Spiritual journeys in tending the living earth, permaculture, and nature-inspired arts
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, …
In my last two posts in this series, we explored permaculture design principles from the perspective of our outer and inner landscapes. We now move into a series of posts exploring different aspects of these specific principles. Today, we start …
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 …
Humans throughout history have looked to nature as the ultimate teacher; nature is the sacred text from which all wisdom flows. As druids, we know the more time you spend in nature, the more you align with its rhythms, and …
I’m sure each one of us has had times where we hadn’t thought through something, the thing happened, and it took a direction we hadn’t intended it to take. A little bit of forethought could have made all the difference, …
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 …
Sankofa. This was the first principle taught to me during my Permaculture Teacher Training (from which I’ve just returned), by the incredible teacher Pandora Thomas. Sankofa is a word from the Twi language in Ghana that refers to the idea …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
As I’ve mentioned throughout this series, the energetic land healing work that you do is largely based on the situation at hand–what is occurring, what has occurred, or what will occur. Sometimes, you are aware in advance that the land …
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 …
Today marks the Spring Equinox, Alban Eiler, a time of new beginnings, of the balance between light and darkness, between summer and winter, and between hope and despair. Given the energy of today and the challenges before us, I’d like …
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 …
This is the third post in my “Druid’s Primer on Land Healing.” The first two posts explored a framework for land healing, including physical and energetic approaches (in part I) and exploring the difference between “healing” and energetic alliterative care …
The druid tradition–along with many others–is full of stories about sacred waters. From the Chalice Well in Glastonbury to the invocation of the “Salmon who Dwells Within The Sacred Pool,” we’ve got our water going on. Imbolc (which happened earlier …
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 …