Night Flowering Plants for Recovery from Shock

Night flowering plants are the super-star healers of the subconscious body and otherwise hard to reach areas.

I started using these plants on instinct for several people who seemed to not benefit from those herbs that usually work for their condition. Most adults in our times have bodies too complicated for the one or two simple herbs that would have solved their problems 30 years ago.

The stress of modern times and the extremities of sensory and emotional upheaval, have made the nervous system and vibrational body the battleground now. We need more and more of treatment of these sensitive and deep parts of us to get the physical body to the point where it can respond to the herbs which support the liver and the kidneys and so on.

A gardener with decades of experience once told me, as he dusted clods of wet earth off his hands, that while he considers most of his plants, his children, he considers the night flowering ones his ancestors.

It made me realize the subtle but strong effect night flowering plants have on the sub-conscious brain – just like our ancestors in our cells. We think our ancestors are dead and gone, but no, they and their lives and the times they lived through, the things they ate, the hormones they release, those patterns and effects stick around in our bodies and psyches influencing us and our lives in powerful ways.

In the same way, the plants that flower in the evenings and nights, besides looking lovely and smelling so beautiful, have effects on our bodies and psyche that are wonderful deep repair of hidden places inside us, especially for one of the most difficult conditions to heal – deep or hidden or inherited shock.

Here are my top 5 favorite night flowering plants for recovery from deep and hidden shock.

Quis Qualis Indica
Datura (Moonflower)
Night Blooming Cactus
Evening Primrose
Cestrum Nocturnum

‘Quis Qualis’ actually means ‘What is it! Where is it coming from!’ It’s other name is Rangoon creeper. What a beautiful vine it is and it’s medicine benefits as so amazing it is part of my super-antioxidant mix that pretty much sets anything right with anyone I ever give it to.

The power of this plant that flowers in the evenings is beyond the scope of this article to describe. In a nutshell – it stimulates the healing of the lymphatic system and nerve endings that open into it.

Let me explain. Any shock or trauma we have ever, its first effect is to make the normal functioning of the body pause while it focuses on dealing with the threat facing us in the moment.

Until the time we feel like the threat is fully resolved, the things the body was processing stay stuck where they are. If we never really reach the point where we feel like the threat is dealt with, those things stay right there, pushed into the lymphatic system which is mostly the liquid between organs and tissue, and stays there festering over time.

To clean out the lymph, there has to be the metabolic signal coming in from hormones and the electricity of nerve endings. Quis Qualis gets that side of metabolism going. Not the ‘get up and run’ bit, and not the ‘go into deep sleep’ bit, the in-between ‘relax and clean house‘ bit.

How useful is that for those with years of the throw-offs of stress metabolism in the body!

To use quis qualis, you get the flowers and/or leaves, dry them in paper bags and use them to make tea. Or you could get an extract of them.

Evening Primrose

A lovely comforting scent, a beautiful ground hugging herb. Evening Primrose oil is used for hormonal balance in menopausal women world over. But that’s just what got marketed best about Evening Primrose. Its true treasures are so much more.

Think of a wide open land, wide open sky and winds that fly over thousands of miles before they reach where you stand un-sheltered in that open space. While the wide openness of the land is beautiful, after a while, you could begin to feel weather-beaten, pushed around by the force of what’s around you, and jarred by the lack of ‘cushioning’ from it all.

Evening Primrose has the cushioning the body and psyche needs for support and recovery from overwhelming change, whether that’s because of hormonal changes in the body or in life situation. Like quis qualis it has a gentle evening – relax and let go of tension – vibe that when taken over a few days or weeks gets the organs that are tense to relax and let go so the body can recover.

There are many ways to take Evening Primrose – some people just need the essential oil rubbed on their wrists to get all the benefits of it, others could use the tea or the oil.

Night Blooming Cactus or Cereus

This one’s a phenomenon. So magnificent. The cactus flower – Grandiflora Cactus is a stabilizer of nervous frequency and is essential heart support. This one which does does all that too on a physical level, is related, but flowers in the night and often only once a year.

