Don’t Bag Your Leaves: An Analysis of Nutrient Loss and Soil Depletion for Leaf Removal November 7, 2014

This is the time of year when the leaves all drop in their delightfully whimsical fashion.  And yet, it seems that fall is not an enjoyable time for many, especially if those leaves end up on the lawn. I’ve discussed problems with the practice of keeping a lawn before, and today, I’d like to look at our relationship to leaves and typical practices for dealing with leaves.  People spend quite a bit of their own energy and fossil fuel energy removing leaves from their lawns (raking, blowing, mowing, and so on).  These leaves seem to end up in three places for a typical American household in the sprawling urban and suburban areas:

 

1. In bags on the side of the roads for “compost” (most common in my area by far)
2. Blown onto the side of the road and left there and/or picked up by the city (more typical in urban settings)
3. In a burn pile smouldering away (this also happens a lot where I live).

 

Some of the more radical folk, like permies and guerrilla gardeners the like, might end up composting their leaves in our gardens or otherwise keeping the nutrients on our properties; but this is a rather rare approach and one not practiced by the bulk of the American populace. Many of us who are radical gardeners go out seeking the bags of leaves left on the curb to bring additional nutrients to our properties (I do this every year).  However, not all of us have the benefit of composting or keeping our leaves–not raking, mulching, or composting leaves is illegal in some township or city mandates and also in many subdivisions throughout the US. And leaves aren’t often the only things found in the leaf compost bags–usually when I go out to collect, I find a good deal of other matter and live plants.  This year, at about 10% of the houses where I picked up leaves, I also found the remains of someone’s backyard garden (tomatoes) and at another 10% I found other kinds of food from trees just thrown away (walnuts, apples, acorns, pears, etc).

 

And so, today, I’d like to explore this practice a bit and its long-term impacts on soil health…and what we might do instead.

 

Leaves from the side of the road for my garden!

What’s Written on the Bag: Linguistic Framing of Leaves

When people talk about the leaves that drop from the trees in the fall, they often call it “leaf litter” or “yard waste.”  Looking at the brown paper bags that people buy to store their leaves in for pickup, they say “Lawn refuse” or “Yard Waste” or “Refuse” on the sides. We label the bags and then frame what we put in them as waste or refuse; something to be discarded.  So we are already creating a framework for seeing materials that come from our yards as “waste” rather than seeing the nutrients in the leaves as a valuable thing.

 

What’s in the Leaves: Nutrients Contained in Fallen Leaves

The other issue I’ve been pondering for some time is the nutritional content of the leaves, and how many nutrients leave a typical American lawn in suburbia each year when they are discarded.  I found a reasonable analysis about the nutrient content leaves here; their calculations are based on one ton of leaves (which, granted, is a lot of leaves).  This section presents a look at the nutrient content in leaves and how much is lost when we put them on the curb (or how much is gained by picking up someone else’s leaves).

 

According to the analysis above, 1 ton (2000 lbs) of leaves has the following:

• 940 lbs of carbon
• 20 lbs of nitrogen
• 2 lbs phosphorus
• 2 lbs potassium
• 32.8 lbs calcium
• 4.8 lbs magnesium
• 2.2 lbs sulfur
• Plus other nutrients and a great deal of organic matter (organic matter not calculated)

 

Before I get into my analysis of how much we lose by putting leaves on the corner, I have a few caveats.  First, this kind of analysis requires quite a bit of assumptions and estimations; I’ve done my best, but what I have found might be specific to my local area in South-East Michigan.  Second, I’m certain that leaf nutrition varies pretty widely based on the  soil profile of the region, the nutrients present or absent in the soil already, the types of trees, the weather for the year, and so on.  With that said, I do think even a rudimentary analysis, like the one I’m presenting, gives us some starting points.

 

Methods: On my trips out to get leaf bags from the side of the road this year,  I did some counting in my area to estimate the amounts and weights typical bags of leaves had.  I went out for three weeks and brought back 46 bags of leaves; I went out twice each week to different areas within a 3 mile radius of where I lived. I counted how many leaves people left on the curb and when I got back, I weighed them to get their average weight.  In a fourth week it rained, and while I collected bags, I did not weigh them because the water weight would have impacted my findings. I then did some simple math using the numbers above.

 

Amount of leaves per bag and per yard: Most leaf bags I picked up ranged from 8lbs – 22lbs, depending on whether or not they were shredded. Shredded leaf bags typically account for about 20% of the bags I pick up.  Even unshredded bags are often compacted and pretty heavy, especially if the leaves fell relatively flat or were slightly wet when they went in the bag.    The average for the bags was just above 10 lbs.  People in the suburban area where I go leaf hunting put out an average of 4.5 bags of leaves on collection day; some had many more, and most had been putting them out for a period of weeks. My estimate is that most families in my area put out at least 7 bags of leaves in a fall season assuming they have a few trees in their yard dropping leaves; this amounts to about 98 lbs of leaves (I’m going to round this to 100 lbs to make the math simple).

 

So for each 10 lb bag of leaves put on the curb, it has:

• 4.7 lbs of carbon
• .1 lbs of nitrogen
• .01 lbs of phosphorus
• .01 lbs of potassium
• .16 lbs of lbs of calcium
• .02 lbs of magnesium
• .01 lbs of sulfur
• And Iron, Zinc, and much, more.

 

That’s a lot of nutrients.  And that’s just the leaves–I don’t have any way of figuring out what whole tomato plants and other plants ripped up from the soil are also contributing, but I suspect these numbers are much higher.  And then, if homeowners are also removing their grass clippings all season long, that’s a whole other calculation to include.

 

There are alternatives!

 

What’s Left in the Soil:  Long-Term Removal of Nutrients and Inadequacy of Fertilization

Now one bag of leaves makes an impact, but perhaps a small one.  The problem is that one bag of leaves isn’t what’s being removed–this is about the long-term systematic removal of nutrients from our landscape.  As I was driving through a bunch of Detroit communities last weekend, what really struck me was the age of the houses.  Many of the houses I was looking at literally were 75 years, 100 years, or older.  In my research on dandelions, I discovered that typical lawn practices prevalent today really rose to popularity after World War II, which suggests that people haven’t been bagging up their leaves forever, but likely they have been doing it for some time.  So let’s assume that for the last 50 years, most citizens of Metro Detroit (or any other city or suburban area) have been removing their leaves from their property.  So if we take the numbers above and assume 100 lbs of leaves being removed each year, we end up with nutrient loss something like this:

 

Nutrient Loss for Fall Leaf Removal for 100 Years (all numbers in pounds)

 

These numbers are striking, but what is even more striking is the fact that I haven’t accounted for any other kinds of “yard waste” such as grass clippings (put out on the curb weekly or bi-monthly by many) or other kinds of yard compost that people don’t want.  I might do a case study of this at some point, but for now, we can see the potential for soil nutrient health decline.

