Spiritual journeys in tending the living earth, permaculture, and nature-inspired arts
Herbalism is the oldest healing modality on the planet.” – Rosemary Gladstar One of the challenges with the modern paradigm is reductionism–breaking things down into small parts and not paying attention the whole: especially the whole person, the whole plant, the …
Land healing encompasses a wide range of activities: from physical replanting, rewilding, and regenerative approaches directly on the land to metaphysical blessings, healings, and palliative care. As I’ve just launched the Land Healer’s Network and am releasing the Land Healing …
In February, news headlines everywhere began describing a new study from the University of Michigan made claims that urban agriculture (which includes urban farms, community gardens, and individual gardens) has a 6x higher carbon footprint than conventional agriculture. The headlines …
Ever since I was little, I have always felt connected with the earthworms in the rainstorms. They come out to bask and enjoy the rain, slithering through puddles, and turning their faces into the warm rain. But modern life is …
To say that most druids and those practicing similar nature-based paths love trees is an understatement. Trees are some of the most magical and friendly of people in our landscape, almost always ready to share wisdom, teach, and provide shelter …
One of the things that I’ve realized in doing the work of a land healer is how little support and information is available. When I wrote Land Healing, I decided to create a supportive community in addition to the book …
I’ve had the blessing of a few really great mentors in my life, people whose teachings and support are valuable to my development as a person, druid, and human being. Few have been as impactful as Sara Greer. Many of …
I’ve been a tarot and oracle artist since I began working on the Tarot of Trees back in 2005. I released the Tarot of Trees in 2009, and since then, have also created and released the Plant Spirit Oracle and …
I see you, beautiful, layered ridges of the Appalachian mountains: your peaks against the blue winter sky, the mist arises from the snow while the Imbolc sun comes out to warm you just enough. Below that, your frozen bones await …
Plants and mushrooms have been healing humans since long before recorded human history. Evidence of this abounds from healing plants and mushrooms found on preserved corpses and pre-historical burial grounds (such evidence of herbal use in Shanidar cave from 60,000 …
Hello, wonderful Druids Garden readers! Today’s blog post will be a little different than others. I wanted to take a day to reflect on the fact the Druid’s Garden blog is celebrating 600 posts and 14 years. It seems hard …
In my last post, I offered an overview of the three paths of druidry from both an ancient and modern perspective. The paths are: the path of the bard, emphasizing creativity, personal expression, and community; the path of the ovate, …
In most modern druid orders, we honor three expressions of the druid tradition: the path of the bard, ovate, and druid. I began talking about these last week in my Beginner’s Guide to Druidry post last week. These three paths …
Seemingly more now than ever before, people are seeking ways to reconnect with the living earth, with their creative gifts, and with their ancient ancestors. They are looking to deepen their understanding of themselves and the world around them. Through …
Today I’m very excited to announce the upcoming release of my new book: Land Healing: Physical, Metaphysical, and Ritual Approaches for Healing the Earth. The book is now available for preorder and will be released on March 28, 2024 from …
As we’ve been exploring on this blog, for many of us, life is more than a bit overwhelming right now. Many of us are feeling beyond capacity from multiple angles: the breakdown of the social fabric and increasing social and …
As we’ve been exploring in my post last week–a new paradigm is rising, a paradigm being enacted in backyards, home kitchens, community gardens, clubs, mushroom clubs, herbalism schools, ecovillages, pigment foragers, and thousands of other places. This is a new …
A paradigm is a set of patterns: of thoughts, actions, beliefs, and practices, under which people operate. We all were born into the paradigms of our current age: where money, colonization, domination, and the myth of progress are embedded into …
One of the questions that people who are yearning for a creative practice or who are starting one often ask–where do you get your ideas? Where do you find your inspiration? How do you have visions of what to create …
Samhain is marked on my landscape by a hard frost–usually occurring in the last two weeks of October. As I wrote about last week, we had our first freeze just this past week and it is the most profound shift …
As I write this, we have our last day before a freeze–the day before death comes to our landscape. On my landscape, in temperate Western Pennsylvania (USDA Zone 6), we’ve had almost no frosts to speak of–the summer has seemed …