That makes its effect and influence on the body work on a different level altogether. It is not sedative but can put the nervous system into a state of waking calm otherwise hard to find. Its effect on the lymphatic system is awakening without being stimulating, and therefore, even though there are herbs that do a better job stimulating the lymphatic system (like quis qualis and fenugreek) this one’s so valuable because it can cause the lymph itself to throw out things stuck in places, that for whatever reason have not gotten cleaned out before.

It is therefore a last resort herb and good, because it usually flowers only once a year. You have to get a plant, love it and whisper sweet nothings to it every day, some times for years before it will give you a kiss back in the form of a little bud. Then you have to wait and watch for the night it will finally bloom, estimate when it will be ready to be plucked without hurting its feelings, ie. when it’s about to drop off, but before the processes for dropping off start, ie. before it starts wilting.

Once you’ve lost a few nights sitting by it staring you’ll already be in a different state of waking rest – ie. you’ll be technically awake but mostly asleep.

If like me you had to sit outdoors in a grove with wet mud and mosquitoes and lizards and all that used to be called ‘night life’ before the invention of electricity, you will be awake whether you like it or not.

By the time you finally get the flower, you’ll need it. I’m kidding.

This one’s not one that everyone needs, or even anyone who is just slightly stressed. It’s for those who have long term deep shock and trauma, for those who’ve suffered deep burns, especially radiation burns, for those recovering from chemotherapy and radiotherapy and still feel the ache and pain years later, for those whose skin has scars beneath the surface, scars from trauma of years ago, for those who never recovered from a shock a long time ago – the signs might not be there on the surface but the person knows they never fully recovered.

The usual Cactus – will help all these situations and should be part of the treatment for all these. But a little bit of night blooming cereus will take it all to another level.

Datura or Moonflower

I use Datura for my amazing anti-inflammatory pain relief ointment. Like the other night blooming flowers, it’s not something you use for any old head ache. It is for serious pain relief when other herbs haven’t worked. It heats up the whole area relieving the chilly pains of arthritis and rheumatism, and stimulating circulation.

Taken internally Datura is a psychoactive poison. The lightest infusion (40 seconds in hot water) of a tiny pinch of its root or leaves or seeds truly does change the frequency of the nervous system and brain while warming up the body like few herbs do. I have found that very useful on cold mountain nights when I could afford to see the world a different way than usual for a while, get a different perspective. But I do not use Datura as part of my herbal tonics for anyone at all as I’d need to be actually around watching if someone took Datura.

Externally however, extracted into oil or alcohol and used for external treatments it relaxes nerve endings, removes swelling and heals deep sprains, deep muscle tears, and pain in hard to reach places, and pain other herbs don’t relieve.

On a tired face and for those with pain or palsy of the nerves of the face, Datura oil can iron out those tense nerves and put them into a rest in which they can heal. It has a sedative effect for this reason, when used on the face. It has to be used a about twice a week when used this way.

Cestrum Nocturnum

This is a small night flowering tree. It’s such a lovely calming fragrance and is so hardy it grows and flowers almost anywhere. It has a reputation of being poisonous – the fruits ie. And its been classified as invasive in some countries.

Its flowers and leaves dried – a t-spoonful of the dried material in 2 cups of water makes a gentle tea that goes beyond just relaxing.

It isn’t exactly trippy, but brings things that are lurking in the corners of the mind tensing us, out into the open in a relaxed easy way. You begin to feel the knotted nerves a little more pronounced at first, like when someone massages a point of pain in your back, for just a second, you feel a little more pain before the pain goes, it’s like that with the tea. That’s why you should never have too much of it. Just a little every now and then when you need mental or other de-clogging and un-knotting. It’s also good relief for menstrual cramps and cramps in general.

Conclusion: Deep hidden unresolved effects of shock can be resolved with night flowering herbs. No matter how many words are used, or how many articles are written, the experience cannot be described. Their deep healing powers have to be experienced.