Spiritual journeys in tending the living earth, permaculture, and nature-inspired arts
As we have been exploring on this blog, living in the Age of the Anthropocene means living in a time when human activity is radically reshaping the world. Exponentially increasing human demands for resources are leaving many other lives on …
In February, news headlines everywhere began describing a new study from the University of Michigan made claims that urban agriculture (which includes urban farms, community gardens, and individual gardens) has a 6x higher carbon footprint than conventional agriculture. The headlines …
A paradigm is a set of patterns: of thoughts, actions, beliefs, and practices, under which people operate. We all were born into the paradigms of our current age: where money, colonization, domination, and the myth of progress are embedded into …
Recently I had some local homesteaders visit who wanted to see our homestead and the various systems we’ve been building. At one point, I uprooted a dandelion that was growing in a bed and the whole root just came right …
A garden full of life, joy, wildness, and spirit–where the vegetables, herbs, fruits, and nuts grow fat with the joy of being nurtured, where the spirits are working with the gardener for the good of all, and where all is …
Last year, we lost a good friend and foundational member of our homestead–an ancient white oak with a giant burl. She overlooked the stream and I used to sit on a rock near her to meditate. When she fell, she …
In permauclture design, the “observe and interact” principle is the very first thing we do. This principle asks a practitioner to spend considerable time (up to a year) observing and interacting with a site. This would include regular observations in …
Permaculture design is many things to many people–but ultimately, it is a system of design that works with nature rather than against nature. Permaculture uses principles to allow us to have a clear thinking process for creating resilient ecosystems, fostering …
I had the opportunity this summer to visit Claire Schosser and her amazing “Living Low Acre” garden in St. Louis, Missouri. Her home sits on 1 acre in an urban setting and features a fruit-based forest, large vegetable garden, a …
Hugelkutltur (or Hugel for short) is a garden bed technique that uses wood and layers of plant matter, topped with compost, to build up moisture-holding beds over time. Hugelkultur beds were first described in Sepp Holzer’s Permaculture book and are …
I’ve been homesteading (or what those in the UK would call smallholding) since 2010 at two different homesteads. Through this, and through being in community groups and having many friends who are also homesteaders, you learn a lot of things …
A druid walks upon a landscape, barren, cold, with trees cut and plants uprooted. Tears in her eyes, she surveys the damage that others have caused: the homes of so many animals disrupted after logging, the wild ramps and ginseng …
The day before the first hard frost. Our garden is still bountiful as the Butzemann watches over all….As the darkness continues to grow deeper on the landscape, it is high time to consider how to put the garden to rest …
Six years ago, I shared about Natures Harvest Urban Permaculture Farm, a front-yard garden located in the Detroit metro area. When I shared this post, Linda was in her first year of gardening in this new location, and was regularly …
Resilience is a term I first learned as a permaculture practitioner–resilient ecosystems are those that are able to withstand hardship, recover quickly when faced with difficulty, and had a capacity to endure. In other words, a resilient ecosystem can withstand …
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 …
Some years ago, I remember one influential druid speaking at a major event and saying, “The best thing you can do in nature is pick up the garbage and get out.” From a certain standpoint, this perspective makes a lot …
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. …
As I described in last week’s post, at least here in the US, we have serious challenges befalling us with plastic recycling along with a host of waste plastics that can never be recycled. A recycling infrastructure built almost exclusively …
I had a recent conversation with a friend who lives in the town where I work (and where I used to rent a house). I had commented on how “nice” her lawn looked, as it was growing tall full of …
How many times have you seen your neighbors getting tree work done or had tree work done yourself? The landscape company often comes with the big wood chipper and truck and then, after cutting up the wood, hauls that beautiful …