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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13 Comments

  1. There’s a community garden down the street from me. They teach the students a lot of what you mentioned. They also do cooking classes. Even one for couples (teens). They teach sewing and so much more. The vegetables they grow they get for their families. They also donate 10 percent of what is grown to sell at a farmers market. That way they earn money to help keep the program to continue. They collect seeds for the next year.

    1. Hi Alice, thanks for sharing about your local community garden and they good they are doing! 🙂

  2. i have a Master’s degree in Ecology. i basically dismissed this study out of hand because Everything Runs on Oil in our current reality; the underlying truism that less distance food travels = lower carbon input (as you say, once the plot is established, which may require initial carbon usage) is _obvious_. these studies also don’t focus on _permaculture_ plots (trees, bushes, etc) which are generally using CO2 and giving off O2 long after the initial expenditure is made to get them started. so *much* of this junk science is paid for my Big Agriculture, tailored to back up Big Ag, and doesn’t come CLOSE to exposing all the horrible problems with Big Ag (pollution, genetic modification, monocultures, loss of habitat for huge stretches, horrid treatment of domesticated animals, etc) that they also entail. it’s advertising, pure and simple.

    OK, anger vented. i will now go love my permaculture garden. maybe sign up for a stint at Rahma.

    1. Yeah, it pretty much is a piece of BS research and really, the whole paradigm is BS. I’m over it! After reading this drivel (and there was even some new drivel today about organic food growing somehow creating more need for pesticides…goodness, it is hard to keep up), we both need to go with love to our permaculture gardens :).

  3. Such a lovely post, thank you Dana. I read about this when it first came out and it seemed like such capitalistic, know nothing BS nonsense. I love your takedown! Unfortunately, people read articles like that and believe them!! So incredibly unfortunate. I’m of the opinion that the more we do for our friends and loved ones and the less we interact with this falling apart capitalist system which is bent on destroying our beautiful alive Earth, the better we will all be. I’m trying to teach sewing, knitting, cooking, bread baking to my grandchildren. Even spinning. They may not appreciate it now, but at least they’ll know that things can be made at home, not just bought in a store.
    Thank you again, Dana!

    1. Hi Heather! Keep on fighting the good fight. Glad to hear the good work you are doing with your grandchildren! 🙂 Blessings to you!

  4. THANK YOU for this Dana!!! You have no idea how much reading this has given me hope and purpose again. The media only offers a tsunami of misleading or outright false information today. It is so easy. And many times, people don’t (and sometimes can’t) verify & confirm the truth AND accuracy of what they see or hear. It is also mentally, spiritually and emotionally draining to be barraged by such vile propaganda. And that is what I believe it to be when truth is denied or twisted in such articles.

    It gives me hope that what can be done locally, especially with fellow community members, is to bring healing, hope and connection both to Mother Earth and each other. We so need that, even more so in the time we are living in and experiencing. That your background is so full and well rounded in both science and the spiritual world is even more uplifting and encouraging. Thank you so much for this!!! I have saved the email and will be able to refer to it when I need a pick me up and a sound rebuttal for those who don’t go beyond the words/headlines. Thank you –Tess

    1. Hi Tess! Glad to be of service to all the community and urban gardeners and gardens. We need more, not less, of rooting in the earth. Blessings! Dana

  5. I think you hit the nail on the head. Growing our own food is the best way to keep from eating the poison food being pumped up by Big Ag. Of course they hate it.

    1. Grow on! Don’t let big ag get any of us down.

  6. Melissa A Bettcher

    The synchronicity in this world astounds me! This past weekend I was attending my local Mycological Association’s AGM and dinner and we had a special guest come and speak to us about her 40 years studying mycelium in relation to forestry, Melanie Jones PhD. What she shared with us shook us all to the core actually. She was one of the original researchers that had provided the data to support the “Wood Wide Web” idea whereby trees communicated and shared resources with each other via the mycelial network. Apparently, her research has been misrepresented in such a way by the media and other persons citing it that we have a view about the mycelial network in relation to trees and forests that is not quite right. I have included a link here for all that are interested(see the end of my comment). In summary, yes, there is a sharing that happens in the forest but it is not yet known if it extends beyond a few trees or not and there is doubt that the mycelium is really doing much other than looking out for itself in these interactions. However, there is no doubt that leaving forests intact and with their canopy closed will positively impact the health of the forest and allow recovery from both human led and nature led activities. There is also some recommendations on logging practices from their research that are more “sustainable” (if such a thing can be said about logging at all) based on how forests can regenerate if areas are left untouched.

    When she and her co-authors had released their review of their own research, there was intense backlash and some of them have even received very threatening messages. And this was even from the Mycological and Eco-Warrior community! Sometimes we want something to be true so badly that we skew data and bend the science to make it fit, and this goes for both sides of really any issue. Those that are so hell bent on burning all of the fossil fuels and forests until they are gone will make any alternative out to be a bad thing. It can happen on the other side with “greenwashing” too.

    What needs to happen, in my opinion, is that humans need to divest this idea that their beliefs are attached to their identity. Honestly, we also need to look at how we use the word “belief” anyway. It is better to have ideas that can change and evolve over time. Beliefs are often stagnant, rigid, and supercharged by emotion. If we can be more open to new ideas and new data, we can perhaps mitigate this fear that comes along with changing our minds. When we know better, we can choose to do better. It does not mean that we were wrong before, but we were only able to do as good as the information we had at the time.

    To tie this back to your post, it is very unfortunate that we cannot trust our news outlets to report the truth and that these days it seems that we have to do a lot of our own digging and verifying of facts. There is usually someone at the end of the line holding the bag of money and for that, I am sad.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-023-01986-1

    Thanks for a great post and for helping to dispel the myths.

    Melissa

    1. Thanks so much for sharing this story and this great piece of research! I’m really interested in mushrooms and fungi research, so this entire thing is fascinating. It is upsetting to hear how her own research has been misappropriated by many sources. That’s the crazy thing–there doesn’t have to be politics in research, and yet, research often becomes political. I’m glad to hear you are fighting the fight, Melissa!

  7. Hi Dana,
    Thank you for another wonderful post. Along the same vein of community and gardens, there is an old growth forest (called Sleepy Hollow) that is under grave threat of being cut down for housing development in South Park, PA. Info can be found here at this petition: https://chng.it/kz6dYVdfby

    I was wondering if you and your readers could take a look, sign and share with others (if they wish to do so). I am doing what I can for that beloved forest. If we add more voices and prayer, send light to the site, I am hopeful for this area to be left in peace. It is adjacent to a buffalo preserve as well.

    Best wishes and always, blessed be.

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