 

I’d like to offer one other piece of evidence as well. My house was built in 1945, so my yard likely suffered the same fate for most of the last 70 years as well.  When I got at my homestead a few years ago, prior to putting in the garden, I ran soil tests.   These are exactly where the leaves (and lawn clippings) would have been taken from (and I knew from taking to my neighbors that the people who owned this house did such practices).  I found that the soil where I wanted to put in my garden was pretty much sand.  It had little organic matter and a P.H. of 8.2 (our PH is high in this area, but the lack of organic matter made it higher).  It had only 8 PPM of Phosphorus (considered extremely low), 22 parts per million of potassium (low) and magnesium of only 27 parts per million (extremely low).  To get my soil prepared for growing crops…what did I do? Went around and picked up everyone’s leaves, imported massive amounts of organic matter in the form of manure, compost, and this year, even a pile of seaweed from a local pond.  And now my soil tests are beautiful and my soil is rich and healthy (and much lower in PH thanks to the organic matter all of the leaves helped create).

 

What’s going back into the soil?  Not enough.

In a natural process, assuming no removal of nutrients, it takes 500 years or more to produce one inch of topsoil.  This gives you a sense, I think, of the enormity of the challenges that face us in regenerating landscapes with these destructive lawn practices.  But, you say, aren’t people putting things back into the soil?  Yes, and we’ll take a look at that next.

 

1) Plants can pull certain kinds of nutrients from the air; typically this is nitrogen and oxygen. So certainly, some nitrogen theoretically could be being brought back into the soil, although typical lawn ornamentals and grass don’t do this well.

 

2) Most nutrients are in the soil, and those nutrients are cycled through the dropping and decay of organic matter.  Trees and other plants (like Burdock, Comfrey, Dandelion), penetrate deep into the ground and pulling up nutrients to the surface, which they then deposit as leaves or dead plant matter.  But how many nutrients are down there for the taking?  If nutrients are systematically removed from the same spot over a 25, 50, or 100 year period, I suspect that at some point, the ground underneath will simply run out of those nutrients. I also have a theory (untested) that this is part of why we have so many plant and tree diseases.  We keep removing organic matter and nutrients from our landscapes in this form, through logging, etc, and those aren’t going back into our system.

 

3) People also often add fertilizers; but most commercial fertilizers focus only on the three macronutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.  All of the micronutrients (some of which are critical to plant and human health, such as magnesium or calcium) are not added.  Fertilizers also come in a water soluble form (nitrate) and cause substantial problems for our waterways (I am not going to spend the time today to describe soil ecology, but a good introduction to it is here).

 

4) Mulch is sometimes also added to select areas.  But wood mulches are very high in carbon and little else.

 

5) Some people do buy compost and add it in select areas (say, a garden) but this is in select areas; I don’t see people dumping compost all over their lawns to make up for the loss of nutrients.  More on this in my next post.

 

So even with the inputs, it seems likely that a substantial net loss in nutrients in the soil immediately surrounding most of our homes and communities due to the “composting” practices of leaves and grass clippings.

Concluding Thoughts

What concerns me about this analysis, if its in the ballpark range at all (and I have reason to believe it is) is that each year, the soil surrounding our homes and in our communities gets more and more depleted as we continue to remove nutrients from our soils systematically through fall leaves and grass clippings.  This leaves me with a few serious concerns:

 

1) More and more people are becoming interested in urban gardening, homesteading, and the like, and yet, if they want to dig up their backyard, they are facing soils with literally no nutrients, organic matter, or life in them (as I faced when I started my homestead).  If we all wanted to do this, where would all the nutrients come from?

 

2) We aren’t looking at a few places of depletion, but probably we are facing it with nearly every suburban and urban home in the US.  When we combine this with modern industrial farming practices that kill soil life and strip the soil bare, its a very worrying issue.

 

3) The systematic loss of particular kinds of nutrients is also concerning; in my herbalism course, we have spent a great deal of time talking about magnesium deficiency (which the bulk of Americans are suffering from) and deficiency in other micro-nutrients; interestingly, many of these showed up in the list of what was in fall leaves and being removed.  Even if you were to grow some veggies in your soil that you added some organic matter to, would there be enough magnesium and other essential nutrients for your own body’s needs?

 

4) Perhaps most worrying of all: if history has anything to teach us, the widespread degradation and depletion of soil and other resources leads to a civilization’s collapse.  Combining this with many other ecological challenges suggests the widespread and systematic need for radical change.

 

I’ll elaborate on these concerns and what we might begin to do about this in my next blog post, which will discuss the concept of restoration agriculture and further discuss permaculture design.

Fall Leaves and the Druidic Garden: Leaves as Compost and Mulch November 12, 2010

With the passing of Samhain, most of the leaves here in Michigan are now off the trees.  As I bike through my neighborhood or visit surrounding communities, I am always amazed to see people bagging up all of those leaves in the brown “compost” bags and leave them by the side of the road or (worse) burning them in the backyard.  Hold on for a minute!

What my illustrious neighbors bagging the leaves up and leaving them for the waste disposal company may not realize is that those same leaves, yard trimmings, and other waste are sold right back to them in the spring time when they want a little compost or rich hummus for their garden.  Unfortunately, this process is damaging on the environment because: A) fossil fuels are used to transport the leaves to and from their destination; high-powered composting facilities often use additional fossil fuels to automatically turn and process leaves; and finally, they have to be packaged back up and sold to the end consumer–sometimes across counties or states.  Another serious benefit is that the nutrients of the leaves–nutrients that would leech back into the soil if the leaves were left on the ground to decompose naturally–continue to be removed each year as the leaves are put on the curb.  This loss of nutrients in the soil eventually causes most to go out and buy petrochemical fertilizers (which contribute to substantial water pollution).

Burning those little leaves is even worse, however!  Leaf burning destroys many valuable nutrients (although some nutrients are retained in the ash, to be fair), substantially contributes to air pollution, and can cause trouble for health of asthmatics and others.  Not to mention the risk of fires spreading out of control.

Alternatives exist to bagging and/or burning leaves!

Leaves are a precious and valuable resource, and can be used in a multitude of ways in your own gardening practice: as a lawn mulch, compost, as a soil enricher, and as a garden mulch.

This year, I’ve used leaves in several ways to enhance my druidic gardening practice.

Directly in the Garden Beds. First, I used leaves as a basic ingredient of my “raised bed sheet mulching” approach (which I haven’t yet written on but plan on writing on soon).  Leaves were added right to the bed in the fall and will compose over the winter, adding much needed nutrients and humus to my sandy soil.

