Spiritual journeys in tending the living earth, permaculture, and nature-inspired arts
Are there limits on what can be sold in our world? A life? A habitat? A community? A forest? An ecosystem? A home? The rivers? The oceans? A sacred site? Clean air? Unfortunately, in our culture everything is for sale–including …
Our eating practices can be incredibly environmentally and personally destructive. In the typical food system in America, we ship food from all corners of the earth burning fossil fuels, we exploit workers and growers, we depend upon multinational corporate food …
A central concept in Druidry is peace. At the beginning of each druidic ritual, we declare peace in the quarters. We a say a prayer for peace (which you can see in my painting I posted earlier this year). But …
“In our way of life, in our government, with every decision we make, we always keep in mind the Seventh Generation to come. It’s our job to see that the people coming ahead, the generations still unborn, have a world …
Eating a locally-based, mostly plant diet is a key way of reducing your impact on our earth mother. Finding foods that are easy to grow, highly nutritious, easy to preserve, and harvestable for most of the year make eating sustainably …
Hello everyone! Its been a while since I posted actual updates from the garden. So here are some new photos! We have had very little rain in the last two months, so I’ve had to water a bit. The heat …
In my last post, I detailed the steps for making handmade paper from recycled materials. In that post, I also detailed the basic steps of making paper, from blending to couching to pulling and pressing sheets. Recycled fibers are a …
This is a post on papermaking using recycled fibers. I also have two posts on natural papermaking with cattail heads (which works well) and cattail leaf (which needs some improvement). The commercial process of producing paper is an incredibly environmentally …
A key principle in druidry is Awen, which means poetic/divine inspiration–the inspiration to bring forth creative efforts into the world. Many artists seek their inspiration in the natural world, through which Awen flows. It is Awen that gives us poetry, …
We live in a capitalist culture, and that capitalist, consumerist culture would have you believe that “buying green” products is an environmentally conscious practice. I was with a group of friends the other day, and we began talking about environmentalism …
In permaculture gardening, one of the key principles is to mimic patterns found in nature in designing garden and outdoor spaces. I believe this principle is critical to creating outdoor sacred spaces–look around you, and when you are designing a …
Hi everyone–I just wanted to share with you that the Druid’s Garden has been showcased as the “blog of the month” on the OBOD’s website. I feel very honored by this recognition! Here’s a link to their page: http://www.druidry.org/druid-way/resources/druid-blogs/blog-month
If there is one thing that’s pretty difficult to find locally, I’ve found it to be mushrooms. Once when I was at the Ann Arbor Farmer’s market (which is about an hour and 15 min drive for me, so I …
I think its important that, as druids, we work to build sacred spaces within the landscape. Yes, many would say that all land is sacred, and I’ll not disagree. But at the same time, there’s quite a difference between a …
In today’s modern world, the idea of being connected is tied to technology and to ourselves rather than the living, breathing world around us. If you are “connected,” you have the latest smart phone or other 4G device, and you …
This is a simple tree-planting ritual that I wrote for our grove’s upcoming Beltane celebration this weekend. Our grove is only partially wooded currently–we will be planting about 15 new trees around the grove to help fill it in. …
Seven years ago, one of my closest friends, Alfred Struble, lost his 3-year battle with cancer, dying before he was even 30 years old. While I have long since accepted his passage from this world into the otherworld, I find …
Throughout ancient sites in the UK, where Druidry originated, we find barrows, underground tunnels, and chambers hidden deep within the earth. These “protective places” are sites sheltered from the elements, the bitter cold and frigid winds, where people could find …
I wanted to take this time to blog a bit about plants, healing energies, music–yes–music. I use music a lot in my gardening and spiritual work. I play a number of flutes, including the panflute, wooden bamboo flutes, and various …
When I started patio gardening some years ago, I didn’t really know a lot about seeds. Like most Americans, I had simply gone to the store, bought a packet of seeds (or a group of plants already started from a …
Since its still winter, and I’m making things rather than growing things, I wanted to share a laundry detergent recipe with you! Current laundry detergents are terrible for the environment. They contain a number of chemicals, including phosphates (which can …