and we have to do something from/with the dreams in order that they can live and breathe in this world. That really is how by taking action, that's how we can weave our lives, which is to say, create this world, which is to say, dream this world informed by dreaming's wisdom, dreaming's broader perspective, dreaming's sense of interconnection and coherence, dreaming's connection to the earth mother, to the whole web. And so we have to do something with and from the dreams that come.
That something can be all over the place, whether that's... If you dreamt about that you were wearing red shoes, wear the red shoes. See what happens. If you dreamt that you were sitting on this beach that you used to go to when you were a child and if you can get to that beach, go sit there, see what happens. Those are more easier action steps that are more literal. But there's also... Yeah, there's more subtle ones as well.
But it gets to a point... I'm at a point where it truly feels as though life is completely a dance between the dreaming and the wake. What am I dreaming and what am I creating? What am I choosing?
Kimberly, even our connection has been seated and guided by dreaming's wisdom and love, but that's the money spot. It's like, "Oh, where my heart wants to go and the dreaming is informing that."
A few quotes from the great and mighty, Carl Jung, who was a masterful global dream teacher, did so much for collective consciousness, bringing dreaming back to the people, he said this, that dreams are the facts from which we must proceed. Dreams are the facts from which we must proceed. And he also said that we have forgotten the age-old fact that God speaks chiefly through our dreams.
An example of that, dreams are the facts from which we must proceed, I wrote a book, it's just turned a year, it's called Seasonal Herbalism: A Beginner's Path to Medicine-Making and Dreaming with Mother Earth. I did not set out to write a book, but I had three dreams that I was holding a book called Seasonal Herbalism in my hands. I know that three is a number and it was just... As I finally just... I was looking at it, it was like, "Oh, okay, yes, I get it. Yes, that does tie in so many things. That's brilliant. Thank you. I wouldn't have thought of that," and set about weaving or creating that in the world.
That's a thing. If anybody listening is a creative, and I mean that in the broad sense, we're all creators, then creating with and from inspiration that comes in the dream time is powerful. It's powerful.
Tara Ruth:
Lauren, thank you so much for joining us on Herb Mentor Radio. You mentioned your book, we've talked a little bit about your class, and I'd love to know as we wrap up, if there's any offerings we'd like to tell our listeners about and where they can find you.
Lauren Morgan:
Yeah, yeah. So I'm at herbsanddreams.com. H-E-R-B-S A-N-D D-R-E-A-M-S. That's me, herbsanddreams.com.
I am just moving, again, seated by the dreams, moving into doing more distance teaching. And so I have on my website a few audio courses that I have out. The Dreamweavers Foundations audio course is basically what you need to know to start having a dreaming practice. I made that course because so many people have asked me over the years, "How? How do I do it?" And that was my answer.
I also have newly released a Dreaming for Herbalists audio course, which is everything that I've learned about how, as an herbalist, to weave and incorporate the dreaming into our practice and walk as herbalists. So I'm really, really excited about that.
And I have... Coming up in February for the first time, I'm doing a... It's called Dreamweavers: Circle Teacher Training, where I'm going to be sharing with others, teaching others how to hold a dream centric, soul centric dream group space. And that will be online.
And yeah, my book, Seasonal Herbalism's on my website, it's also on Amazon.
Kimberly and I have been cooking up for many months. Again, we didn't know exactly how, where, what, why but a co-creative offering that is going to be offered through LearningHerbs on what we have both learned about a feminine way into herbalism. I think our working title is Rhythms & Relationships.
Kimberly Gallagher:
Yeah, we're super excited.
Lauren Morgan:
Those are some little... Oh, and then I have a podcast, The Herbs and Dreams podcast that is on all the major podcast platforms where I dive deeper into dream teachings and plant stories. Yeah, that's my newest, big creative offering. It's so fun.
Kimberly Gallagher:
So fun.
Lauren Morgan:
Podcasting is so fun.
Kimberly Gallagher:
Yes.
Lauren Morgan:
So fun. Yeah.
Tara Ruth:
Perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Lauren. It was such a treat to get to meet you and dive into the dreamweaving space with you.
Lauren Morgan:
Thank you, Tara. Yeah, really a pleasure to meet you and yeah, thanks, Kimberly.
Kimberly Gallagher:
Always a pleasure to be with you, Lauren. Yeah, thanks for coming on our podcast.
Tara Ruth:
Yes. And just a reminder to the listeners, you can stick around for an herb note after this.
Welcome to Herb Notes. I'm Tara Ruth.
Oats, Avena sativa, are more than just a tasty breakfast cereal. This nutrient dense plant is a gentle, yet powerful tonic for the nervous system. Let's dive into three benefits of oats.
One, milky oats as a nervine. Milky oats, the immature oat seed heads of the oat plant can help soothe and restore the nervous system when someone is feeling depleted, fried, or burnt out. My favorite way to enjoy milky oats is in a fresh tincture extract or a fresh, well-strained decoction.
Two, oat straw as a nutritive. Oat straw, the stalk of the oat plant, is full of minerals like calcium and magnesium. Over time, a nourishing infusion of oat straw supports the vitality of the nervous system and the integumentary system, strengthening hair, teeth, and nails. A milky oats preparation tends to work faster than oat straw and has a more relaxing effect on the nervous system.
Three, oats for skincare. Rolled oats, the kind you eat for breakfast, are a wonderful herbal ally for dry, irritated, and inflamed skin, particularly rashes. You can tie up a handful of muslin cloth, soak it in water, and apply it to the affected area. This is also a nice preparation to apply to non-irritated skin because it feels so relaxing and soothing for the skin.
And just a few notes of caution with oats. Oats should probably be avoided by those with celiac disease or those who are sensitive to gluten. Though gluten-free oats may be tolerated, this sensitivity to oats may be due to similar proteins found in wheat and oats, or because the two grains are often grown in rotation in the same fields and processed in the same facilities.
Want to learn more about the benefits of other common herbs? Click the link in our bio to grab a free deck of our top 12 herb notes. You'll learn all about herbs, like elderberry, chamomile, and more.
This has been Herb Notes with me, Tara Ruth, catch you next time.
Herb Mentor Radio is a 100% sustainably wildcrafted podcast written, performed, and produced by me, Tara Ruth, with sound engineering by Rowan Gallagher.
Visit herbmentorradio.com to subscribe on your favorite podcast app and find out how you can be a part of HerbMentor, which is a website and community that you got to see to believe. Herb Mentor Radio is a production of LearningHerbs.com LLC.
Thank you so much for listening.