Leaf Composting. I also built myself a simple leaf composter out of some rusty wire fencing I found in the weeds on the side of the property.  I created a sphere with the wire and weighted the bottom down with some rocks.  Next, I layered about 6 inches of leaves with an inch of soil and/or manure and as I layered it, I wet the whole thing down.  If you layer it in this fashion, the leaves are less likely to mat.  If you wet it down, composting will happen much faster!  I have read that you can also use sacks for leaf composting or even build your own large bin.  The key is to make sure that your leaves don’t blow away before they are composted.  Now that I’ve done this work, I will wait and see what happens in the spring–and how far along my leaves have composted.  Leaf composting is super-easy, and you can use the composted leaves as an excellent soil conditioner or garden mulch.

Mulching. One of the most important lessons that I have learned in my short time on this property is that mulch is your friend.  I planted a number of trees and heavily mulched them–and was amazed to find that even after a week or more of dry weather, when I stuck my hand into the mulch, the roots were still damp.  If you want to use leaves as mulch, you can compost them partially (to avoid matting, again) and then spread them thickly on whatever it is you want to mulch.  The leaves will eventually decompose and will release their nutrients into the soil. In this way, you are mimicking the forest’s natural cycle of falling leaves eventually turning into fertile soil (we speed this up a bit with composting).

Do be aware that certain leaves may change the PH level of your soil.  Pine needles and oak leaves are particularly acidic (but this makes them incredibly useful for say, blueberries or paw paw trees!).  I have been using pine needles as a wonderful mulch on my newly planted blueberry bushes.

If you have a lawn mower, you can also mulch your leaves directly onto your lawn.  Apparently they make mowers just for mulching, but I’ve never seen them so I can’t write more on that process.

This is my first year using leaf composting, so I’ll report how things went in the spring!

Working with and Honoring the Sun at the Solstice June 16, 2019

Sacred rays of the sun

The sun’s rays come over the horizon, on the solstice, the most sacred of days. The solstice goes my many names, the day of high light, midsummer, Alban Hefin. Across the globe and through time, it has been celebrated since before recorded history. In the light of the sun, we have strength, warmth, growth, energy, abundance, healing, and wisdom. The sun has been shining down upon our beautiful planet has been shining for at least four billion years and we can expect it to remain unchanged for another five billion years. The sun is also enormous–it accounts for 99.86% of the mass of our solar system.  It is such an incredible thing that it’s hard to image in the scope of the sun as it compares to of human lives or human history.  You might say that the sun is one of the most constant things we’ve had–since before humans were humans, since we can trace our ancestry back to some fish crawling up out of the ocean, the sun has been offering its light and warmth to us in its steady and powerful way. The same sun that shines upon you today has shined upon your every ancestor before you. You can see why ancient cultures all over the world celebrated the time of the greatest light and honored the sun as a deity–for without the sun, we would not exist.

 

Thus, on this sacred day, many choose to honor the sun in some way.  In the last few years, I’ve shared some sunrise rituals and a sunrise journey ritual. These sunrise rituals certainly offer us a glimpse of that first ray of the light, the power of the sun as it shines forth–and are excellent for people who want to rise early and see the dawn’s first light.  Today’s post is for those who are looking for additional ways to honor and celebrate the solstice through a variety of “small rituals” and “solstice activities” that you can do to celebrate this most sacred of days.

 

Honoring the Sunrise, Noon, and Sunset

Sunrise ritual

A simple way to mark the Solstice (either one, actually) is to honor the rising, high point, and setting of the sun.  You can do this as elaborately or as simply as you want. A very simple way is to use a drum or singing bowl, and simply allow the sound to come forth.  You can also do this with a simple ritual (chanting “Awens”, saying the druid’s prayer, doing the AODA’s Sphere of Protection, saying the OBOD’s Druid’s Prayer for Peace, etc).  Or, you can do this with movement or anything else that you like.  Choose something meaningful to you, and allow the energy to flow.

 

Make a Sundial and Attune with the Sun

You can honor the sun by creating a permanent or temporary sundial.  Sundials are some of the oldest forms of time pieces, and they are a wonderful way to connect with the movement of the sun across time.  There are two ways to make a sundial: working with the sun or working with sacred geometry.

 

To work directly with the sun, you simply need a timer or clock that can go off on the hour (or on the half hour, if you prefer).  You will want whatever you are using for your sundial and place it in the full sun.  You can do this with simple materials, like a pencil and a paper plate.  Or, you can get more elaborate and plan on carving into or painting a wood round or stone as a final product.  Put your dial into an area that gets full sun. On each hour, mark it.  I do this in pencil, and then later, if I’m doing a more permanent dial, I can come back to it and mark it more permanently after I have the marks.  After the hours of the day, you will have a sundial–but that sundial isn’t yet complete. The sun’s position in the sky changes, so to really do this perfectly, you would do this again at the winter solstice.  Draw a line between the marks for summer and winter, and those are your times for the dial.  While it takes you a full season to complete the sundial doing this method, it is a wonderful way to work with the sun directly.  If you want to get *really* fancy, do this at the equinox (either one) and then you can also have a mid point for the equinox.  What is wonderful about this approach is that you have done this by observing and marking the path of the sun at three sacred points of the year–and honoring the energies of each of those points.  This, truly, is a sacred sundial.

 

The alternative is to use human knowledge and sacred geometry–so you make the dial in advance, and then place it out on the solstice, marking it. To make one for your latitude, you will need to use a calculator, like the ones on this page.  Many of the instructions online work from the premise that you want to create a sundial and use it to tell time–so you start with the latitude, which gives you angles, and you create the points.  It is a fairly easy thing to do once you know where to put the marks and there are plenty of tools out there for you to try.

 

Sunbathing Energy Ritual

Find a quiet place in nature where you won’t be disturbed and where you can lay in the full sunlight.  You can lay on the earth or on a blanket if you prefer. This is best done at noon, as that is the time of highest energy, but anytime the sun is shining down on the solstice (or the day before or after) the ritual will work. This ritual is best with minimal or no clothing so your body can best absorb vitamin D from the sun, but use your best judgement.

 

Begin by honoring the sun however you see fit. Singing bowl, sphere of protection or grove opening, calling to the power of the solar current and the fire, etc.  Once you have honored the sun, lay down and simply absorb the sun’s rays. Feel the sun soaking into your skin, the heat and light of the sun warming you. Flip over and again, simply lay and absorb the sun.

 

I will note that some people can do this longer than others.  I happen to have rather fair Irish skin, so I do this ritual only for about 5-10 minutes per side.  Its enough to get the energy and enough to not get a sunburn.

 

After you have concluded sunbathing, thank the sun for his light, saying anything that you would like (let the words flow through you).

