Often, when you are interested in unusual and wild foods, a season for a delectable treat may only last for a few short days or weeks. A fun early spring food that is usually popping up around or before Beltane …
Wild Food Profile: Eat Your Hostas!
Wild Foods
Druid Tree Workings: Nywfre, Telluric Energy, and Sap Flows
Last week, I wrote about the many flows of the month of February: the flowing of the springs from the hillside, the flowing of the river, the flowing of deep emotions, and the flowing of the sap from the trees. …
Urban Food Profile: Cornelian Cherry Harvest and Recipe for Soda Syrup, Jam, Pickles, and More
I really enjoy foraging for foods in urban environments, you just never know what you are going to find. In the spring, keep a good eye out for various kinds of flowering trees in an urban or suburban setting–any tree …
Sacred Tree Profile: Sassafras’ Medicine, Magic, Mythology and Meaning
The fall months are coming and the leaves here are just beginning to turn. Apples are starting to ripen, nuts are starting to fall. And with a quiet walk through the fall woods, you might be lucky enough to see …
Druid Tree Workings: Working with Trees in Urban Settings
I walk down the sidewalk of a street in the small town that I call home. As I journey, I see a crabapple friend with ripening fruit, her leaves rustling in the gentle breeze. I reach out to her and …
Wild Food and Wild Medicine Profile: Wild Strawberry (Fragaria Vesca)
The delicious and delightful wild strawberry just came into season here in Western PA, and I thought I’d share a bit about how to find this plant and why it is worth seeking out both as a wild food and …
Sacred Tree Profile of Walnut (Juglans Nigra): Magical, Medicinal, and Edible Qualities
I remember when I first met black walnut. My Great Aunt and Uncle lived on a farm, and on that farm was a colonial-era farmhouse. Near their farmhouse sat a massive black walnut tree. I remember going there when I …
Wild Food Recipe: Autumn Olive Fruit Leather at the Equinox
I can’t get enough of autumn olives. I wrote about them, honoring them, around this time last year and shared my autumn olive jelly recipe. In my area, the sacred time of the equinox is the sacred time to go …
Embracing “First Aid Responder” Plants
As I grow ever more in tune and aware of nature’s gifts, I keep coming back to one of the tragedies of our age–our incredible misunderstanding of the natural world, the sacred living earth from which all things flow. One …
Wild Plant Profile: Stinging and Wood Nettle’s Medicinal, Edible, and Magical Qualities!
Grasp, love, grasp thy nettle tight! Beneath the blossom there be stings Which start and stab; but out of sight Within that flower lie folded wings So now, ere these be set on flight Grasp, lover, grasp thy nettle tight! …
Wildtending: Refugia and the Seed Arc Garden
Over the course of the last six months, I’ve been discussing in various ways philosophies and insights about helping to directly and physically heal our lands as a spiritual practice, weaving in principles of druidry, permaculture, organic farming, herbalism, and …
Embracing the Weeds: Weedwalking, Weedtending, Weedcrafting
Weeds. The term conjures up images of plants that are unwanted and unloved, the bane of the township “noxious weed ordinances” and suburbanites, and the quiet recipient of so many unfounded assumptions. Yet these are the plants that are the …
Sacred Tree Profile: Hawthorn (Lore, medicine, magic, and mystery)
In honor of Samhuinn, a festival of beginnings and endings, today we’ll explore the most sacred of trees–the hawthorn. This is the 6th post in my “Sacred Trees in the Americas” series where I examine abundant trees in the Eastern …
Sacred Tree Profile: American Beech (Fagus Grandiflora) – Magic, Medicine, and Qualities
When I was a child, my grandfather would often take me and my cousins into the woods to learn about plants, animals, and trees. He had a place he would take us on the edge of an old field and …
Dandelion Wine Part III: New Recipes and Insights
I’ve posted on Dandelion wine before on this blog, and I wanted to follow up on my previous posts on dandelion wine – making the wine and racking/bottling. I’ve also written more generally about the dandelion as a beneficial plant–so …
Wild Food Recipes: Maple Candied Violets and Honeyed Violets
Once again, the beautiful, purple-blue sweet violets are dotting the landscape. Where I live, they are in full bloom and will remain that way for the next few weeks. Last year I shared a traditional candied violet recipe with egg …
Resources to Learn the Inner and Outer Worlds of Herbalism: Plants, Books, Courses, Lore, and More
I have been doing an ongoing series of posts about herbalism: herbalism as a druidic practice, my path into herbalism, and medicine making during sacred times of the year. Given the fact that its early spring, and the herbs are …
Introduction to Wildcrafting and Foraging, Part II: Places to Gather, Ethical Harvesting, Avoiding Pollution, and Foraging as Spiritual Practice
This is my second in a two-part series on how to wildcraft and forage successfully. The first post dealt with supplies for foraging, resources and how to learn the skills, and understanding timing. This post will talk about places to …
Introduction to Wildcrafting and Foraging, Part I: Equipment, Resources, What to Learn, and Timing
I’ve been spending a lot of time talking about various wild foods and other kinds of wildcrafting and foraging on this blog, and I wanted to talk today about the principles of wildcrafting and ethical foraging more broadly. This post …
Don’t Let End of Season Veggies Go to Waste! Making Nutritive and Healing Soup Stocks/Broths
So its the end of the season, a very hard frost is on the horizon for the week and several lighter frosts have already occurred. You look out across your garden with its overflowing abundance. There are still beans, swiss …
Wild Food Profile – Burdock Root (spring and fall)
Foraging is an important part of my spiritual path, as it is one of the ways that I build a closer relationship with nature. I also think its an important part of the “oak knowledge” that druids should consider cultivating. …