Spiritual journeys in tending the living earth, permaculture, and nature-inspired arts
“We grow where we are planted.” This is the theme of a conversation on an earlier post from this year. All of us have the opportunity to do regenerative work in the world, in the spaces and places we already …
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 …
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! …
As I’ve mentioned on this blog many times before–the spaces where we live and work each day are prime places to begin the regenerative work and rebuild our relationship sacred connection with nature. For many, the land nearest to us …
Elderflowers (flowers from the Sambucus nigra plant) are in bloom right around the Summer Solstice (at least where I live), and this is a perfect time to create delightful healing recipes. One of these recipes uses raw honey (from my hives, …
I’ve been making the transition to Pennsylvania and to my new life here (I spoke of this transition in an earlier blog post). Sorry for the delay in a regular weekly post–I’m back on track now, and have many wonderful …
Once in a while, you encounter something that is truly extraordinary. Something created by a unity of human effort and ingenuity and natural processes that is a sacred and inspirational place. I want to share one of those places with …
A trip to the local farmer’s market has become one of my very favorite activities. Here you can sample a variety of locally-produced, high-quality goods, meet interesting people, and come home with bags and bags of fresh veggies, meat, eggs, …
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 …
I’ve had a few people in the last few months ask me about starting a homestead or a small organic farm. A “homestead” or, if you are in the UK “smallholding” refers to a personal or family plot of land …
With all my discussion of everything else, I have failed to do any reasonable update about the homestead in the last few months. So here’s an update of what’s happening around the homestead! The Druid’s Organic Vegetable Garden: Veggies, Pests, …
In a recent blog post, I talked about the apple as a sacred tree in that it provides us with bountiful, amazing cider. In this post, I’m going to walk through the art of making and canning applesauce. The applesauce …
In January, this year, we’ve gotten record amounts of snow (somewhere above 50″ since the new year). This is true of much of the midwest and eastern seaboard in the USA. Snow holds a very convoluted position in modern American …
What is a hydrosol? A hydrosol, also known as a floral water, distillate, or hydroflorate, is water that has been imbued with the essence of the plant through a distillation process. They are similar to essential oils (in that they …
There is an old magical adage, first written by Hermes Trismegistus, that goes “As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul…” I’ve spent a long time in trying to understand this statement, see it …
I’ve not been blogging as much as I did a few months ago for a simple reason–the harvest is upon us. Starting with the black raspberries in June to seeking out wild mushrooms the start of apple and autumn olive …
When I was a child, I used to read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. In her books, Laura spends a lot of time talking about food preservation–slaughtering the pig, making maple sugar, making “head cheese”, sowing crops, cutting hay for …
Black raspberries (Rubus occidentalis) are one of my very favorite foods. This year we have a bumper crop–everywhere I go, the black raspberries seem to be growing! I have been harvesting at several spots, including in my own yard. Black …
In Michigan, last spring (2012) was one of the warmest on record. By early April, I had beautiful spinach and lettuce crops; the crops were bolting by mid-May. The warm weather took its serious toll on our fruit crops—most berry …
This time of year, something magical happens to the maple trees. When the temperatures drop below freezing at night and then goes above freezing during the day, the maple sap runs. In South-East Michigan, this usually occurs in late February …
Last weekend, I was honored to be invited to a friend’s orchard for an old-fashioned Wassail ceremony (you can read more about my friend’s orcharding and sustainability work on his blog, The Fruit Nut). Wassail (or Old English waes hael, …