Discovering Lavender’s Power: A Master Plant Dieta for Deep Healing
I’ve always loved Lavender. She’s my go-to for relaxation and I adore her beautiful scent. She’s been a regular in my skin routine, bath and the combination of Lavender and Chamomile is my top choice for an evening tea. If I want to spoil myself, Lady Lavender is the first I reach out to.
Oddly, she wasn’t on my list for a master plant dieta. I never expected she would provide the resistance I needed for spiritual transformation. I associated her with relaxation and self-care, and I didn’t imagine what she could show me that would transform deep wounds. So when I let the plants choose my next dieta, and Lavender showed up, all serious and ready for business, I was a little taken aback. She had only shown me gentleness.
What are Master Plant Dietas?
In the Shipibo tradition, dietas are intensive and highly sacred. The objective is to merge and spiritually connect with a plant. Each plant on Gaia is considered a living spirit (consciousness) with unique wisdom, guidance, and healing abilities. Working with a Shaman, the portal is opened and held for as long as necessary for the recipient to access the lessons and wisdom. My dietas have typically lasted from 2-3 weeks on average. You can experience this process at home or in an isolated setting (e.g. a sacred retreat or a traditional setting in the jungle).
It’s widely accepted by those who have sat with Ayahuasca that she has a very specific consciousness (spirit), and many of us know her. She guides us through our journey showing us what we need to see in the time we sit with her. What dietas shows us is that all of the plants on our beautiful earth have the same capacity for teaching. They all hold very specific wisdom when you work with them in this dedicated, disciplined, and beautiful way. Over the past 6 years, I have entered dieta 7 times. Each time was life changing, and lavender was one of the most transformative.
The Unexpected Surprise Of Lavender: She’s Not So Sweet
As mentioned, I expected soft and gentle – you know, like grandma and her lavender perfume. What greeted me was something much more serious. She was authoritative, direct, and powerful. The first thing she said to me was “Save your sweetness and politeness, it's time to get down to business”. Not what I expected from my gentle, flowery girl.
She started to work immediately. Within minutes of my dieta being sung open by the shaman, she wiped my mind of all thoughts. I was in silence, with nothing filling the gaps and no thoughts of the past or future. It was one of the most uncomfortable feelings I’ve ever felt because I had no control over it and no timer set to snap me out of it. She kept me in that state for 3 days.
I’ve been meditating for over 20 years and regularly. That’s been the one thing in my inconsistent practice that I’ve been able to stick with. I can quiet my mind fairly easily, but I’ve always done it for a predetermined time and only once a day. I didn’t realize that the rest of my day was filled with thoughts that were coping with a lot of fear and anxiety. I had been unaware that I flipped between past and future constantly in that time, and I wasn’t actively in meditation. She made me aware that I wasn’t present in my life.
Bringing Awareness Around Trauma and the Fight-or-Flight Response
Experiencing trauma can leave the body stuck in a persistent state of fight-or-flight, a mode that was meant for short-term survival but can linger long after the danger has passed. This leaves the mind and body in a state of constant alertness, with the sympathetic nervous system ready to “fight” or “flee” at the smallest sign of a perceived threat. This chronic activation drains energy, clouds mental clarity, and makes it difficult to be present.
It also creates the lens through which we see our world. When we are in this mode of fight or flight, we are constantly imagining what could come around the corner based on our perception of what happened to us in the past. It creates what psychologists call a state of hypervigilance. It makes it impossible for us to take in our world objectively and worse of all, it blocks creativity and flow. I had two boxes that everything was filed into – the safe or the unsafe.
Healing Dissociation with Lavender and Becoming Present
Lavender also made me realize the pain I was numbing by not being present. This dissociation or detachment is a way our minds compartmentalize this pain. It helps to relieve the feelings around the memories and the feelings we have around (in my case) feeling unsafe. It creates a shell of ourselves – a mask we wear (persona) that shows the world what we want them to see. I hadn’t associated being present with feeling until lavender showed me. I had relied on memories to bring up feelings, but I never let my body express itself in the present moment. Listening to music and looking at pictures always evoked the past and with it feelings from the past that were applied to an imagined future. But what about now? Am I giving my body time to communicate with me without the shackles of the past so it can bring in a new perspective and integrate pain?
The Immeasurable Gifts from Lady Lavender
I always joke that I cried almost the entire time I was on this dieta. That may sound miserable to some, but to me, it was a salve on my soul and body that was aching to express itself in real time. It had been so trapped by certain memories and future anxieties that it was unable to speak and let me know how it was feeling. Even more, I hadn’t fostered that line of communication to what my emotional body wanted to show me – the new perspective and the possibilities of what could be. Those are the creative elements of transmutation. Forgiveness, compassion, gratitude – all the gifts on the other side of trauma.
A Journey Beyond Calm to Profound Healing
When you read about Lavender scientifically, you’ll read that Lavender has calming effects that are widely recognized, particularly for their ability to reduce the body’s stress response. The primary component in lavender oil, linalool, helps to regulate the nervous system by interacting with GABA receptors, which are responsible for calming nervous system activity. This natural interaction leads to reduced heart rate, slower breathing, and less physical tension—all essential in deactivating the fight-or-flight response triggered by trauma. (You can get your own sustainably grown Lavender oil from one of our partners, Anima Mundi, using our code PLANTMEDICINE for 15% off!)
But, isn’t it amazing, that when you get to know her spiritually, she can take you so much farther? It isn’t always a pleasant experience, but it’s in her range of expertise. I am absolutely in love with Lavender and her multi-dimensionality. She has changed my life. Her work with my emotional body and trauma is some of the deepest work I’ve done. Ironically, I had thought there would be no resistance to her medicine. She came in hot. That’s a common theme in my work with the plants – they are always surprising us and they are never what we expect them to be.
If you’re looking to explore the world of Master Plant Dietas with Lavender or other plant allies, join our virtual group dietas or connect with one of our guides for a private dieta!
About the Author
Marwa Mitchell has been working with Plant Medicines for many years, and is well versed in helping people set clear intentions and feel safe and excited about the journey into altered spaces. Her degree in psychology with an emphasis in neuroscience gives her both clinical and spiritual expertise. Marwa is also a certified past life regressionist (PLR) in both Dolores Cannon’s QHHT methodology and the Beyond Quantum Healing (BQH) modality, as well as a Reiki practitioner. A lifelong student of consciousness exploration, Marwa is particularly adept at understanding how the subconscious mind operates in connection with the universal consciousness to reflect our traumas and illuminate our paths to growth.
