REFLECTIONS from participants of PLANT DREAMING workshops :

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• In Plant Dreaming Lucy holds an open circle around a fire in her garden and for a few precious hours she invites us to enter a different world where time slows down and gently expands into the timeless as we share the process of honouring each particular plant. Being together in this particular place and in a particular way each month weaves together a rich community of human hearts that opens up a space for the plant kingdom to reveal more of itself to us.  The process of sharing our perceptions brings a depth of appreciation for each plant in its uniqueness that I know wouldn't be possible alone. For me the beauty of each plant often unfolds in a pattern of words or a kind of poetry.  Then back in the circle through each fellow plant dreamer's heart an even richer palette of words emerges which seems to breathe me into a new reverence for the Earth and my interconnectedness with all other living beings.

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• Ivy, Willow, Nettle, Vine…. Cow Parsley, Peone, Wood anemone, Celandine. For me the monthly Plant Dreaming sessions held by Lucy are precious pools of time and space within a busy city work life. I travel to the countryside and enter Lucy’s beautiful garden, surrounded by fields and woods, and there we are invited to meet a particular plant, flower or tree. This meeting happens at many different levels. We each spend time with the plant and observe, touch, smell and even taste it. We notice what images, memories and associations it has for us and we share these impressions around the fire. Often what we share is very similar and yet our experience is broadened and deepened by each other. But plant dreaming is far more than that. Just as with meeting a new person, there is also an exchange, a relationship, that is a little bit of me and a little bit of the plant, and sometimes a connection with something that is even bigger and beyond the both of us. In this sense, plant dreaming is also an invitation to meet something in ourselves and to open to something beyond ourselves. It can be a meditation, a journey or an awakening and it is nearly always a joy. I go away with more openness, colour, richness and healing in my soul. And excited for the next time. 

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• I sometimes think of this quote from Georgia O’Keeffe when I am lucky to be in Lucy’s garden with the chosen plant and a wonderful circle of people - ’Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven’t time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time’. ​It feels wonderful to me that we take time not only to see the plant but feel the plant too and our connection with it. When I spot one of these plants back in the real world, I do feel like I’m seeing an old friend again and I feel the warmth of the connection. A bond! 

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• I walk in the woods almost every day but it is only since coming to Lucy's wonderful Plant Dreaming sessions that I really notice and appreciate the plants that are all around me. I think I now observe with different eyes and it is wonderful to encounter a plant, while out wandering, that we have been introduced to and spent time with. I have become acquainted with, and appreciative of, so many beings - from rhubarb to knapweed and from woad to valerian. The sharing of what we observe and feel is full of connection and shared wonder. I'm always so happy and grateful to come to plant dreaming.( which i have attended monthly for 8 years) It feels like a relief to step out of my usual logical, rational, analytical way of thinking and come into an intuitive, open, expansive place and be present with the plants. It amazes me how congruent and complementary our experiences are in the group. I come away feeling enriched and enlivened and often humbled. There is a sense of deep awe and wonder at the interconnectedness and unity of being in existence. Plant dreaming helps redefine my own place in nature and enhances my love, respect and appreciation for all aspects of the natural world. Some of my key words about plant dreaming are love, connection, wonder, depth, delight, sweetness and being.

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• Lucy's peaceful, natural garden overlooking a beautiful, wild and steep-sided valley is just the right spot to meet with like minded folk to connect with the plant world.  We see, feel, scent and hear the plants so clearly  -  they connect with us individually and as a group offering what is needed at the time.  I feel it is a reciprocal thing  -  I trust we are helping them too.  

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• I feel so grateful that once a month I get to spend half a day to be with a plant and explore what it means to me. In that time I experience the magic of symbiosis, thanks to the plant. When an excellent facilitator brings together a small group of like minded folk to let their imaginations go its amazing what you can learn. From snowdrop to rhubarb, as we share our own personal experience about each plant, we realise more than we could have ever known by our individual selves. All plants have a story to tell and when we stop, sense and listen, we realise the whole experience is something more than the sum of its parts. As I drop from my head to my heart, plant dreaming helps me re-connect my relationship with nature.

