Dana O'Driscoll

Dana O’Driscoll has been an animist druid for 20 years, and currently serves as Grand Archdruid in the Ancient Order of Druids in America (www.aoda.org). She is a druid-grade member of the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids and is the OBOD’s 2018 Mount Haemus Scholar. She is the author of Sacred Actions: Living the Wheel of the Year through Earth-Centered Spiritual Practice (REDFeather, 2021), the Sacred Actions Journal (REDFeather, 2022), and Land Healing: Physical, Metaphysical, and Ritual Approaches for Healing the Earth (REDFeather, 2024). She is also the author/illustrator of the Tarot of Trees, Plant Spirit Oracle, and Treelore Oracle. Dana is an herbalist, certified permaculture designer, and permaculture teacher who teaches about reconnection, regeneration, and land healing through herbalism, wild food foraging, and sustainable living. In 2024, she co-founded the Pennsylvania School of Herbalism with her sister and fellow herbalist, Briel Beaty. Dana lives at a 5-acre homestead in rural western Pennsylvania with her partner and a host of feathered and furred friends. She writes at the Druids Garden blog and is on Instagram as @druidsgardenart. She also regularly writes for Plant Healer Quarterly and Spirituality and Health magazine.

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9 Comments

  1. I too grew up on a creek, the Gilkey. I spent every moment of daylight on it for almost 15 years. Minnows, turtles, dragonflies, crayfish, birds and rodents, with box elders overhanging. Even though it was closer to civilization than I’d ever have wished, it was sacred to my heart, and still is. It haunts my dreams at night – it is where, when anyone evokes the idea of ‘childhood’, my mind flows. It is like a permanent centre. Its source I knew well, many miles away, chaining from first the Kersley River, which I could visit in the wild woods across from my grandparents’ house 20 miles south, to the Flint River, to Lake Huron. It was alive, teeming. In my somewhat symbolic dreams if it were at peace, low and clear, life was going well, if it flooded, covering the back acres of our land, something troubling was going on in waking life. 35 years later these images still bubble up in confusing times. Your metaphors hold very true for me. Thank you for a marvelous post.

    1. My forest haunts my dreams every night too. I think we share dreams, actually, and sometimes her fears and hopes for the future :).

  2. This is a good metaphor that I shall remember. I read of the mighty River Dart in Dartmoor, UK coming into being from many small springs at its source.

    1. Without meaning to sound contentious, Alex, the adjective “mighty” when linked to the dear old Dart is not the one that would have sprung to my little old mind! Well, having spent time close to the Mississippi and most of the major rivers of India, Thailand, Japan and China, I guess I’ve been spoiled somewhat. I was struck by the blackness of the river at Dartmeet when I strolled along the banks – but this was nearly 60 years ago, so things may have changed since then….

      1. *Smiles* I have limited experience of the great rivers of the world, so the River Dart is mighty to my inexperienced eyes. Dartmoor has been getting plenty of rain in recent years, probably one of the places in UK getting the most rain.

  3. Dana, it’s interesting how all kinds of disparate threads combine to make up a carpet or garment. You encapsulated, in your recent post, elements of Indian philosophy (the single raindrop falling into the sea and becoming thereby the very ocean), and these merged with my own prior musings on the theme of rivers in Western classical music. Bedřich Smetana depicted the twin sources of the Vltava in his famous symphonic poem of that name in Má Vlast. This, in turn, led my thoughts to Aaron Copland, reinforced by your own mention of Appalachia. Surprisingly, it was just last year – when I was a mere lad of 71! – that I heard that the word ‘spring’ in Appalachian Spring did not, as I had supposed, refer to the season, but to the source of a river mentioned in a Hart Crane poem.

    Even your mention of the infamous Johnstown flood followed by a fire, (one of several inundations, actually), reinforced what I saw decades ago when I first arrived on one of the outer Hawai’ian islands. A relatively minor flood had washed away a bridge and caused some damage after the USDA (of all people!) foolishly bulldozed a large section of woodland and dense grass high up above the village. Had they never heard of soil erosion?! With humility and respect, and with patient observation, as you imply, we mere humans can give our Mother a helping hand, but only if we assiduously follow HER rules. Anything else is arrogance.

    I hope some of this makes sense – my brain seems rather sluggish today. Also, I trust you received yesterday’s message from me. Frankly, I never know how these things are supposed to operate, and I believe I hid it away under your Deconstructing post of January 17. I’ve never ‘eavesdropped’ on a blog before, and sincerely hope I’m not doing the wrong thing or boring people.

    You should be happy with the weather, Dana – some beautiful snow as Imbolc approaches. (I don’t know why you spell it in such an irregular fashion!) Then there’s groundhog day for a really accurate, scientific forecast! Just before I take my leave, I must mention that Purnima begged me to open Picasa on my external drive. Having done so, I sat back and told her to have a look at any pictures she wished to see. Inwardly chuckling, I watched her head straight for the photos of you -again – and speculate that just maybe you pretended to go to sleep on a mattress, and when all the other girls were asleep, you crept out to sleep in the elephant tree! (The furrowed, fissured bark of the cottonwood reminded us of elephants’ skin!) You really seem to have a devoted fan in India! So long!

    1. Oh yes, I received your messages! I was not near the computer for most of yesterday, however, so I am only now able to respond.

      I would prefer to sleep in trees to beds. They are most comforting. This time of year though, we are currently getting temperatures in the negatives (-3 F, which translates I think to about -20 for you). So tree sleeping will have to wait till spring returns again! 🙂

  4. I very much enjoyed your entry. I never thought of visiting the source of a river.

    There are 5 rivers that have their sources in Hillsdale County, where I live. The St. Joseph flowing into Lake Michigan, the St. Joseph of the Maumee, the Kalamazoo, the Grand and the Raisin. Spring fed, the rivers flow north, south, east and west from the highlands. The headwaters of the St. Joseph are close by me at Baw Beese Lake – and well-marked. I would like to venture to the headwaters of the other St. Joseph River since it is deep in the county’s woods. The other 3 rivers start from/near Somerset Lake in the Northeastern part of the county.

    A few years ago I did some research online about the rivers – pretty cool, I think. This county is the only one in Michigan that has no water flowing into it, only out.

    1. Ranthia, you aren’t that far from me at all! I was blogging about the river where I grew up (where my parents live). But actually, I live in Michigan now, near Clarkston (Oakland County). Thanks for sharing!

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