Spiritual journeys in tending the living earth, permaculture, and nature-inspired arts
Respect. Honor. Reverence. Admiration–these words are often used to describe people, in our lives, afar, or in history that we hold in high regard. But these same words can also be used to describe many druids’ feelings towards the living …
Last weekend, some druid friends came over for a retreat with a focus on land healing. As part of the ritual we collaboratively developed, we wanted to make an offering to the spirits of the land. I went to my …
I’ve heard a lot of conversation in the nature spirituality community, including the druid community, about not touching nature, leaving it alone, to simply “be”. I remember one influential druid speaking at an event and saying, “The best thing you …
As any mushroom hunter knows, mushrooms are tricksy little buggers. What one looks like in one setting may not necessarily be what one looks like in another, depending on soil conditions, moisture, sun, size of the mushroom, insect damage, and/or …
A lot of people find druidry because they want to “connect” with nature. They want to attune to nature, feel part of it, gain knowledge and wisdom about it. But what does “connecting” to nature look like in practice? Going …
I love the summer months for foraging wild foods. One of my very favorite wild foods is Common Milkweed (asclepias syriaca). Around here, the pods are just beginning to form–and it’s a great time to explore this delightful wild food. …
As a practitioner of permaculture and as a druid, I am always looking for ways to work with the land to create sacred and ecologically healthy spaces. That is, to create self-sustaining ecosystems that produce a variety of yields: create …
My alarm goes off at 4:00am. I’m conveniently camping right along the lakeshore, after having spent the evening watching the sunset on the eve of the summer solstice with members of our grove. My kayak is ready to launch, and …
I am excited to announce that my 2018 Mount Haemus Award article, titled “Channeling the Awen Within: An Exploration of Learning the Bardic Arts in the Druid Tradition” has been released on OBOD’s website (a better-formatted PDF is at the …
Nature can provide tremendous wisdom and healing, especially when we work with our local ecosystems and ecologies. One of the most powerful ways of working healing with nature, I believe, is to combine the innate healing properties of plants with …
Everything changes in this wild place. The ebb and flow of the tides drive the ecology on this rocky shore. The landscape abruptly changes its appearance based on proximity to the sea and elevation. Firs and spruces dominate along with …
This past weekend, we had a delightful time at the 2nd OBOD Mid Atlantic Gathering of US(or MAGUS). It was a wonderful weekend full of positive energy, community, and celebration of the land. I was involved heavily in the ritual …
Often, when you are interested in unusual and wild foods, a season for a delectable treat may only last for a few short days or weeks. A fun early spring food that is usually popping up around or before Beltane …
Offerings to the land, spirits, and/or diety are a common stable in many traditions, druidry being no exception. Many opportunities present themselves and having something you carry with you can be built into your regular druid practice (and kept within, …
A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, anthropomorphisms, in short, a sum of human relations which were poetically and rhetorically heightened, transferred, and adorned, and after long use seem solid, canonical, and binding to a nation. Truths….are coins which have lost their …
The landscape waits, with bated breath, for the warmth to finally arrive. The last two months have been unseasonably cold, and the longer that time passes, more anticipation is present in the air. The plants and buds swell, but are …
“This is sacred time, this is sacred space.” At the end of the opening of every OBOD ritual, this powerful statement is made. But what does “sacred time, sacred space” really mean? What is “the sacred” and how do we …
Over the last two weeks, we’ve been exploring the idea of re-enchanting the world. Two weeks ago, I introduced the idea of re-enchantment through a discussion Max Weber’s claims that the world has been “disenchanted” by industrialization. Re-enchanting, then, is …
As a child, my family’s property had what we called “the old roads”. These were flat roads, of packed earth overgrown with brambles and grass, that were running perpendicular to the slope of the mountain. They ran directly north to …
Several years ago, I recounted a story of my experiences with the considerable energetic shift in telluric (earth) energy at Beltane in 2014. I remeber the moment so distinctly. I had planned on doing my solo Beltane celebration in my …
I have always longed for a greenhouse. As a homesteader in MI, I only had small hoop houses that I moved over crops, and while they worked great, they did not afford the flexibility that a larger greenhouse has. When …