Mugwort Retrieves the Dreaming Soul

Dreamers, allow me to introduce you to the patron herbal healer of dreamweavers everywhere.

The beautiful mysterious plant Mugwort, Artemisia vulgaris, is a patron plant for helping find and re-home the dreamer that each of us came into this world with. I know I know, everyone talks about Mugwort as the dreaming plant, it’s old news. But - it’s real!

Known as the dreamweaver plant in European folklore, many know and have worked with Mugwort to expand their dreaming.  Sacred to the moon, Mugwort’s mystical silvery leaves connect us into the lunar nature of our beings - the part of us that is connected with all things, with the flow of life and spirit, with that which is unseen and hidden, with the heart of the very cosmos which just might be where dreams actually come from.  

Mugwort connects us to the deep well of wisdom inherent and indigenous to our own souls.  She is not a plant that rips open the veil to downpour material from our subconscious, as some hallucinogenic plants may do.  Instead she wisely, gently but effectively softens the dream door to help us surrender into that dreamy state wherein our wisdom self can help us find our dreams.  

Mugwort can be worked with in any number of ways to help awaken, find and re-home our inner dreamers. I always work with the plant in my dream circles, and when anyone is wanting to deepen their dreaming - mugwort is the Dream Patron. Simply a pinch of mugwort can be placed on an altar, near the bed, or under the pillow.  An infused oil of the plant can be prepared and anointed on the third eye before falling asleep, a wand can be crafted to smudge the bed, body and room before falling into dreams, or a tea can be drunk at night before sleep. The plant can be meditated with for any number of minutes in the morning or evening, asking for help in finding or softening the dream door and finding our dreams. 

Plants heal by opening up channels within our beings for new energy and spirit to flow. When we ingest them medicinally, they open pathways in our bodies for new energy to flow—this is how they heal our bodies. They do the same on the level of spirit, opening up pathways that remind us of our wholeness, expand our sense of kinship within the web of life, connecting us to the force of life and the possibility of miracles.

So the act of ingesting Mugwort, a plant well known and cited over the centuries for its connection to dreaming, helps to open up the channels for dream energy to flow inside of us. It retrieves our dreaming, our dreamer and our dreams.  Medicinally speaking, there is some biochemical backing as to why this may occur. The essential oils in Mugwort have a nervine effect on the body, meaning they help to relax, soothe and strengthen the nerves. Their effect has been described as “euphoric” meaning that the plant elicits a sense of gentle euphoria and mental softness, likely due to the nervine essential oils, that help us “get out of our own way” and surrender into sleep and therefore, dreams.

Mugwort’s name Artemisia pays homage to the Greek Goddess Artemis - a virgin goddess, sovereign unto herself, patron deity of midwives, herbalists, and the wild green world at large. She is a warrior, huntress, wild in every cell of her being, having retained that precious aspect of herself even during the rise of patriarchy in her time and place in the world. Dreaming is classically seen as a feminine or Yin aspect of our beings. Dreaming is definitely non-linear, formless and comes to us in the dark of night.  Our dreamer often, though not always, shows up as a feminine or Yin part of ourselves who is seeking to reclaim her own sovereignty within the wild non-linear world. 

I received a dream from Mugwort which taught me about the plant’s ability to find and bring home our dreamers.  

In the dream titled Mugwort Protects Remote Wild Woman, I was a part of a dream group, and one of the women members of this group had a sister who lived way off in the hills. I kept asking the woman about what happened to her sister, and finally she told me the horrible truth - while living alone in this remote cabin, someone had come and cut her leg off and abused her. I was horrified, so sad for the sister and just horrified. She remained living there after the incident, and the sister was still going to visit. I marveled at her bravery, and questioned my own in such an incident, if I would be able to stay after such a thing had occurred.

Though a gruesome dream, and, as always, riddled with many layers of personal and universal truth - this dream is a powerful emblem of what can happen to our inner dreamers. 

Though for most us, a cleaving and severance of limbs does not occur to our physical bodies - for most of us, essential parts of our wild, raw selves, including our dreaming selves, do become forcibly removed by external forces - whether that is our family of origins, society, media, friend groups - or all of it, the culture and world at large. What I love about this dream though, is that the sister who had been so betrayed is still there - living alone in her wild remote desert dwelling. Though she isn’t a part of the dream group in the dream, she is a sister of one of the members. She is living in the wild space with Mugwort, guardian, protector and patron of dreamers everywhere. 

At the time of receiving this dream, the journey took me deep into my own healing and reclaiming - I love this dream, too, as a teaching for how we can retrieve our own inner dreamers, and how mugwort can help.

Our dreamers may not be as old as a woman who can live by herself in the desert, our lost dreamers might be young children, babies or even newborns. But wherever they are, in whatever time they are, they can still come home to our here and our now, because all time is one time. And mugwort can help. Perhaps they’ve been hiding in a cabin with mugwort all along. 

Here is another Mugwort dream, called Herb School Sports Center. 

In the dream, I was on a mission to an herb school for a specific reason - my job was to retrieve a flat of Mugwort plant starts.  When I arrived, the school's appearance surprised me. On the outside it appeared like a warehouse, while the inside looked like a remodeled mega sports center with very bright fluorescent lights. I had an awareness that the mugwort was the only thing growing wild here. I succeeded with my mission in the dream and retrieved the flat of 8 baby mugwort starts. 

A simple dream, but as with all dreams - if given the pause of deep attention, there is much to unpack. Perhaps instead of being forcibly taken, there was simply never a place for our dreamer in the commercialized, fluorescent, sterile, homogeneous culture and world to which we were born. The dreamer simply never knew how to find, be or grow herself. 

Perhaps we can sneak in and rescue not one but a whole flat of our wild, dreaming selves, just like I did in this dream. Perhaps this brave excursion will welcome our dreamer home.  

Blessed be your time with this dreamweaver!