Roots and Branches

Digital collage, Julia Skinner, 2025 (scroll down for why I chose Mugwort)

A decade or so ago, I used to write about things you learn in dreams. Inspired by Gary Burnett, one of my professors and dissertation committee members, who regularly wrote Facebook posts sharing the wild and wonderful lessons from his own dreamscape (and each titled “things you learn in dreams”), I started to do the same, in short posts comprised of a few sentences at most. 

And what I love is that I’ve retained so many of those stories despite not having read them for years: I’ve learned for example, that you can bake cakes while waves crash over you, or wander in a forest you’ve never been in without ever feeling truly lost.

Oftentimes, my dreams echo what’s going on in the waking world, offering a deeper awareness or understanding of something that’s waiting to emerge if I’m willing to just stand out of my own way to receive it.

In last night’s dream, I wandered through several familiar dreamscapes (I tend to revisit the same houses or other places repeatedly during a certain stage of life or while in a certain situation) past and present, like an appraisal of the last few years, moving from the smallest structure (a house) to the largest (an entire remote mountain town). 

Towards the end, I found myself running both towards and away: Away from a fictitious recent acquaintance who wasn’t dangerous, but just annoying. Towards some sort of a pet store where I could go and pet cats (the meaning in this part of the dream isn’t hard to parse: I miss my pets terribly). And, one of my friends, the Reiki symbol Zonar was there waiting too, which the symbol that’s been one of my primary guides at this stage in my practice.

But it was the running itself that stood out and that prompted me to sit down here, before breakfast, before even doing my daily meditations and channeled writing, to drop down what I saw.

Nervous system capacity isn’t just about us being more resilient in the face of what we don’t want: Building capacity builds more space to allow in what we desire, too

In the dream, I was running on a path right along a mountain’s edge, going downhill. There was a guardrail, but in the running I was almost weightless, so there was an element of danger to it: As though by doing this thing that I enjoyed I might spiral out of control, tumbling to my death at any minute (I did not).

The phrase “allowing yourself to feel along the edges of what feels good increases your capacity for wonder” kept repeating in my head.

I’ve been doing a lot of work with increasing my own nervous system capacity in real life to hold more of this wild and wonderful life, and to have the capacity to hold what I want to hold even when things that aren’t in alignment (globally and personally) feel like they’re filling up a lot of that space.

When you let yourself feel at the edges of your comfort zone, when you try new things, when you (metaphorically or actually) run along a path at the mountain’s edge feeling those “so good it’s scary” feelings, you’re building your capacity for that expanded experience to become your new normal.

You can’t grow into what your nervous system doesn’t recognize as safe to receive. And ironically, in order to find that safety we have to be willing to feel right up to the edges of our safety and comfort so that we can expand them outwards.

Practices to play with:

I like to play with this using various practices I’ve shared in this newsletter (give it a search for ideas, ask me questions, or look at Monday’s newsletter issue).

Other ideas for expanding your capacity to hold your desires?

Visualize one specific thing you want: A better apartment, a high paying and satisfying job, a book deal, etc. Hold it as the sole object of your attention for 30 seconds or more every day, visualizing it as though it has already come to pass (as a bonus, saying “I have XYZ thing” as a mantra throughout the day or before bed is useful too).

Visualize or journal, or let yourself actually experience out in the world, something that feels really good but right at the edge of “so good it’s scary.” Visualizing writing a bestseller, for example, or trying an activity you’ve been dying to do but that’s outside your comfort zone. Let yourself feel and fully experience that thing, as you repeat to yourself “I’m safe to receive this.”

If you want to work on this together in a deeper way 

If you’re on a budget or short on time, I recommend trying Deepest Desires ($20, self-paced and virtual) for locating and working towards your deepest desires using visualization, journaling, and meditation. 

Spoiler alert: Often times our deepest desires aren’t actually for a bigger car, higher paying job, etc., those are outgrowths of a desire for a certain quality of live and kind of living that we want to experience. 

If you want personalized support, book a 1:1 energy work + intuitive guidance session (virtual, live private sessions) or a remote, asynchronous intuitive guidance session (done without an appointment).

Or join me for Symbiosis, where we bake creative expansion into our monthly practices so you can get used to this sort of nervous system calibration becoming a practice, which gets you used to expansion itself as something safe to experience (and the ripple effects from that are whew, incredible). 

I know I’ve gone on about it a lot, but I’ve seen the absolutely bananas, incredible shifts these practices offer because I’ve lived them and I want that for you too. 

It’s over $1000 off, and you can choose between pay in full to 10 month payment plans (as always, contact me with questions!)

Why does this collage feature mugwort? for those in the know, Mugwort is a powerful ally for playing around in dream spaces. But that said, Mugwort can also be A Lot depending on your own body’s chemistry and where you’re at emotionally.

So I recommend starting small if ingesting (as always, check with your healthcare provider regarding allergies and drug interactions), or use spirit medicine (meditation, smoke cleansing, journeying, etc.) instead. I work with Mugwort for smoke cleansing physical spaces too, rather than White Sage or other threatened plants from closed practices.

If you want more Mugwort details, let me know!