Spiritual journeys in tending the living earth, permaculture, and nature-inspired arts
Here in the Laurel Highlands of Western PA, Beltane marks the start of “planting” season, where we move our indoor seeds out into the greenhouse to harden off, where many seeds like carrots and beans start to go into the …
When I was still quite young, my grandfather used to take me and my cousins into the deep forest behind our house and teach us many things about nature. One of the fun things he taught us, for example, was …
A grandmother is a really special person. I remember going to my grandmother’s house when I was a little girl–it was literally my favorite place to go. My grandmother and I would go to the thrift store and buy used …
One of the hallmarks of spring is the blooming of the vibrant and colorful dandelion. Emerging as soon as the coldest of the temperatures ease, the blooming of the dandelions affirm that the long, dark winter is indeed over and …
Nature spirituality is most obviously tied to one’s local nature–the trees, plants, animals, landforms, and other features of what makes your own landscape unique. One of the formidable challenges before those of us practicing nature-based spiritualities in the United States …
As you may have noticed, in the last month or so I’ve been working diligently on my “Sacred Trees in the Americas” series. The truth is, I’ve worked through most of the trees that are well known and form the …
I remember the first time I saw the largest Rhododendron Maximum tree. I had recently moved back to Pennsylvania, and I was driving on 422 towards my parents’ house when I looked to the left and did a double-take! An …
I used to be a big fan of reading dystopian fiction when I was younger. It seemed like a distant world, a reality far from our own. But perhaps now, those books resonate too close to reality. As someone who …
Browsing an antique store a year ago, I found a wonderful shoemaking hammer. It was an interesting shape, and when I held the tool, I could literally feel the connection this tool had had with its previous owner. Whoever had …
What is amazing about this wonderful planet we live on is the diversity of ecosystems, weather, climate, and life. This diversity, however, can be challenging for those looking to adapt druidry or other nature-based spiritual practices to their practices. Particularly …
Today, we are taking a walk through the sacred gardens at the Druid’s Garden Homestead. There are so many lessons to learn with a simple walk in a beautiful garden. Today’s Lughnasadh garden walk reminds us of the power of …
By Dana O’Driscoll, The Druid’s Garden Blog (thedruidsgarden.com), Copyright 2020. The Ogham is an ancient alphabet, used to write early Irish and later Old Irish. The inscriptions that survive of Ogham, some 400 or so primarily on stone, are found …
The unfolding of the bramble ferns in the spring always feels, to me, like the unfolding of worlds. The tightly packed fronds, formed at the end of last season and dormant all winter, slowly emerge, uncurling so slowly that you …
Walking into a sacred garden is like walking into another world, one full of joy, happiness, and wholeness. Fruit hanging from happy branches, plants coming up from all angles inviting a nibble, a taste, a touch. The pathways spiral and …
Ecological succession is nature’s approach to healing. From bare rock, ecological succession allows forests to eventually grow. Ecological succession has much to teach us as a powerful lesson from nature, and it is a particularly useful thing to meditate upon …
In the next few months, the forest that I grew up in is going be cut and torn up to put in a septic line. A 40-60 feet path, at minimum, will rip a tear through the heart of it. …
Sometimes, spirit offers you a call and its a call that can’t be ignored. Part of the reason I write so much about working physically and energetically with land healing on this blog is that its clear to me now …
Preamble: Now that I’m the Grand Archdruid of AODA, starting in 2020, I will be doing one AODA Druidry-based post a month. A lot of my posts are already tied with AODA practices as it is my core spiritual practice, …
Over the course of the last four centuries, the Western World has created a set of “unshakable” principles concerning the natural world: that nature is just another machine, that animals don’t feel and do not have souls, that plants and …
Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) is a spiny, scraggly tree that is found abundantly along the US East Coast. Very little is written about this tree from a magical or mythological perspective, although certainly, anyone who works wood or practices permaculture …
Over the summer, I spent the weekend at a beautiful farm with my family for a family reunion. That land had gifted me, and all of us, much that weekend. I had found some stunning new stones for pigments, I …