I’ve always wanted to make mullein torches–which go by several colorful names: mullein wands, mullein torch, mullein candle, the hag taper, the hag candle, witch’s candle, Jupiter rods, candlewick, king’s candle, or even the holy mullein hag wand! These mullein …
Seasonal Celebrations
Intuitive, Spontaneous, and Co-Created Rituals in Nature
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 …
Addressing Challenging Times with Gratitude for Lessons Learned
As we’ve been exploring on this blog, for many of us, life is more than a bit overwhelming right now. Many of us are feeling beyond capacity from multiple angles: the breakdown of the social fabric and increasing social and …
Herbal Releasing Ritual for Samhain
Samhain is marked on my landscape by a hard frost–usually occurring in the last two weeks of October. As I wrote about last week, we had our first freeze just this past week and it is the most profound shift …
Looking in the Face of Death at Samhain
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 …
Soul of the Soil: Soil Honoring and Dirt Worship
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 …
Metaphysical Street Smarts: Why to Commit to Protective Rituals and Daily Protection
In the physical world, you learn how to protect yourself. For someone who lives in a city, this may mean things like knowing how to cross the street safely so you don’t get hit by a car; learning how to …
Rituals to Support Wildfires, Smoke, and Climate Change
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 …
Interwoven Ritual into Everyday Life
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) …
Intuitive Herbal Sun Teas for Summer Solstice Healing
Walking through a sacred garden or a wild place always brings such joy; working with the herbs, drawing their wisdom, and seeing which herbs reach out for healing and health. Today, in honor of the upcoming Summer Solstice, I will …
Mushroom Telluric Chanting Galdr Ritual at MAGUS 2023
A few weeks ago, we had the Mid-Atlantic Gathering of US Druids (MAGUS 2023). This gathering has been going on since 2017, and it seems like every year gets better! Since the start of MAGUS, we have been experimenting with …
Introduction to Spirit Journeying: Meeting, Honoring and Working with Your Spirit Guide
Walking in the world with spirits, journeying with them, and experiencing their teachings is a tremendous way to deepen your own spirituality and connection to nature. In the druid tradition, we primarily focus on relationships to nature, so spirit journeying …
An Imbolc Ritual for Creativity: Maple Awen Ritual
Traditionally, Imbolc is a celebration of the first stirrings of spring coming back into the land. For people living in temperate parts of North America, particularly on the eastern seaboard, the timing can be challenging–we are in deep winter and …
Celebrating the Winter Solstice with Sacred Foods and Feasting
The Winter Solstice has long been a time of feasting and fires, especially with regional and special foods, a tradition that has global significance in many cultures. I’ve always enjoyed this time as a chance to dig into some really …
The Wheel of the Year for the Age of the Anthropocene
It is hard to deny both the increasing challenge of climate change nor its impact on local ecosystems, local people, and all of us living in this age. While both druidry and Wicca (and many other neopagan practices) share the …
Gardening and Animism: Garden Rituals and Ceremonies to bring Abundance and Honor the Soil
A person walks into a garden at as the sun rises. As it is the spring equinox, the soil is still mostly bare, although the stinging nettles are peeking through the earth to enjoy the first of the morning rays. …
A Druid’s Silent Supper: A Samhain Ritual of Ancestor Connection
Friends and grove members are welcomed into a candlelit home, and with the fire in the hearth blazing. Each person brings a dish to share–steaming piles of local foods in season: a beautiful roast beef, pumpkin soup, sourdough bread, baked …
Fall Equinox: A Spirit Walk
The Fall Equinox is a time of no time, a time of balance between the night and day, of balance between the physical and metaphysical. Thus, it is a good time to seek balance and communion with the spirit world, …
21st Century Wheel of the Year – Reverence at Lughnasadh
Many of us are now going deeper into the experience of climate extremes. In the summer months here in the US, we are experiencing heat, lack of rain, and drought-like conditions. It is hotter and drier, and that creates stress …
Visioning the Future: The Web of Relationships
Late-stage capitalism has provided us with a series of visions about the future that are pretty terrifying. The grand narratives of infinite growth and progress at all costs have landed us in a warming age marked by the loss of …
A 21st Century Wheel of the Year: Re-Visioning at the Summer Solstice
Human cultures throughout the world, modern and ancient, recognize the incredible power, potency, and magic of the sun. This is why so many cultures have sun gods and worshipped the sun, and this is also why so many ancient kings …