When I was a child, my grandfather took my cousins and I to a wild area we later called “Grandpa’s field.” It was a field on the edge of the forest below our houses, the edges rich with crab apples, …
Finding and Working with Ancestral Traditions
Cycles
Slowing Down the Druid Way, Part IV: Slow Movements and Slow Spirituality
When I lived in Michigan, each Christmas, a local church just down the road from me put on a drive-by nativity scene. Cars full of people would line up for over half a mile and drive around this circular loop …
Slowing Down the Druid Way: Part III: Time-Honoring Strategies
This past week, a friend and I were discussing options for starting seeds for a new joint major gardening project (more on that in an upcoming post). We talked about several options, and deciding we wanted to stay away from …
A Guide to Winter Hiking: Walking in the Winter Wonderland
Recently, I went on a winter hike with some friends. It was below freezing, with ice-covered trails and the sun shining low in the sky. We came to a crossroads and all felt led to go to the left; eventually, …
Druid Tree Workings: A Seasonal Approach and the Breath of the Earth
During a recent big snowstorm, I took an amazing ritual walk through the town where I live. We were getting our first substantial snow of the year, and it was a full moon to boot. And so, I spent a …
Embracing the Bucket: A Colorful Compost Toilet for Small Space Living
A few months ago, I posted on humanure and liquid gold as ecological resources. Many are once again realizing that our own waste is a precious resource, not something deserving of a flush. As a quick review, humanure refers to …
The Art of Getting Lost in the Woods, or Cultivating Receptivity
I think we’ve all had periods of our lives where we feel like we are moving like a stack of dominoes; we have so many things piled on us that we have to keep going, going, and going. In fact, …
Spiraling at Samhain: Building a Classic Seven Circuit Labyrinth
In many sacred spaces throughout the world, we see the labyrinth. It is reflected in the spiral, the pattern in nature that repeats often, and asks us to engage. It offers us the ability to slow down, to wind around, …
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 …
The Druid Retreat for Spiritual Work and Healing, Part II: What to do During Your Druid Retreat
Following the path of the sun and the moon, we can learn much about the work of a druid retreat in our lives. The daylight is where we typically live–it is bright, it is loud, people are about, and lots …
The Druid Retreat for Spiritual Work and Healing, Part I: Why We Go on Retreat, Preparation, and Herbal Allies
Each of is like a light bulb. No, not one of those new-fangled compact fluorescents, but rather, one of the old style standard bulbs with the firmament and all. When we go out into the world and do good, through …
Spiritual Practices to Finding Equilibrium in the Chaos: Grounding, and Flow through the Druid Elements
A tremendous amount of really difficult occurrences are happening in the world right now. It seems like the more time that passes, the more we balance on the edge. The edge of what exactly, nobody can say. But the edge …
A Druid’s Primer on Land Healing, Part IX: Healing Our Lands Physically, Energetically, and Spiritually
As I walk through my neighborhood in this quiet Pennsylvania town, I am struck by the contrast. On one hand, many of my neighbor’s lawns are monocropped with grass–one after another, green expanses stretch on and on. Dandelions are quickly …
Honoring the Predators: A Story of Reconnection
My last beekeeping post told a tale of my two bee colonies destroyed by colony collapse disorder. I had hoped to have better news to share about my beekeeping endeavors this year. And things started well enough: a friend removed …
Holy Shit! Humanure and Liquid Gold as Ecological Resources
When I spent two weeks living in an ecovillage last summer, I proudly talked to friends and family about the fact that I hadn’t flushed a toilet in two weeks. This led to a wide assortment of responses, including “gross, …
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 …
A Druid’s Primer on Land Healing Part IV: The Process of Unfolding
For the last month or more , we’ve been exploring the nature of land healing and we will continue that journey over the next few posts. I’ve been doing this work intuitively for a very long time, and its taking …
An Imbolc Blessing: Energizing Snowy Spaces using Sacred Geometry and Symbolism
In my part of the world, Winter has finally arrived in all of her glory and we are now at Imbolc, a wintry holiday of renewal and regeneration (ok, so some people say that Imbolc is the first sign of …
Embracing the Darkness at the Winter Solstice
The period of time around the winter solstice, when the light of the sun is weak and our days are so short, is a period of difficulty for many. Darkness is something that we fear in industrialized cultures; it is something …
Permaculture’s Ethic of Self Care as a Spiritual Practice
I’ve already talked on this blog some time ago about the three permaculture ethical principles–these are simple ethical principles that allow us to live life in a way that is fair, equitable, and sustaining to all life. I use these …