 

Hemlocks in the Path of the Sun

Energizing Liquids and Objects

For those of you who’d prefer not to lay in the full sun, you can get the effects of the above ritual (and save those effects for a later time) by using the sun to empower and bless a liquid.  For this, I like to get a bottle of my Dandelion wine or other alcoholic beverage.  I place it in the noontime sun for 30 or so minutes, allowing the sun’s rays to fully permeate the bottle (yes, I know that too long, and the rays will damage the contents.  But this is an energetic blessing!)  After the blessing, thank the sun.  Now you have a bit of bottled sunshine, and you can open it and drink it anytime you like.

 

A variant of this is to create a solstice tea.  Combine any number of sacred herbs, particularly herbs that are in their full power during the summer solstice (chamomile, mint, elderflower, rose petals, a small amount of yarrow, etc).  By this I mean herbs that are in bloom during the solstice.  Get a large mason jar, and fill it with pure water.  Add the herbs and let it sit out in the sun.  For this particular blend, I will actually allow it to sit out all day–from the moment the sun is visible to the moment it sets.  Then, as darkness sets in, I will drink the tea.  (You can also freeze this tea to use at a later point, say, for ritual at the Winter Solstice).

 

The same kind of “energizing” can be done with simple ritual tools, stones, anything that you’d like to put a burst of energy into.  The nice thing about working with the sun is that it has so much energy that it radiates and it gives that energy constantly.  You placing that energy into an object will never be a problem for the sun!

 

A Solstice Frolick

Another fun thing to do at the solstice is to go for a frolick.  A frolick is different than a walk or hike–the point of the frolick isn’t to go anywhere.  It is simply to experience the simple joy of being outside on a beautiful day with the sun shining down.  Maybe even get a bit lost for a while. For the frolick, go somewhere you love or somewhere new, somewhere where nature has power and strength.  Spend time wandering without any real goal; take whatever trail you fancy, or maybe take no trail at all.  Allow yourself to experience the wonder and awe of the living earth.  Wear ridiculous clothes.  Play panpipes.  Pay close attention to how the sun’s rays shine down through the leaves, or on the surfaces.  Explore every nook and cranny.  Note the movement of the sun.

 

Standing stone

Set a Solstice Standing Stone

The druids of old understood that standing stones have power. Setting a standing stone at the solstice is a particularly powerful act. A stone, buried 1/3 of the way in the earth, channels the powerful and healing solar current into the earth, intermingling with the telluric current. It allows the healing rays of the sun to shine forth, powerfully and meaningfully. You can set the stone as a sacred act, with as much ritual and fanfare as you like. When I set stones, I usually determine in advance where the stone should be placed using inner listening and spirit communication. open up a sacred grove, sit with the stone and the earth for a time, and then set the stone. I bless the stone with the four elements, sing to it, and then spend time in meditation. When the work is done, I close out the sacred grove. Stones can be set anywhere for blessing, energizing, or healing: in a sacred garden, a sacred grove, a field, a refugia garden, a place in need of land healing.

 

I hope these solstice activities offer you some ideas and suggestions.  Readers, I’d love to hear more about how you celebrate the solstice!

Wine Cap Mushroom Cultivation: Wood Chips, Garden Beds, Recipes, and More June 9, 2019

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 pile of chips off to some unknown location. Last year, our electric company came through and was doing tree work along our driveway and road to prune and cut trees too close to the power lines. We asked them to dump the wood chips on our property, and they were happy to do so. A lot of times, companies have to pay or go far out of their way to dump wood chips, and they see them as a “waste”; they will almost always dump them for free if you ask!  But a pile of wood chips are harldy a waste–they can offer you multiple yields over a period of years.  In today’s post, we’ll look at mushrooms from a permaculture and druidic perspective and see one way we can use them to both understand nature’s alchemy as well as cultivate home-grown food, focusing on using fresh wood chip piles.

 

Wine cap mushrooms on wood chips

About Mushrooms

Mushrooms are amazing: they are in a kingdom by themselves (fungi) and are in a kingdom all to themselves.  They do not contain chlorophyll, so they are unlike plants. They are saprophytes, breaking down organic matter (usually wood) and feeding on the nutrients contained within. In this way, they work as part of nature’s system of decomposition, breaking down the old so that the new can begin again. Their “bodies” consist of fungal hyphae (which are white or tan lines or threads that run through soil, wood, etc). The threads are also called mycelium. They also consist of the fruit, which is what we call a mushroom. The fruit of the mushroom is actually its reproductive system, which is what the mushroom itself sends up to reproduce (via spores, in most species).

 

I think we can learn a lot from the mushroom  kingdom, both from a permaculture perspective as well as a spiritual/druidic perspective.  On the permaculture side, the mushrooms remind us that nothing is waste: they can break down not only wood but also many of our own human wastes: cardboard, newspaper, office paper, and coffee grounds.  Amazingly, they can also be used to pull toxins and do “mycoremediation” to help damaged sites heal.  this includes pulling toxins and pollution from soil as well as pulling toxins and oils in water contaimination.  Mushrooms are truely amazing!  On the spiritual side, the mushroom is one of the great alchemists of nature: taking waste (dross) and turning it into soil which can then can nourish plants–soil is what the entire ecosystem is based upon!

 

The mushroom we are talking about today is the Wine Cap mushroom, also known as King Stropharia (stropharia rugoso-annulata), sometimes also called “Composter mushrooms” or “Garden giants.” You can purchase these online from a variety of mushroom companies; my spawn came from Tradd Cotter’s Mushroom Mountain. I’ve had the pleasure of taking multiple workshops from Tradd at our local Mother Earth News Fair, and I like his company and ethics a lot!  The nice thing about these mushrooms in particuar is that they are versitile and easy to keep cultivating. Once you have some mycelium, its possible to keep spreading these mushrooms as long as they have something to eat.  So if you have your own chipper, a ready supply of leaves or other compost waste, these mushrooms will keep on going!  So let’s talk about a few ways you can work with Wine caps.

 

Wine cap mushroom

Wood Chips

The techniques that I am sharing today only work on a fresh woodchip pile (less than a few weeks old). If you try this with an older wood chip pile, or in a pile that has been dead wood recently chipped, it is likely that other species of mushrooms have already colonized your pile.  What this means, then, is that when you try to colonize your pile with your own mushroom spawn, there may be considerable competititon and you may not get the mushrooms you hope to get (You also need to be *very* careful about ID in this case).

 

As I mentioned in the introduction, wood chips are fairly easy to obtain in many parts of the US, at least.  You might be able to get them from local muncipalities, and certainly, from local private tree services.  Most of them are all too happy to drop off piles of mulch to you so they don’t have to drive far to dump them and/or pay to have them dumped.  You may also be doing some of your own brush clearing; again, any fresh woodchips will do for this process.

