There is a natural connection even symbiotic relationship between Flowers and dreams.

It’s astounding how often the language used in dreamwork is the language of Flowers. Over the past thirty five years, thousands of you have contacted us to describe a Flower that appeared in a dream you’ve had.  You’ve connected with us to see if we have this Flower as a Flower Essence.  Instinctively all of us seem to know that working with the Flower in its Essence form will both deepen our relationship with the Flower and connect us more fully with the wisdom that the Flower embodies.  Our dream consciousness is always taking us towards wholeness and integration of self.

While there are many mysteries to this, there are also some things that feel true.  Each species of Flower holds a specific wisdom accessible in its Flower Essence. The dream consciousness brings that Flower to the dreamer’s attention because it knows that the specific wisdom of the Flower is relevant to the dreamer’s situation.

In other words, Flowers are the symbolic representation of a specific wisdom as well as the literal carriers of that wisdom.

Here at the farm, we feel like Flower detectives as you describe the colors, petal shape, leaves and habitat of the Flower calling to you in your dreams.  Sometimes we recognize the Flower fairly quickly, but sometimes it’s quite the adventure for us to track down the Flower.  Photos are sent back and forth between you and us confirming we’ve figured out the puzzle or need to go back and search some more.  Sometimes you’ve done the sleuthing yourselves and know what the Flower is and what Flower Essence you need. If we do not have the Flower Essence, this is my prompting to make this Essence the next chance I get.  I hold messages from this realm to be extremely significant. I am grateful every time you share a dream of Flowers with us.

Off and on through my life I have written down my dreams.  Some stretches I do this sporadically, but during many stretches I have written them down each morning.  Not surprisingly, it was a dream that deepened my understanding of the connection between Flowers and dreams.

This dream has stayed in my consciousness with a freshness for several decades. It still reverberates within me. I believe this dream both confirms the place Flowers have in my life purpose and the way dreams also serve that purpose. 

Sometimes I’ve told people this dream from what I remember of it, but I thought for this blog I would try and find the actual written recording of the dream in one of my dream journals.  I must have really been meant to find it, because one of the first dream journals I pulled, there was the dream.  So here is the dream.

With a baby in my care and several women from my family of origin, I arrive at the college where all the men in our family of origin went to college and where my grandfather was president.  The college campus is very dark, wet and overgrown like old Victorian gothic haunted houses.  The trees are hemlock with lots of dead branches.  I recognize one of the rooms we walk by as the president’s office because it is so big with space on the walls for so much art including kid’s drawings. I do not think there is any art on the walls, just space for it.  

We decide to go to the nearby college chapel to look at my grandfather’s portrait which is hung there.  I am holding the baby through all of this, and this feels precarious for the baby.  We go through various doors into all sorts of rooms including a day care and a room full of practicing punk rockers, but we can’t find our way upstairs to the chapel.  It seems to be gone.  I travel down very dark stairs and out of the building.  The walls are moldy and damp, slimy to the touch and veined with wetness. It is a relief to leave the building.

 I go out into a side yard near a little fountain to feed the baby, and there is a patch of Pyrola Elliptica right outside the chapel in the hemlock forest.  The Pyrola Elliptica is jewel like and glowing as if lit from within and without.  It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. During the rest of the night I dream I’m going over the details of the dream to remember it better, writing down the details of the dream in the dream. Even while still dreaming I remember that Pyrola Elliptica is the Flower of dreamwork so I recognize its appearance as significant, encouraging me to continue to take Flowers and my dreams seriously.

While I’m learning to never absolutely pin down a dream to mean exactly one thing, throughout the years I have always experienced this dream as deeply encouraging. 

I had this dream about 20 years ago when I was still in the immediate aftershock of my total break from my family of origin.  I was in grief and confusion, trying to find my way forward.  A part of me, perhaps represented by female relatives, was examining whether there was any life left in the old patriarchy.  The dream’s answer seems fairly straightforward.  The old structures were in a state of extreme decay and the chapel enshrining my patriarch grandfather was  literally gone. Maybe something could be redeemed for the children (the day care) or be reworked into something brazenly new (the punk rock session) but mostly this was a dying structure  The baby, as a possible representation of the future did not finding this visit to old terrain anything but perilous, yet I kept the baby safe, and we found our way out of the building where the baby was fed by a fountain bubbling with life and with the radiant Flower of Pyrola Elliptica glowing at our feet.  

I experienced this dream as encouraging me to keep going and specifically to continue in my life with Flowers and my focus on dreamwork. The dream supported my abiding belief that dreams and Flowers are inextricably and meaningfully linked by forces ever working on our behalf to heal and support us in our journey to find ourselves.

While many of my dreams bring messages that suggest healing to be done, this dream was a dream of affirmation right when I needed it.  I find it an astounding thing that we get this kind of gift from beyond the veil each and every night.   The last thing I do each night before I turn off my light is spritz myself with Pyrola Elliptica (and other Flower Essences too). No matter the challenges of any day, this is a moment of anticipation and excitement for me. I am about to return to the realm of dreams where my bigger self can guide me and share exactly what I most need to consider.