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Vine symbolizes many things. One has to be careful how to look at one. There are many different kinds, and they each have a unique definition. Vines can cling, they can climb, they can spread out and take over. They can be strong and rigid. Weak and wimpy. Choking. Killing. Struggle for survival.
One must look at each kind of vine as a unique individual. Not all vines are clingy. Nor do all of them choke or kill off others in order to survive. Each must be looked at to assess their modus operandi. A vine is something that has tendrils that curl and fix themselves around something else. Usually it is something stronger, more stable and rigid than themselves. However, this doesn't have to be so. Being a vine, one must get into their mind set and ask why they do what they do. A vine has this adaptive reflex in order to survive. In a triple canopy of South America, the only way a plant can live is to get to the sunlight. Plants don't have legs to walk with, so they have adapted marvelously by creating tendrils either from the stem of the plant, or from the tip of the leaf, to climb toward the sunlight so they can make chlorophyll in order to survive. If they don't fight and struggle upward, they die.
This particular knowledge is intrinsic to most vine type people. There are other vines that snake and curl around to choke out another plant so that it dies and they then have the room to receive that spot of sunlight, instead. There are vines that kill other plants and suck and drain them of their life fluids, in order to survive. Dodder is a good example of this. Each type of vine is a particular mind set. We can generally put vines into several categories based upon their above behavior.
Vines cling for survival reasons. They climb. They are driven, almost obsessively, to climb higher. In human psychology terms, this would be a person who is a Type A personality who must win, must be 'top dog' and survive at all costs. Not only that, but be successful about it.
Bryonia alba
A very good illustration of this is Bryonia alba. This is a member of the Gourd family, Cucurbitaceae. The gourd is symbolic of a person's head. Possibly, a tumor, which is round and holds some thing. Bryonia grows in well drained, neutral to alkaline soil and loves the sun. It does not like the shade. The root is a tuber (and these also symbolize a bowl, a gourd or a cup in which some thing is held and also associated with tumor production or head related ailments). Bryonia has many curled tendrils that are offshoots from the stem. If one looks at the homeopathic rubrics, there is a definite agreement between them. Bryonia people are business people. They may own a Mom and Pop business, a small business, or a mighty corporation. The reason why they do is security driven and materialistic.
Why? Because they have vines as part of their Doctrine of Signature. Bryonia likes to be top dog. The only time s/he gets riled is when her movement to the top is stopped for some reason out of her control. Then, she gets splitting migraine headaches (the gourd family, the tuber root), is irritable, angry (Bryonia has red berries, and red rules rage, anger, irritation and irritability, among many other things), doesn't want the light (just the opposite of the plant, which loves the sun), doesn't want to move (and this is typical of a vine plant - they are better in a fixed, stable, static position). Vines are anchoring into someone or something else in order to achieve stability. In Bryonia's case, security and stability are essential, but we see it in the DOS of the plant.
It has tendrils (vines). It 'climbs' other bushes, trees and shrubs in order to get the most light of all. They climb several yards (1 meter is a yard) in a summer! This plant moves fast, and moves like a corporate raider, taking no prisoners to get what s/he wants: sun (this equates to money, fame, greed, fortune, placement, food, air, water and honors) light. This is security to this plant because sun equates with survival. Interestingly, as a vine-related plant, Bryonia is typical in that it will take on someone bigger that itself - a shrub or even a towering tree, and wrap its tendrils around it, climb it and get what it wants. This vine plant can be a bully, and sometimes Bryonia vine people have been bullies as children. But we all know that a bully is really fearful inside, with low self-esteem and they attack to stop potential attacks against them, first. That is survival reflex. The Bryonia person is the same way. Corporate raider is a label to attach to this person. That doesn't infer anything negative, however. Bryonia and other vine people can certainly be leaders in the business world. The more interesting question is why they are a leader and a successful business person who is driven into Type A behavior (industrious, a mania for work, a workaholic), however.
A vine person achieves business success for the reasons of security. Security means being top dog. Means bringing in sufficient amounts of money. All this equates with stability, then, in their psyche. Materialism means security and stability. Where Bryonia gets in trouble is that they get in over their head (pardon the pun here...) is that they are working so hard, perhaps twelve to sixteen hours a day, five to seven days a week, that they go into an exhaustion phase.
Their mind (the gourd family / Bryonia has a berry that is round. Round symbolizes the head, also) goes to 'mush' and they can't think their way out of a paper bag, much less do any counting of money or checking their stock portfolio! Like all vines, there is a terrible inner insecurity to them. They cannot stand on their own two feet. No, they need the help, stability and support of others (bush, shrub, trees or family, business partner or spouse). That's a terrible realization to make that one cannot ever do anything without support from somewhere else.
Consequently, vine / Bryonia has fear of poverty (her stability will be yanked out suddenly from her without warning and she, the vine, looses her security), anxiety about the future (every vine worries about the day their unsteady superstructure might fold their tent and go away), and mental insecurity (because they did not climb up to the top on their own - they had a lot of people, i.e., brush, shrubs and trees, to get there to the top). Bryonia may project a prodigious confidence, but inside s/he is worried that others might see through her and see where her weaknesses are located.
Every vine has anxiousness about their stability. And why not? They should! Whatever the vine climbed up on, could die and then it will find itself no longer in the air, but on the ground. Some vines are very aggressive, move fast, and take over a lot of territory in a short amount of time. Bryonia alba is one such vine.
The fact that they can grow several yards in a summer, is pretty amazing. This is a fast plant, a take-over raider-vine, and so is the Bryonia person. That's all they know; how to battle, scratch, scramble, climb and strive to get to the top of the heap to the get the sunlight. And their reputation is everything to them; to be on top, to be seen as the best. Top dog.
Interestingly, Bryonia, even when delirious with a fever, will mutter incoherently about business! Because business, to them as a vine person, is where and how they can survive! Because Bryonia loves direct, full sun, the vine-person prefers light, airy rooms in which to work. Like most vines, they like to be left alone (of course, a vine doesn't want any intruders sneaking in on their territory they've claimed). They do not like the company of others. They are best when left alone. Vine people, in general, are very sensitive people.
If you look at their tendrils, which are very tender, soft and delicate (although usually super strong despite their initial appearance....) they need an environment that is quiet, secure, with no one bothering them. Music, children laughing, talking or crying, or noise of any kind, offends them. Vine people see other people barging in and intruding upon them as an offensive attack. Much like a vine that is in place being taken on by another plant, and then it feels panicked, intimidated and anxious about its survival. Vines don't like a lot of movement. Once they have wrapped their tendrils around a more stable object, they hate displacement or movement of any kind for obvious reasons. Bryonia is worse with movement, bending forward or with exercise. How like a vine! A Bryonia person is better with rest and pressure applied to the affected part.
I find vines like pressure - they press themselves flatly and fully against the stable shrub, bush or tree. So, pressure equates with stability, and something healthy in their psyche of survival.
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Warmly, Eileen