Natural Building I: The Strawbale Studio

The Druid's Garden

Yesterday, I attended a rocket stove building workshop at the Strawbale Studio and the sustainability-focused work of Deanne Bednar. In this post, I want to spend time highlighting the Strawbale Studio and Deanne Bandar’s work as an excellent example of permaculture and sustainable living.  In this first post, I’ll highlight some of the Strawbale Studio and other projects; in a later post this week, I will talk specifically about the rocket stove concept and what we learned and built!

I want to start by saying that site visits to places like the Strawbale Studio are really important and inspirational for anyone who is interested in natural building/sustainability/permaculture.  These places can bring us inspiration, joy, and ideas for transforming our own landscapes.  I’ve read about all of this in books and spoken to people, watched videos on Youtube, etc.  But its not till you really get to see it, and…

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Building Deep Plant Relationships at Lughnassadh

The Druid's Garden

Nicotiana Rustica Botanical Drawing

Last weekend, some druid friends came over for a retreat with a focus on land healing. As part of the ritual we collaboratively developed, we wanted to make an offering to the spirits of the land. I went to my sacred tobacco patch and carefully gathered leaves drying at the bottoms of the plant and flowers for use in this offering, humming a song that the tobacco had taught me and making sure that none of the leaves hit the ground in the process. The ritual went beautifully well and the offering was well received by the spirits.  After the weekend, it struck me how long my relationship with these particular tobacco plants was–more than a decade at this point from seed to leaf to flower to seed.  And how I had something to share about cultivating this relationship over time.

So I thought I’d take…

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A Druid’s Guide to Connecting With Nature, Part III: Nature Engagement

The Druid's Garden

Leading you in deeper!

I’ve heard a lot of conversation in the nature spirituality community, including the druid community, about not touching nature, leaving it alone, to simply « be ».  I remember one influential druid speaking at an 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 of sense. It is the same perspective held by many conservationists trying to preserve pristine lands or lands that have been replanted and are healing; the best thing that can be done is figure out how to keep people from mucking them up, pick up garbage, and leave them undisturbed. Because people have a tendency to come in, move things about, pick things, disrupt ecosystems, and generally cause havoc.  Or worse, much, much worse. Further, in a world where most humans can’t identify even five…

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A Druid’s Guide to Connecting with Nature, Part II: Nature Wisdom

The Druid's Garden

One of my favorite mushrooms- the Chicken of the Woods

As any mushroom hunter knows, mushrooms are tricksy little buggers.  What one looks like in one setting may not necessarily be what one looks like in another, depending on soil conditions, moisture, sun, size of the mushroom, insect damage, and/or regional variation. Mushroom species can vary a lot, even from one small region to another, and that variation can spell trouble for someone who hasn’t yet gained the wisdom to understand such variation.  Mushroom books offer perhaps 1-2 photos of mushrooms, and a good book will also offer a mushroom hunter the « keys » (features that distinguish one mushroom from another, like attached gills, color, etc).  However, only lived and true experience can help you not make a dangerous mistake when it comes to the mycelium kingdom.  The difference here, I think, epitomizes two key things: the different aspects of nature…

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Living the Wheel of the Year: Spiritual and Sustainable Practices for the Summer Solstice

The Druid's Garden

The Summer Solstice, what we call « Alban Hefin » in the Druid Revival tradition, marks the beginning of high summer in my part of the world, and many activities of this time period focus on harvesting and honoring the power of the sun and thinking about the energy present in our lives.  This is the time of light, laughter, growth, and movement!  This is the time when people are outside, doing things, enjoying the warmth that the sun provides.  The summer solstice gives us many opportunities to deepen our awareness and connection with the land and understand the relationship between earth and sky. (For my blog readers living in the southern hemisphere, see my post on the Winter Solstice for more appropriate activities for your Solstice!) Here are some activities that allow us to live in both a spiritual and sustainable manner:

Gathered herbs for drying!

1) Solstice herb gathering and…

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The Sacred Site in America: Understanding, Working With, and Developing Sacred Sites

The Druid's Garden

One of the challenges that North American druids face is understanding, visiting, and working with sacred sites.  In my druid training, one order in particular really emphasizes the sacred site–the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD).  And I think if one is living on the British Isles, it makes perfect sense to do so as those sites are part of the heritage and tradition of druidry.  The real question becomes–what is a sacred site here in the USA? What, if anything, should we do with them?    I’d like to take some time today to explore « sacred sites » as they relate specifically to druidry in the USA.

Simple stack of stones

Defining « Sacred »

The term « sacred » itself implies a connection to the divine, a concentrated or holy space, a space set aside for spiritual contemplation or religious observance in some way. When most think about what a classic definition of…

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A Druid’s Guide to Connecting with Nature, Part I: A Framework

The Druid's Garden

A lot of people find druidry because they want to « connect » with nature.  They want to attune to nature, feel part of it, gain knowledge and wisdom about it. But what does « connecting » to nature look like in practice?  Going out in the woods and feeling good?  Knowing the name of trees?  Walking with sacred intent in a natural place?  Spending time in nature?  All above the above? And so, over the next few posts, I want to spend more time with the concept of « connecting to nature » and share some strategies for what people can do to connect with nature in a multitude of ways.

As I’ve written about earlier, part of what I see as the core of druidry as a spiritual tradition is the work of « connection. » In that post, I talked about connecting to nature, connecting to the spirit, and connecting to the creative practices as…

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