 

Seeding Your Pile

 

To seed your pile, simply break up your mushroom spawn into smaller pieces, dig holes in your pile (a foot or less down) and add the spawn.  After the pile was dumped, in early August, a few of my druid friends and I seeded our pile in about 15 minutes.

Layers of mycelium with mushrooms growing out the top. I was removing mulch for other areas and got this amazing photo!

In addition to moisture and food, mushrooms need oxygen.  If your pile is too tightly compacted, you may only get mycelium growing on the top of the pile.  Never fear–once you remove some of the mulch for other purposes (see below), the mycelium can colonize further into the pile.

 

Fruiting

At some point, typically for Wine Caps, when the temperatures hit above 60 degrees, your pile will start to fruit.  Our pile started fruiting in April, and is still fruiting at the beginning of June.  Thus far, we’ve harvested at least 20 lbs of mushrooms from the pile.  As exciting as the huge wine cap mushrooms are, they often get buggy and full of worms.  Thus, it is best to harvest the smaller mushrooms to eat and leave the larger ones in the pile to spore and to produce food for others.

 

Spreading the Mushroom Love: Mushrooms in the Garden and More

Once you have an innoculated pile, you can use your wood chips all through your garden and as mulch.  Anywhere you do this, you are likely to get mushrooms popping up, which is an amazing food production source!  Here are some of many possibilities:

• Mulched Mushroom Garden Paths: Add several layers of cardboard to your garden paths and then mulch with a thick layer of innoculated wood chips.  Your paths will last at least 2 years, and probably at some point, they will fruit with mushrooms.
• Mulched Mushroom Garden Beds: All garden beds benefit from mulching. If you look at a forest, you will never see bare soil on the forest floor: it is always mulched with a rich pile of leaves, etc. This helps the forest prevent erosion and retain  nutrients. Many gardeners leave their soil bare, which allows the sunlight to quickly strip it of moisture. By adding a thick layer of mulch (straw, leaf rot, or wood mulch) you can prevent the loss of mosture, and likely, never have to water your garden again.  That’s my method: layers of mulch equals never needing to water, unless we have some kind of severe drought!  Adding your mushroom-innoculated mulch to your beds benefits the whole garden.  This page offers a lot more details on this practice, debunks myths about wood chips in the garden, and offers information on why it works.  Keep your wood chip mulch to 2-3″ deep at the most and you will have no probmes–and you will get more mushrooms. In fact, every place that we have spread this mulch has fruited at least once this spring!
• Mulched Tree Areas: Your trees, likely, can also benefit from some innoculated mulch. I put this around my fruit trees, being careful not to mulch the trunks too closely.  This does the same thing for the trees that it does for the garden!
• Mulched Paths: You can mulch any other paths with this approach, including forest trails and so on.  I am working on some forest trails through our wooded areas, and these mushroom mulched paths are a wonderful addition. Again, I use thick layers of newspaper or cardboard (when necessary) or simply mulch (if the forest floor is largely bare, as mature forests sometimes are).  You can further get fancy and line your mulched paths with stones. Part of why I do this is that our tick issues in Western PA have grown extremely intense; it is better for us to mulch and keep nice wide paths than to be covered in ticks (we also have guinea fowl and chickens for tick patrol, and they do a great job!)
• Mulched Planters: You can also mulch container garden pots and planters with a light layer of this mushroom mulch.  You may not get any fruiting mushrooms (I haven’t seen any on ours yet) but you certainly will get the benefit of the water retention!

 

Wine caps growing in wood chips

Wine Cap Cuisine

Wine caps are a mild and delicious mushroom, with a growth habit similar to a portabella.  They do not have a strong flavor, and when they cook, they produce a lot of liquid, which needs to be accounted for in any recipe.  For the best way to taste the mushroom flavor itself, you can simply fry these in some olive oil or put them on the grill brushed with olive oil.  You can also stuff them (I like to stuff them with rice, veggies and cheese) or make a simple cream of mushroom soup.  Essentially, any recipe that calls for a portabella mushroom can be instead used with a wine cap.  Here’s one such recipe I made this week

Wine Cap Mushroom Soup

• 1 lb of wine cap mushrooms, washed and sliced
• 1/2 cup marsala wine
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• fresh thyme, chives, and parsley
• 1 onion
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 cup sliced kale
• 1 quart vegetable or chicken broth
• 1 cup heavy cream
• salt and pepper to taste

Sautee the mushrooms in olive oil until they start to soften (about 5 min).  Add the wine, onions, and garlic, and simmer for an additional five minutes.  Add the broth, herbs, and salt/pepper and put a lid on your soup, allowing it to cook for 15 more minutes, until the mushrooms and onions are tender.  Remove from heat.  Add kale and heavy cream, and let the flavors meld on the stove for 10-15 min before serving.  Serve with some fresh chives on the top.

 

Examples of older wine caps, not as good for cuisine due to the worms. Cut the small ones instead.

Radical Mushrooms: Kitty Litter and Other Decomposition Projects

I didn’t stop with the wood chip pile with regards to how to keep working with the Wine Cap mushrooms.  I wanted to use mushrooms t help break down other “waste” products at the house.  have three cats, and they have long been using natural plant-based cat litters, usually a pine base or a wheat based litter.  I saw instructions like these, knowing that people use kitty litter (fresh) for mushroom cultivation for eating.  While I had no intention of eating mushrooms grown in used kitty litter, In this case, I was wondering if the mushrooms would work in this litter to help break it down (and thus not put it in a landfill, but return those nutrients to nature).  I first started with a regular compost pile, putting a few palattes together, which in about 1.5 years, was full of cat litter.  I put some mushroom spawn in the pile in the fall, at the same time I seeded the much larger mulch pile, but nothing happened.  I think it had too much ammonia and not enough oxygen.  I took the palatte composter apart, and instead, spread the kitty litter in a thinner area, only about 6″ deep.  I again seeded it with mushroom spawn: and this time, it worked.  I now have a kitty litter composting area.  I add litter only to one side, and allow the mushrooms to slowly break down the litter that has sat longer.  This simply stays on the edge of the woods, effectively eliminating the landfill and returning those nutrients to the earth.  I call this a mushroom win!   I will also note that I do *not* pick or eat the mushrooms in this pile, but other wildlife seems to enjoy them.

 

I hope this brief look into how to tranfsorm “waste” into resources for the druid’s garden is helpful and inspirational to you!

