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. Thank you Dana,
    I am inspired by this post to make my own calendar and track the important events for a few years. Next Beltane, I hope to launch my sailing dingy and at the Fall Equinox, to remove it from the water. There is also the herring run to track and the first Colombian-Blacktail fawn spotting. The arrival and departure of the Rufus hummingbirds. The first Swainson’s thrush song and the last. The first of the strawberries and the first of the apples. The migration of the Death newts and the blooming of the bitter cherry.

    Under your kind influence, I am sinking deeper into Druidry each day and am being made gentle.

    For one of my Earth Path changes as a Candidate, I started washing my hair with soap and rinsing with dilute vinegar. (Then rinse that out with clean water if you want to give this a try.) I was at the Farmer’s Market yesterday and bought some lavender goat’s-milk soap to wash my hair. Fern handed me the soap and said, “Because of you, everyone is buying my soap to wash their hair!” Isn’t that fun?

    Yours under the dry red cedars,
    Max Rogers

    1. Hi Max! I’m glad to hear of your druid calendar-in-the-making! Those sound like important events for your life and ecosystem.

      I love the goat milk soap story :). I haven’t tried it–but I will! I have some bars I bought at the farmer’s market from last year still!

      Thanks for commenting and reading!

  2. Excellent post Dana, thank you for this idea.

  3. OMGs!!!!! I love your personalized Wheel of the Year, adapted to the environment where you live. This is something I feel strongly drawn to doing and in many ways have already been doing, but not noted in such a formal, symbolic way. I’m absolutely going to do ths and found myself immediately starting it even while reading this post. Thanks and Blessings to You!

    1. I’m so glad you found it useful :). I’m excited to see what you come up with!

  4. thank you for mentioning the Four Quarters Interfaith Sanctuary – I wasn’t aware of that place and now I am!

    1. It is an amazing place! I learned about it a few years ago :).

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