Herbs and Dreams

What are altars? They are not some far off concept allowed only for spiritual people living in temples. All people of purpose, soul, intention and prayer CAN and likely already ARE making altars. Altars are declarations to the forces of life of who we are, what we are choosing and what we'd like help with. They are where we feed and grow the energies we'd like to see more of in our lives and world...

What about the dreams that we catch wisps of during the night and assure ourselves that we WILL remember them in the morning, only for morning to arrive and... poof! They're gone. This episode, inspired by a listener question, covers all considerations on how to easefully catch those middle of the night dreams, and how exciting those often-forgotten contents can be to the waking mind. We also dip...

This episode is especially for the herb students or those who want to be! Crystal Hamby has been teaching medicine making, materia medica and plant identification at Bastyr University for 16 years. She's a community herbalist and has lit the little green flame in the hearts of thousands of students. Crystal is an absolute expert on herbal medicine making (she's working on a book on the topic!...

Hawthorn, a being of great generosity, abundance, teaching through firm love and.... boundaries. This story lived by me, a hawthorn tree, a powerful dreamer and a potent dream visitation by hawthorn herself has much to teach us about the what/why/how of authentic, integritous plant relationship. And that plants just might forgive our stumbles if we open up the channels within oursel...

This episode is FUN! Bevin has been working as a healer and warrior of self-love for decades... " We are here to dismantle all forms of coloniality that make people unfree in the world ," she jumps right into saying.  Bevin is a weaver who has given up on fighting systems and instead focuses on helping people free themselves from within.  Bevin shares how her dreaming came onli...

As so many of my learnings are, this one was inspired by observing my kids. We all know the old adage that  what we think on grows ... and this just might explain WHY, lullabies - a quiet, gentle song to sing us to sleep - is a practice found across the world and across time.   We explore how protection is a web of love that we are embedded within, and the importance of having life-...

It was truly my honor to sit down with Grandmother Robin Youngblood in the Dream Barn to discuss the upcoming  Dance to Heal the Earth  in Chimacum, WA on Sept 5-8th 2025.  Grandmother Robin shares how when she was under the mud and water in the   Oso Mudslide of 2014  (the deadliest mudslide in human history) she heard Mother Earth scream that she didn't want th...

Why have we come here? What is this world? What is our purpose here? Have you ever shaken your fists screaming at the stars, or down to the Earth, or to the graves of your ancestors, or to the deities on your altar or to the hollow-feeling air... insisting for answers to the Great Mystery we incarnated into? This episode is a dream, one that came through my (Lauren's) dream door where I was visite...

This episode is actually the first lesson in my Dreamweavers: Foundations Course. I'm offering it here for free because if you just implement what you learn here - it can change the course of your life for the better.  I begin by setting   the scene around where we are at in this collective moment: dreamers who have by and large, forgotten they came to this world with the power to dream....

Randy Morris is an elder, ritualist and Professor Emeritus of Antioch University. A gifted teacher and weaver of story, Randy is the perfect person to introduce us to the Dream of the Earth. He dives right into teaching us that the Dream of the Earth communicates to us through our instincts, feelings, synchronicities, waking visions and nighttime dreams. These are instructions from her o...

No dream ever means just one thing, and yet our task as awake humans on the other side of dreaming's door is to seek, make, and ultimately weave a meaning that is helpful and soulful into this world. How do we go about figuring out what dreams mean? This episode covers the ever-important AHA! of dreamwork. When we are consulting the Council Table of Life, our bodies inform us of when we are in the...

Many herbalists know Comfrey's other common name Knit Bone... but have we paused to consider what this means on the other-than-physical layers of our being? In this episode we explore 3 different dreams featuring Comfrey to flush out just how deeply this plant knits and reweaves the threads of creation. 🌀  SUPPORT THE HERBS & DREAMS PODCAST  - Pledge $5/month or Become a Member for...