A Fire and Smoke Ritual for Land Healing and Blessing May 5, 2019

A few years ago, I led a smoke cleansing (smudge) stick making workshop at the OBOD’s East Coast Gathering event. As that event often has upwards of 100 attendees, I spent months growing and harvesting materials for the event so that everyone could make 1-2 sticks.  Sure enough, everyone got to make some smudge sticks and the workshop went great.  After the workshop, one of my friends and event fire tenders, Derek, came up to me and asked me about the leftover materials.  I had been placing them in a paper bag, and had planned on taking them home to make more sticks or return to the land. He said, “I want to make a smudge bomb and send healing smoke to this entire land.”  I said, “Yes, what a great idea!” So we tightly bundled up the remainder of the material, which filled at least 1/3 of the paper grocery bag, and wrapped it with the same cloth string.  The next day, as the Ovates were meeting around the fire circle in preparation for ritual, he brought out the smudge bomb.  The previous night’s fire had been a particularly large one, and in the morning, it still contained the embers from the fire the night before. Derek carefully placed the smudge bomb into the glowing embers.  It worked just as we hoped: it smoldered and sent up a healing and blessing smoke into the surrounding land. And it lasted quiet a long time!  Ever since that experience, I’ve been working with fire in different ways to think about how we might use fire and smoke to bless and heal large spaces, and how we can also make offerings in thanks to fire, humanity’s oldest friend and companion.  Today’s post compiles some of those ideas, big and small and is a follow-up to my ancestral Beltane fire post from last week.

 

Altar with various bundles, getting ready to burn

Land Healing through Fire and Smoke: A Fire and Smoke Ritual  in Three Parts

Using the “smudge bomb” experience for inspiration, I developed a larger technique for using fire and smoke for land healing and blessing, creating specific ritual objects that are created in a sacred manner and then burned to send that energy, by way of smoke and wind, to far off places.  As I described in my earlier series on land healing, land healing comes in many forms.  Energetic healing or palleative care can be useful in situations where the land is actively under duress (which unfortunately describes many places on earth currently), where physical land healing (through permaculture, seed scattering, etc) is not an option. One of the challentes with land healing, particularly on a larger scale, is that you don’t always have physical access to the land you want to heal.  I do think that doing ritual directly on the lands you want to heal is most effective–but doing something else at a distance can be equally as effective if you have some good way of transmitting that energy.  Thus, this ritual technique is very useful for spaces, far and wide, that are otherwise inaccessible: around here that would be large swaths of logging, strip mines, polluted waterways, etc.  It is also very useful for healing more distant concerns: the plight of polar bears in the Arctic or deforestation in the Amazon, the oceans, or some other “far away” issue.  Or maybe you want to do land healing working for the entire globe. Thus, this technique is one that you can use to send healing and blessing energy to the lands nearby–or quite distant, using air and smoke as a carrier.

 

Smoke is often seen in today’s culture very negatively primarily because of our challenged relationship with tobacco: we have secondhand smoke, smoking as a harmful and life-threatening, smoke from wildfires causing issues, and  much more. And yet, smoke cleansing and blessing practices have been used throughout human history and in many cultures as a blessing and purifying agent (this link has a nice overview; this link is a study to over 250 plants used in smoke healing around the world).  In the druid tradition and in other pagan traditions, we use these practices quite a bit: through smoke cleansing (smudge) sticks, incense, using tree resins– smoke helps us call in and establish air in ceremonies and connect deeply with that element.  We often use smoke clearing, incense and similar such things on a smaller scale–but why not consider it on a large-scale for land healing or blessing?

 

Thus this technique has three parts.  Each of these three parts has both a physical component and an energetic component. The parts are:

1. Creating a bundle or object that will turn to smoke and bring that energy, through the currents of the air, to other places.

2. Creating a fire in a sacred manner and opening a sacred space.

3. Burning and releasing the bundle and directing energy.

(And then, of course, closing out your space and giving thanks. )

 

Part 1: Making Your Healing Bundle / Healing Object

Now, I’ll walk through some potential options for how to create your own healing bundle.  I am giving you options below to spark your own creativity, s.  Before we get into the bundles, I want to offer a few general principles:

 

• *Everything* in these bundles should be all natural, coming directly from nature. This is because you are burning the objects, so obviously, you don’t want to burn something that pollutes the air.  So for example, if you are using string, it should be cotton, hemp or jute (string can be plastic), wax (use soy wax or beeswax).  Because non-natural materials can release harmful chemicals into the air, thereby rendering any particular healing work you want to do ineffective.
• Like most magical workings, I think its less important the physical form it takes and more the intentions you bring with it.  Work with what you have and don’t worry about replicating what I have here–rather, create things from your local environment that speak to you.
• Look for opportunities: a fallen conifer branch, a neighbor trimming a hedge of rosemary or hemlock, a huge number of pinecones, abundant material on your own land, etc.
• At the same time, a larger size bundle certainly does give a good ritual effect, which is something you might want to consider.  Small ones work great too, but large ones burn longer, giving you more time to focus healing energies in a particular direction.

Three sample bundles: pine cone/herb bundle, wood burned oak slab, and bundle of sticks wrapped with prayers and sealed with wax.

There are two kinds of bundles you can make: things that are meant to smolder and things that are meant to burn. Things that smolder  are more traditionally used like incense on coals, and are designed to be added to existing coals or a slow burning fire.  Things that burn, on the other hand, are designed to burn when a fire is hot (and usually are wooden in some way).

 

Some Possibilities for Things that Smolder:

 

The Herbal Healing Bundle: This technique uses a bundle of aromatic dried healing herbs, very similar to the “smudge bomb” I described in my opening–a mix of carefully chosen herbs for their healing effects.  You can design a specific bundle for a specific healing purpose based on the herbs that you choose (see my list here).  I like to create these at the end of the season, when I’m clearing out my garden, and I have to cut plants back anyways.  This is also a great use of the stalks of plants; so if I’m harvesting sage, rosemary, wormwood, tobacco, and other plants, after I harvest the leaves, I am often left with a lot of stalk matter that I don’t know what to do with–and it goes in the bundle.  Any material (other than poison ivy) would work fine for such a bundle, but I think it’s particularly good with aromatic healing herbs that burn well–rosemary, sage, thyme, mint, scented geranium, wormwood, mugwort, etc.   For this technique, if you are using dried herbs, I suggest using a paper bag (which you can write your intentions on and then place the herbs inside) and wrap it tight with cotton string.  Depending on the nature of the herbs, you might be able to make your bundle without the bag, especially if you have a lot of long plant stalks, etc.  If you are using green/fresh herbs, you probably want to just bundle them without the bag using cotton string so that they will have a chance to dry out.  If you don’t grow your own herbs and/or don’t do wild foraging, this options probably isn’t as good for you as it requires a good amount of herbs and obtaining them may be more cost prohibative.  Never fear, there are many other options!

 

The Resin and Herb Bundle:  Conifer resins are a great addition to the herbal healing bundle; they smolder and produce a very good deal of smoke and last for a long time.  You can add conifer resins to a standard herbal healing bundle or use them on their own.  You don’t want to throw these directly in a fire; they are better off smoldering on coals.  You can also add conifer needles and branches, which will sometimes crackle and pop.

