This time of year (early July) there is a riot of plants to dream to. I just go out my back door and see who calls to me. Today it was Valerian.
During my plant study* with Valerian, my attention keeps getting drawn away from him to everything around us. I am sensing that Valerian is overseeing all that is happening around him. I hear, ‘expanding awareness,’ and ‘a plant for the spiritual seeker.’
I am experiencing Valerian’s spiritual connection with the sun and the sky. Valerian tells me that he is an antenna. “I am connected, a connector.” The word ‘inspiration’ comes to my mind. Valerian says, “Call me in when you need answers to questions, when you don’t know, when you don’t know what to do.” He gives me an example of how to work with him. He tells me, “Call to me when you need help while writing your book.” This is such a blessing, as I find the process of expressing my thoughts in writing challenging at times.
It’s now time to dream journey to Valerian and I’m excited to learn more from him about his medicine.
I am travelling through the lower world to meet Valerian’s spirit. It’s taking me a while to find him. I am winding through a vast, abstract jungle that goes on and on. Finally, I come across Valerian in a clearing in the dense jungle. He appears to me as a bright white energy being. Valerian helps me up his stem, hoisting me up from below until we are on top of his flowers in the blazing sun. I am having difficulty keeping my focus and keep drifting away. Valerian interrupts my drifting by asking me, “What do you notice?” I understand that he wants me to tune into myself and what I am perceiving/receiving. What is coming up? What is in my awareness? Again, I am drifting. “What do you notice?” Valerian asks me again. Nothing much is coming. Mostly I am floating in a void. Finally, I release my struggling to see anything clearly, and my awareness expands, as does my receptivity. I am attuning and listening, watching and waiting fully present in the void. I am feeling peaceful and open. I just know that what is needed will come of its own accord, in its own time.
My interpretation of Valerian’s spirit medicine is that he is an antenna. He amplifies awareness and one’s own antenna capacity – expanding it out exponentially. I can call in Valerian whenever I need answers and simply wait for them to arrive; which they will, in their own perfect timing.
[* Dream journeying involves a two-part process of developing intimate, reciprocal relationships with plants. The first part of the dream journeying process consists of a ‘plant study’ in which you spend time with a plant’s physical form to get an understanding of its nature through observations of its characteristics and the ecosystem in which it grows. The second part is the actual dreaming process in which you enter an altered and expanded state of consciousness so that your consciousness can travel to the realm where the plant spirits dwell to meet and speak directly with the plant.]
My Dream Journeying to the Plant People workshop is coming up July 11th. If you’d like to learn to dream to the plant spirits, go here for more information.
