Spiritual journeys in tending the living earth, permaculture, and nature-inspired arts
One of my favorite times of the year is spring–when the land is awakening, and the green is returning! Beltane is here! Here in the Allegheny mountains, one of our folk herbal traditions is to “thicken” the blood in the …
There are so many ways to honor the Awen as a druid–the spark of inspiration, the flow of ideas, and continuing to pursue a project that must make its way into the world. We all experience it at some point: …
Here on Turtle Island, from the dawn of time until about a hundred years ago, Chestnuts were a staple food crop for all life, including human life. A nutritious and carbohydrate-rich nut, Chestnut trees produce a bumper crop of nuts …
Throughout the year, including on warmer days in the deepest winter months, you will find me out on the land: scattering seeds; planting and harvesting; communing with the plants, trees, and mushrooms; and working nature magic. With baskets overflowing with …
Lately, I’ve been exploring how to build relationships with all plants in the ecosystem, including opportunistic (invasive) species and in and in re-orienting our view away from just a human-centric one and re-centering nature. Just like anything else in nature, …
Learning and connecting with nature is a big part of practicing any kind of nature-based spirituality. As we know in the druid tradition, a multitude of ways exists to connect to nature. In order to connect with nature on a …
I’ve always wanted to make mullein torches–which go by several colorful names: mullein wands, mullein torch, mullein candle, the hag taper, the hag candle, witch’s candle, Jupiter rods, candlewick, king’s candle, or even the holy mullein hag wand! These mullein …
Throughout the ages, poets, writers, musicians, painters and many others sought inspiration from the land for their creative works. For the ancient poet Taliesin, the Awen was found in nature–in the voice in the wind and the babble of the …
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 …
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 …
Humans have been working with plants for both physical and metaphysical purposes since long before recorded history. From the most ancient human remains and other archeological evidence, we know our human ancestors carried a wide variety of plant and fungi …
I think it is easy to forget in this day and age that so many of our traditional art forms are directly rooted in the living earth, and reconnecting with those ancient forms can bring us closer to nature. This …
One of the things that the rise of AI has done is asked all people who create to really investigate the benefits of that creation, and weigh them with the potential efficiency of AI. For example, right now I’m about …
Walking through a sacred garden or a wild place always brings such joy; working with the herbs, drawing their wisdom, and seeing which herbs reach out for healing and health. Today, in honor of the upcoming Summer Solstice, I will …
When we think about the building blocks of a new human society, a human society that doesn’t destroy the planetary biosphere, that nurtures and supports human beings and communities, that fosters our creativity and innovation—I think it starts in fostering …
A lot has happened since my initial post on the topic of AI and the bardic arts in mid-October. At this point, AI is being discussed in many different places by many different communities and groups. AI is all the …
There is a growing movement of people reconnecting to nature through the foraging and creation of wild pigments–pigments from the earth allow us to connect, grow and heal. This is so much more than foraging for colors from nature to …
The average human being will sleep approximately 229,961 hours over the course of their life. Dreaming, including working on dream recall and lucid dreaming, can offer us gateways to cultivating a rich inner life and in supporting our spiritual and …
Traditionally, Imbolc is a celebration of the first stirrings of spring coming back into the land. For people living in temperate parts of North America, particularly on the eastern seaboard, the timing can be challenging–we are in deep winter and …
I’m really excited to announce the release of my new book: The Sacred Actions Journal: A Wheel of the Year Journal for Sustainable and Spiritual Practices. The Sacred Actions Journal is a follow-up to my 2021 book Sacred Actions: Living …
What do Salvador Dali’s Persistence of Memory (the painting with the melting clocks), Elias Howe’s invention of the lockstitch sewing machine in 1845, and the Beatles’ song Yesterday, have in common? They all were ideas that first emerged in dreams. …