Spiritual journeys in tending the living earth, permaculture, and nature-inspired arts
I see you, beautiful, layered ridges of the Appalachian mountains: your peaks against the blue winter sky, the mist arises from the snow while the Imbolc sun comes out to warm you just enough. Below that, your frozen bones await …
The property was almost perfect: in the right location, a natural spring as a water source, a small and nice house with a huge hearth, areas for chickens and gardens, a small pond, and a stream bordering the edge of …
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 …
The Spring Equinox, Alban Eiler, is the time when the light and the dark in the world are in balance. The timing of the Equinox is fortuitous–this time of balance–after such turmoil in the world. Here in the last two …
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 …
Many years ago, I shared the story of the “mystery of the stumps“, which was my path into druidry. I grew up spending all my days in a forest that was rich, full, and bountiful. When I was 14, that …
In the druid tradition, water represents the west, the place of emotions and intuition, the place of our ancestors and of the honored dead. Water is often connected with the salmon of wisdom, the salmon who dwells in a sacred …
Druidry is rooted in relationship and connection with the living earth: the physical landscape and all her plants and creatures, the spirits of nature, the allies of hoof and claw, fin and feather. The land and her spirits are our …
All of the potential and possibility of the world is present in a single seed. That seed has the ability to grow, to flourish, to produce fruit and flowers, to offer nutrition, magic, and strength. Seed starting offers us a …
Things seem broken right now. These last two weeks have been very hard weeks for many people. The national conversation here in the USA grows more difficult by the day, and it seems nearly every nation is facing many kinds …
When I lived in Michigan, each Christmas, a local church just down the road from me put on a drive-by nativity scene. Cars full of people would line up for over half a mile and drive around this circular loop …
When I spent two weeks living in an ecovillage last summer, I proudly talked to friends and family about the fact that I hadn’t flushed a toilet in two weeks. This led to a wide assortment of responses, including “gross, …
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 …
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 …
One of the things I’m hoping to do on this blog, in addition to my usual “how to” posts, permaculture, and tree work, is give us a set of working tools and philosophical lenses through which to see and interact …
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 …
I think one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in the past six years as a wild food forager, organic gardener, and localvore are the lessons of abundance and scarcity, and the interplay between the two. Crops fail, others …
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, …
This week I’ve been back in the Laurel Highlands of PA (my homelands) for a writing retreat for my research team for my university position. I was able to take a short break from our work today to spend some …
There is so much magic in a tiny seed. Dormant, still, silent, the seed speaks of unimaginable potential. The seed is the first—and last—step in the cycle of most plant life; they complete the circle of life. Seeds can lay …
Seven years ago, one of my closest friends, Alfred Struble, lost his 3-year battle with cancer, dying before he was even 30 years old. While I have long since accepted his passage from this world into the otherworld, I find …