• 'Plant dreaming with Lucy is my chance to step out of my busy (city) life of ‘doing’ and settle for a morning into a peaceful space surrounded by the beauty of nature, gently opening to all it has to teach me on so many different levels. When the weather allows we meet year around in Lucy’s breathtakingly beautiful garden, always with a crackling fire to keep us warm and when its too cold or stormy we move to the indoor fireside. 'Meeting’ a new plant each time has completely changed my relationship, not just to those plants, but to all plants. I have been inspired to explore and learn more and more and I now see them as teachers in a profoundly life changing way. I also learn from the wonderful range of different experience and knowledge that is in the group itself, expertly guided in a gentle, unobtrusive, but highly skilful way by Lucy. Such holds space for each person, as well as sharing how own experience, and sometimes also drums or uses sound to aid our experience if it feels right. Plant dreaming is a fixed item in my calendar. It would take a lot for me to miss it as it nourishes me in so many ways that continue to unfold and entice'. 

• Plant dreaming offers me a wonderful invitation to step outside my usual busy-mind work and my usual practical gardening to sit with and really tune into a specific plant as a character with a story to tell.  By doing this as a group we find both the plant as it presents itself to the world and, often, a more personal message connected to our individual lives and concerns.  Most recently the snowdrop offered such a clear image of its purity, fragility and strength to us all and yet we also received individual insights into ourselves by journeying with the snowdrop.  This way of working with a single plant at a time helps to focus on its specific being but also, so often, brings the rest of nature along.  When we really dwell with a plant the way it is interwoven with everything else becomes clear.

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•  I am fascinated by plants as organisms - as fabulous, specialised structures for capturing sunlight and nutrients. But when we meet, once a month, in our small plant-dreaming group, I find my understanding enriched by other aspects of existence - the poetry of plants, their character. For me it confirms that, beyond all the specialised categories: biology, botany, horticulture, decorative arts, poetics there is simply Nature in all its mystery. 

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• Each month when we come to plant dreaming, we step away from the turmoil of everyday life, into the tranquil space that Lucy creates for us in her garden. We sit around the fire, and meet the chosen plant, or, as Lucy puts it, the plant that has chosen us. A few blissful hours follow, spending time in quiet, guided contemplation. Studying, smelling, feeling the essence of each plant. Time and space to be observant of the plant and observant of what it means to us as individuals and as a group. Time like no other.

• What I would like to say is this... That it is believed human-being prototypes started walking upright on this planet no longer than 4 million years ago, and the earliest flowering plants are estimated to have appeared some 130 million years ago, and it feels so awesome to slow down into ‘vegetal time’ and develop a more profound awareness of their particular and always beautiful intelligence......and that this is enhanced by sitting in community and opening out the array of all our perceptions.

• I love attending your plant dreaming group sessions.  Being within our small group of like minded spirits I always look forward to your magical garden and heart opening experience.  I love how you hold the sessions so gracefully with such gentleness.  This helps me  quieten and take "time out" from my daily life to be with Mother nature.  Your plant dreaming sessions help me stabilise both mentally and emotionally;  allowing time to listen and mindfully journey with whatever our plant is for that session - taking the time to notice their survival skills, their beauty and listen to their wisdom.  I always leave happier, more creative and much calmer. 

• My experience of plant dreaming has been extremely rich and deep. Through the regular plant dreaming sessions we have been guided by Lucy to observe and listen into different plants using our imagination. This is  quite a different way to experience nature from the familiar factual approach and allows for an imaginative but very real encounter of the quality of the plant. When we  share our personal experiences in the group we learn something new about the hidden essential nature of each new plant.

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•  Plant Dreaming with Lucy has offered me a way of deepening my relationship with the natural world. With Lucy’s guidance, I have been able to develop a practice of sitting in quiet reflection and observation with the plant or tree we are meeting that day, whether it is a wood anemone, a willow or mistletoe. This deep listening and 'tuning in’ with each plant, noticing the subtlest of details and being aware of the thoughts and feelings that surface in me has offered me an insight into the qualities and wisdom of each plant and their relationship with me. Plant Dreaming is both an individual and group process, where insights are shared, reflected and woven together and where we discover our close relationship with each plant and the value of nurturing this relationship in our everyday lives.