Just last week, we had our first hard frost. After homesteading for a number of years, you grow to be vigilant for the signs of the first frost. The air smells different somehow in the two or so weeks leading …
The Samhain of our Lives
Change
What can Druidry offer in dark times?
Things seem broken right now. These last two weeks have been very hard weeks for many people. The national conversation here in the USA grows more difficult by the day, and it seems nearly every nation is facing many kinds …
Diary of a Land Healer: March/April
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 …
Taking up the Path of the Bard III: Practice makes Perfect
“You have so much talent” or “I’m not talented enough” are powerful statements, statements I hear on a regular basis from those who long for a creative practice. The idea of talent can cause an incredible amount of inaction, of …
Establishing Sacred Land, or, A Home-Coming
There has been a lot of talk in the American druid scene in the last few years about establishing sacred spaces, creating sacred groves, and really starting to re-enchant our land here. I think druids and other earth-centered spiritual traditions …
Responding to the Predicament We Face: Planting Seeds and Cultivating Polycultures
On Problems, Predicaments, and Responses To say that the present post-industrial age has its share of problems is perhaps, at best, an understatement. I think the urgency of the challenges we face been exasperated here in the US by a …
Ethical Sourcing of Medicinal Plants: The Case for American Ginseng
Stalking the Wild Ginseng When I was a child, my grandfather picked wild American Ginseng (Panax quinquefolius). I remember him talking about it, and seeing it, and him sharing with me what it looked like. To him, ginseng wasn’t a …
Slowing Down the Druid Way, Part II: Relationships of Work and Time
In the US, it seems that the first question people ask is, “what do you do?” When they say that, of course, they are not talking about how you spend your leisure time, but rather, the work that you do …
Slowing Down the Druid Way: A History of Time
What continues to drive me is to live more in line with my principles: to grow my food, to take care of my basic needs, take charge of my health and healing, and to live fully and honestly with myself …
A Druid’s View of Cartography: Rewriting Maps and Nature-Human Relationships
This fall, I took a number of weekend hiking and camping trips into different parts of Northern Pennsylvania; to navigate these new areas, I found myself often referring to both physical maps as well as using my GPS for guidance. …
Life in the Extraction Zone: Complex Relationships of Livelihood and Land
As I write this, threats to our lands, our environment, our oceans, and life on earth seem greater than ever before. As I write this, water protectors in North Dakota are getting beaten, arrested, tear-gassed, and jailed. As I write …
Permaculture Principles for the Inner Landscape (Mind, Spirit, and Heart)
Let’s start today’s post with a short exercise. Take a look at your hand–look at the patterns of veins under the surface. What does that remind you of in nature? Now, look at the creases on your fingers, again, looking …
Awakening of the Heart: Permaculture’s Ethic of Care
As I write this, a brave group of Native Americans is standing in support of the earth and protesting yet another oil pipeline that threatens water supplies, health, and home. Here, we see the clash between those defending their mother …
Sustainable Living in a Rental House: Options, Ideas, and More
As a follow-up post to last week’s discussion of how anyone, anywhere can live a sustainable life, I wanted to share some of the sustainable living things that I am doing here while I’m renting a small house (with terrible …
White Picket Fences, Free Range Fantasies, and the Many Paths of Sustainable Living
We live in a time of grand and sweeping narratives, powerful narratives that tell us who to be, how to live, what to buy, and what to believe–and these shape our actions and identities. When I was a child in …
A Druid’s Primer on Land Healing, Part VIII: Rainbow Workings and other Palliative Care Strategies for Damaged Lands
I had the most amazing thing happen to me about a month ago, and it involved the direct (palliative) healing of an active strip mine site. I was heading to teach an herbalism course at a friend’s business about 15 …
A Druid’s Primer on Land Healing, Part VII: Self Care and Land Healing
Today’s post continues my long series in land healing (see earlier posts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6), and given the heaviness of the last few weeks of posts, today, I wanted to delve into how to do this …
A Druid’s Primer for Land Healing, Part V: The Magic of Witnessing, Holding Space, Apology, and Remembrance
Sometimes, the hidden, the unacknowledged hurts are the worst kind. These are the kind that you bury, deep within yourself, or that society pretends never happened. We hear stories of these every day–massive cover-ups of the truth of crimes being …
Making a Difference
I had a long conversation with an older close relative of mine over the holidays. He had overheard my sister, brother-in-law, and I talking about herbalism, permaculture, cultural shifts. This conversation was framed in the context of the recent Paris …
Cycles of the Sun and the Moon in Our Lives
Humans evolved in alignment with the movement of the sun and the moon. As the sun moved, so did human camps of hunters and gathers. As the sun moved, so still move many birds, fish, and mammals as they migrate …
The Silence of the Hive
What you quickly learn as a beekeeper is that the sound of the hive matters. When you first get into a hive, if the hive is in good health and has all of its needs met, the hive is generally …