 

Pine cone bundle – this was for blessing the conifers of the land

Pine cone / Herb Bundle: Pine cones make great smoldering options, as they often contain a lot of resin in them.  I like to sprinkle my pine cones with herbs and then bind them together.

 

Shapes, Rings, and Effigies: Rather than putting your materials in a bag, you might instsead choose to shape some form–a wreath, for example, offers additional symbolism. Certain kinds of herbs and plants are obviously better for this than others.  An easy way to do this is to get a wooden ring started (see my instructions here for how I did this for a different project) and then from there, you can use cotton string to wrap dried or fresh herbs around the ring, layering until you have somehing you are happy with.

 

Things that Burn:

The Conifer Bundle: Conifer trees love to burn, and many of them have needles that are flamable, even when they are green and not dried out.  Eastern white cedar and other cedars, in particular, goes up well.  You can create a bundle of fresh or dried conifer boughs (or create a wreath or other shape).  This would be a good way to use up material from your Yule tree or else if you or a neighbor were trimming hedges of confiers, etc.   Bundle them up with cotton string and watch the sparks fly!

 

The Wax and Herb Bundle: An alternative to the large bundle described above uses beeswax candles wraped in herbs.  Beeswax will burn very brightly and leave off powerful light, and thus, is particularly good when you want to be bringing energy into a situation.  Take 1-2 beeswax candles (or a small brick of beeswax) and then layer the outside with herbs.  Or, you can heat wax up till its just soft, and then, roll herbs into the candle.  When you throw this into the fire, it will burn brightly and send energy outward quickly.

 

The Wooden Message Bundle: A final option is to use wood itself to fashion something–a bundle of sticks, wrapped with messages or healing words.  A wooden round with wood burning or natural ink messages, a wooden object bound together with string; a vine wreath with tucked in messages, and so on.  The sky is really the limit here.

Burning a Land Healing and Blessing Slab at Beltane

This first photo is for a simple healing for my own land; working with a wooden slab that I created and later burned ritually.  My own land was damaged through logging the year before I bought it, and I’ve been doing a lot of healing work here.  Burning this in a central fire helped send that blessing energy out to the land (and after burning it, to help further the intention, I did some cleaning up of a burn pile left by the previous owners that I had found a few weeks earlier).

Prayers for the world bundle

The second was a more in-depth bundle I created for holding space for species in decline and in danger of extinction and for ecosystems under direct threat. Each of the sticks in the bundle was a message that I wrote and tied to each stick; each stick became part of the larger bundle, which I sealed with wax. Each of these prayers were global in nature, thus, the smoke would carry the energy where it needed to go.

 

Part 2: A Sacred Fire

The bundles can be made anytime in advance of your fire ritual.  You can also make them together, as a grove or group of people.  To do your ritual itself, you can choose an aspicious day for your ritual (a full moon, a new moon, one of the wheel of the year holidays, etc).  I used Beltane for my most recent bundles–which are what the photos are of in this post.

 

If you can, I suggest building the fire intentionally and using traditional techniques (or in the least, not starting your fire with fossil fuels like lighter fluid–this is a healing ceremony, and using fossil fuels which are causing so much ecological damage sends the wrong signal and energetically, has issues).

 

Fire ready to accept healing bundles

Prior to starting your fire, I suggest that you open up a sacred space using whatever method you typically use (for druids, this might include delcaring peace in the quarters, calling in the four elements, saying the druid’s prayer, and casting a circle or protective sphere around the space). Once you’ve setup your sacred space, light your fire and tend it till you have what you need: good coals you can rake into an open area (for the smoldering bundles) or a blaze (for the burnables).

 

Part 3: Burning Your Bundle and Sending Energy Out

Once you are ready, place your bundle before you.  I like to do an elemental blessing of my bundle at the fire, blessing it with the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water, inviting those elements into the bundle to help with the healing work.  You could do other things here, for example, if you are a reiki practitioner, you could send some reiki energy into the bundle, etc.  You might also raise energy in the bundle in other ways; drumming a steady beat into the bundle also works great.

 

Burning the healing bundle–I let the fire go almost out, then I put it on there and it smoldered for a long time.

State your intentions for the bundle, and offer it to the fire.  Observe as it burns, watching it and seeing if you see any messages within the fire.  As it burns, you want to envision that energy going to where you want it to–that the winds take that energy to the places you wish it to travel.  This may take some time, and my suggestion is to hold space for the duration of the bundle burning and smoldering.  You might also do other things to help the energy get there: drum, dance, sing, etc.

 

Once you are done, close out the space, and if at all possible, allow the fire to burn out naturally.

The Druid’s Crane Bag April 21, 2019

A druid’s crane bag is a special bag, a magical bag, that many druids carry with them. Often full of shells, rocks, magical objects, feathers, stones, Ogham staves, representations of the elements, ritual tools, and much more, a crane bag is wonderfully unique to each druid! A few years ago, I shared a post about how to create a crane bag and a description of my bag at the time; today’s post revisits and deepens the treatment of this topic.  In this post, we’ll look at the concept of the crane bag and where it came from, four potential purposes for bags, and some tips and tricks for how to put them together and what they might include.  This is a wonderful part of the druid tradition that anyone, including those walking other paths, can enjoy!

 

My “ritual in a bag” crane bag, which I recently completed. 

Crane Bag History and Purpose

The term “Crane bag” comes from Irish mythology.  In this mythos, Manannán mac Lir is a major sea god who is also the guardian of the otherworld.  One of his many treasures is a magical bag, known as a crane bag. As they myths go, he originally crafted the bag from the skin of a crane, hence the name. This wonderful, bottomless bag was full of many treasures: his knife and shirt, the shears of the King of Scotland, the helmet of the King of Lochlainn, the bones of Assal’s swine, a girdle of a great white whale’s back, birds, hounds, and other things.  His bag also contained human language, a powerful tool.  Some versions of the myths also suggest that the Ogham, the Celtic tree alphabet that is still in modern use, was also within the bag. In the myths, the bag’s treasures can be seen in the sea at high tide, but they disappear during low tide. In certain myths, the bag comes into the possession of Irish heroes such as Lug Lámfhota, Liath Luachra, and Fionn mac Cumhaill.

 

In the modern druid tradition, we are inspired by this mythology, and druids often create magical bags of their own.  A crane bag is not a singular thing, but as unique as each druid themselves: thus, the size, shape, and materials contained within the bag are up to an individual druid.  In the remainder of this post, I’ll show you various options for bags, styles, and purposes to help you develop your own crane bag.

