Talking to Plants

No, not Prince Charles 'chatting to your aspidistra', but a form of communication which seems to be coming more from the plants than from me.

I've kept a dream diary since 2006, since some of my dreams are mighty interesting, and checking through it (well, them actually - I'm on the fourth one by now) I found that the night the coltsfoot murmured into my brain was that of the 5-6th May, 2006.

Almost exactly a year later, on the night of the 8-9th May 2007, I had a similar dream of bladderwrack. On the strength of this,I went out and bought some kelp.I've never found any use for it.

The coltsfoot spoke to me just ten days before I came down with bronchitis for the first time in my life. Something I didn't consciously know until I was breathing with difficulty was that coltsfoot is sovereign against bronchitis.I keep some in the cupboard at all times now.

So, what was the bladderwrack trying to tell me?

A month or two after I dreamed of it, I started suffering from a mild irritation of the urethra. Nothing dangerous, just a feeling of a need to go pee a lot when I had no water to pass. I left it for months, until March when I remembered the bladderwrack dream. I created a tea from dried leaves with Juniper berries and honey.

Gaagh - it tastes revolting! But I experienced relief from the irritation of the urethra that same day and haven't had a recurrence of it.

Silly me - I should seriously listen to what the plants tell me.

Although it seems it's a once a year phenomenon,the timing is interesting in that the first week in May is also the astronomically-precise date of Samhain, here in the southern hemisphere.

Around Samhain, say we Pagans, the veil between this world and others becomes thinner, so we can expect to receive communications from dead friends and relatives more easily.
I'm not sure what's behind this -it's obviously more to do with the time of season than just the date of the year, as we celebrate it in May while those in the northern hemisphere acknowledge it in November.

Could it be something to do with the fact that life is starting to hibernate, or batten down the vital hatches?

Do plants, especially, find it easier to speak with us as they are preparing for sleep?

I don't know the answers.I'm aware that I could be sounding like something of a loon, but hey, this is not something I'm going to worry about. Not even a little bit.

I am who I am, and if plant life seems to be starting a conversation with me, well it's lots better than preparing for violence, as is happening just north of our borders at the moment-as, not coincidentally, the new moon in Aries aligns with the sun in Aries, and Bob Mugabe's ruling planet of Jupiter (by old-style attribution) sits in the sign of its fall, in Capricorn.
Hmm..I see his Mars is conjunct his Jupiter, too.