Spiritual journeys in tending the living earth, permaculture, and nature-inspired arts
Nature is a perfect system. A tree falls during a thunderstorm. Within several weeks, the wood is colonized by fungi, bugs, and others who begin the years-long process of breaking down the wood and returning all of the nutrients into …
Druidry today has both ancient and modern roots. Druids today seek spiritual connection with nature, using nature to guide, inspire, and ground us. Nature has always been a source of everything to humanity, and those of us who pick up …
A year and a half ago, I wrote my Druidry 101: A Beginner’s Guide to the Druid Path, which remains one of my more popular articles and one people refer to often. Today, I wanted to offer a follow-up article …
The world is really hard right now, as I wrote about two weeks ago. I feel that if all that we do is focus on the hard parts of the world, we are going to have difficulty making it through. …
In early August of 2024, due to some house repairs, I had to take down almost all of my altars and shrines of sacred things due to where they were located and the nature of the repars. These shrines were …
Last week, I went up the mountain to do some deep land healing. A year had passed since the last time I had gone to this spot for healing, and as per the will of the spirits, I hadn’t returned …
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 …
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 …
There is something magical about putting your hands in the soil. The cool, damp feeling, the smell of earthy loam, the crumbling of the loam between your fingers. Touching soil, the building block of life, grounds you in a way …
Being a druid, nature-based spiritual practitioner, living an earth-honoring lifestyle, or another awakened path individual can be tough, especially when you are isolated and alone. Some people prefer being solitary practitioners, and even if there are others and groups around, …
The longer that I’ve really embraced animism, not only as a life philosophy but as an active spiritual path, the more I realized that to be an animist is to radically turn your world upside down on every level. Being …
It has been a hard week for many in North America, and around the globe. About half of the United States is having record-breaking heat, up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit (48.8 Celsius) in a heat dome that shows and is …
When people think of “rituals” particularly in pagan traditions, I think there’s often this idea of scripts, robes, and a lot of formality and preparation. These rituals are rooted in history: a good deal of neopaganism (including druidry and wicca) …
In the druid tradition, in multiple modern druid orders, we associate animals or fish with the four directions. The classic ones are: The Great Bear in the North The Hawk in the East The Stag in the South The Salmon …
In the last three posts in this series, we explored spirit journeying: preliminary and preparatory work, connecting with a spirit journey guide, and establishing your inner grove. All of these things were meant to set you up for the journeys …
In the last two posts, we explored the preliminaries for spirit journeying: the preliminaries such as addressing issues like safety, believability, focus, and visualization and also doing an initial journey to find a guide that can assist you as part …
Hi everyone! Today I interrupt our regularly scheduled blog posts to bring you my big update–the Earth-Centered Spiritual Journaling course is now ready and open! I offer details about the course and how to sign up in this blog post. …
Please note: This article appeared first in my new column, “Roots, Shoots, and Spirits” in the Winter 2022 issue Plant Healer Quarterly, a magazine for empowered herbalists and culture shifters. Folks can buy a year subscription or sign up for …
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 …