Receive teachings and inspiration from wisdom keeper Dr. Deborah Frances Dancing Crow on how to align with the flow of life. Dancing Crow begins by exploring how we are quite a  complainy culture ... and stresses the importance of giving thanks. She shares a gratitude ceremony involving water and the four directions, counseling us to greet the sun every morming, giving thanks to the rising su...

The fact that dreams "don't make sense" is often the reason people have grown a habit of forgetting instead of remembering. Most of us are used to a switch that is either on/off, awake/asleep... but dreams are not supposed to make sense to the rational mind. It's not their nature. They are non linear, irrational and multidimensional... all qualities that the waking executive function of the ego co...

Both paths of herbalism and dreaming, when done intentionally, bring us deeply into connection with the wisdom flowing through our bodies. This shortie explores what I call the 110% Safety Rule, and is rooted in listening to the body's wisdom. The rule goes like this: If you are not 110% sure that a choice you are making is good, safe and healthy then you are to stop: listen to wisdom, research an...

Herbalism is 'allying with the plants to bring healing to the people'... but how do we go about building these alliances? In this episode we explore all about approaching the plants just as we would a person we respect - with care, authenticity and a heartfelt desire to connect. We explore how this looks and feels in actual practice, how nature is our teacher in authenticity, how interspecies comm...

Dreaming always sends us the most important messages our conscious minds need to wake us up to the truth of the universe and our next instructions in a given life stream. But because there are often translation errors between the realm of dreaming and awake, and because most of us weren't taught the importance of turning towards our dreams ... if we don't get the message, dreaming will keep sendin...

Learn about this all purpose healer, wind dancer who connects us to the deep, authentic truth of the heart. Who we are in the deepest inner recesses of our being, cottonwood connects us to this and helps us to dance our authentic expression even amidst other voices, overlays, projections. What is my heart's knowing, my heart's destiny, my job in the role of the Dream of the Earth? Dance it like no...

In this episode we explore how we can work in alliance with herbs to weave healing into this world on behalf of our own lives and all the circles of kinship we have membership within. Herbs are healers and they love when we bring them in in this way. With proper respect, humility, intact-ethics and a good dose of gratitude in tow we are equipped to weave healing in alliance with the healing p...

Dreamweaving is creating your life from what you dream. As the great Carl Jung said "dreams are the facts from which we must proceed." I wholeheartedly agree with this. This short story covers the nitty gritty of how this podcast Herbs and Dreams was seeded 7 years ago by a tiny little dream... one that I knew to take action on and oriented to as the facts from which I was to proceed. This covers...

Stinging Nettle takes up a lot of space in the minds and hearts of herbalists and non-herbalists alike... how can we learn from this? What are the deeper teachings Nettle emulates to it when we look with our dreamweaving eyes? Learn about Nettle's teachings of presence, conscious awareness, focused attention, authenticity, showing up fully and the setting of righteous boundaries. 🌀  SUPPORT...

This episode explores how all dreams are custom-woven, tailored and created specifically for the dreamer itself by their inherent soul wisdom. Every dreamer IS the authority on their own dreams, so anything that others share is a projection on that dreamer's symbols... but does this mean we should never share ideas? Far from it. Dream sharing teaches us how to be in community, companions on the jo...

How do we go about interpreting dreaming's wisdom? First, we are wise to remember that No dream, symbol or character means any one thing... they all have infinite meanings. And, at the same time, the symbols that populate our dreams are THE most perfect symbols our dreamweavers chose to send us in order to wake us up. How do we go about deciphering the meanings of these symbols? This lesson explor...

Animals are popular dream figures among modern dreamers... but what about the plants? It's interesting how little attention is paid to them. Let's change that. Plants are the healers of this creation AND all dreams come to heal us in some way. So what do we do when herbs, or healing plants, show up in our dreams? Here we explore how to orient towards a plant dream, how to honor the visit...

The first and most essential task that dreamers have on the journey is to develop, cultivate and sustain over the long-term a practice of catching the dreams and pulling them across the dream door. This lesson explores the what, why and how of having a dream recording practice. We explore handwritten journals and audio recorded journals, and how lingering in the inbetween sleep and awake is the sp...