 

Planning Your Crane Bag: Crane Bag Purposes and Options

Just as each druid’s path is unique, your crane bag should be an expression of you and your druid path. I think the most important consideration for your crane bag, even before we get into size, composition, or what goes into the bag is your purpose.  In talking with druids, particularly in the OBOD and AODA communities on the East Coast of the US, there seems to be three general purposes for crane bags: the ritual-in-a-bag approach, the power object bag approach, the field approach, or a combination of all three.

 

Some of the many things that can go in your crane bag

The Ritual-in-a-Bag.  The first approach to a druid’s crane bag is that it is a special bag that can hold all of your ritual tools. These tools, then, come with you wherever you go. For example, one druid I met at a gathering had a larger leather bag.  In this bag, she had her elemental representations, wand, a small sickle, and a small notebook. She indicated that anywhere she went, her tools could go with her, and she could easily break into “spontaneous” ritual with her tools at hand.  She also enjoyed carrying the bag to larger druid gatherings, thus, her tools went with her and also benefited from the energy raised at such gatherings. I have used this approach myself, and offer an example later in this article.

 

The Power Object Bag.  A second approach that seems common is to have a much smaller crane bag, one that is carried on your person frequently, or at all times.  Often, these will be bags small enough to fit in your pocket, around your neck under your clothing, or attached to a belt.  Contained within the bag are objects of spiritual significance to you–sacred stones, shells, sticks, herbs, teeth, bones, or whatever else is personally significant and powerful to you.  Those druids who I have spoken to who use this approach believe that you grow a stronger connection to the objects and bag the more the bag is physically with you. The objects, also, are able to lend you their strength, power, and protection throughout the day as you carry your bag.  A good friend of mine uses this approach; his is a small but ornate belt pouch that is always attached to his belt, and so each day, without fail, his crane bag goes with him.  It is with him when he works, hikes, drives, or whatever else he is doing.

 

The Field Bag. The third approach is creating a crane bag that will aid one out in nature–for this, you usually get not only objects of spiritual significance but also practical significance: land offerings, knives, folding saws, hori hori (an all purpose japanese gardening tool that is great for foraging and herbalism), bags, flint and steel or other fire-starting equipment, paracord, and more.  The philosophy behind this crane bag is that if you are going out in nature, it is useful to be prepared, particularly if you are interested in doing some wild food or medicine foraging, camp out for the evening, bushcraft, or other kinds of wildcrafting.  Thus, when a druid takes this bag with them, they are prepared for anything!

 

The Anything Goes/Combination Bag. The final approach uses a combination of all of the above–perhaps some items of personal significance along with a few ritual tools and a few tools to be out in the field.  My first crane bag, described in detail in my earlier post, uses this method (see all of the contents here). The benefit of this approach is that you end up with a multi-purpose bag that can serve a variety of needs.

 

Creating or Finding Your Crane Bag

My First Crane Bag: Repurposed secondhand find!

Today’s crane bags need not be made of crane leather, but can be made of any durable material: leather, hide, skin, linen, wool, cloth, denim, and so on. You can make your bag yourself, you can purchase it secondhand, or you can have someone make it for you. I do believe, in my conversations with many druids about their crane bags, that many prefer to make them, as it lends their own personal energy into the bag.  If you don’t make it yourself, find a special way of personalizing your bag.  For example, my first crane bag, pictured here, was a small denim bag with zippers and pockets that I found at a thrift store.  I personalized it by painting it with acrylics, and I am happy and delighted that the paint has held up for many, many years!

 

The bag can be large or small; however, you will want it large enough that it will fit your purpose and to carry what you would like it to carry (and think also about the future–what you might want to add to your bag at a later date). Depending on the size of your bag, it can be held or connected to a belt, cord, or slung across the shoulders and carried more like a traditional bag, depending on the size.  Most druids carry their crane bags into ritual (and around gatherings, if they attend), many may also carry them into the woods or other natural places, so it should also be something comfortable to take with you, particularly on long journeys or when you travel.

 

 

Items for Your Bag

Any item of spiritual or practical significance can go in your bag.  I encourage you to think about local ingredients, local materials, or those repurposed in other ways.  Many of the things in my bag are gifts from others or things that I found or made. Here’s a list of what I might consider essentials; these go in every crane bag that I have made or carry:

• A small journal (Moleskine or other small journals work great for this). I never want to be out in the woods or anywhere else without my journal–this allows me to record my thoughts at any time. I especially appreciate this “old technology” as opposed to a cell phone for recording as I don’t think there is anything as disruptive of a sacred experience as pulling out one’s phone.
• A few handy tools: I like to always take with me a lighter/matches, a knife, and a plastic or cloth bag or two to carry anything I find.  Even in my more “ritual tools” style crane bag, I make sure to have these with me.
• Offerings.  I don’t go anywhere without offerings. I recently shared how to make a wildcrafted herbal blessing oil and  sacred herbal blend for offerings.  A blessed magic seed ball also makes a great offering. Anything you want to carry with you that you can offer is approrpriate.
• Elements. As someone working within the context of both OBOD and AODA druidry, I find being able to work with the elements in physical form really helpful.  So I always have, in any bag, representations of each of these. They don’t have to be physical representations (fire, etc) but could be four small stones, woodburned images, and so on.  The sky is the limit!

Once I pull stuff out of my ritual-in-a-bag, I can make a beautiful altar setup for outdoor ritual work.

 

Here is a much larger list that you might consider for including in your crane bag:

• Rocks and minerals
• Shells, corals, or sand (in a small bottle)
• Plants, leaves, twigs, roots or pieces of bark
• Herbs, oils, infusions, concoctions, tinctures, teas or healing brews
• Seeds of all kinds
• Feathers
• Fur, nails, bones, claws, teeth or other animal parts (only those that are legal to have, of course)
• Animal, plant, or spirit totems of any kind (for example, the small carved soapstone animals are a nice addition to a crane bag)
• Divination tools, such as Ogham, runes, or tarot decks
• Small musical instruments (like an ocarina, small flute, etc)
• Jewelry or necklaces of significance
• Tiny journals or books
• A small altar cloth
• Bags, jars, and other vessels for holding things (like collecting sacred waters, etc)
• Ritual tools such as a small candle (a battery-powered candle is convenient when traveling), small sickle, knife, candle, etc.
• Any other items with a spiritual purpose
• Quarter stones (four or eight stones you can place at the circle to help hold the space)

 

Example Crane Bags: Druid’s Power Bag and Ritual in a Bag

I have three primary crane bags, one that fits each of the possibilities above.  My earlier post offered an example of an all purpose crane bag, so again, check that post out for photos.  I also have a regular backpack that I dedicate to foraging, but that has some sacred tools (the essentials) that will go with me on longer hikes.   I didn’t take photos of that one, as its not very pretty looking but is rather very functional.  But I did want to share examples of the other two: the druid’s power bag and the Ritual in the Bag crane bag.

 

The first bag is the Druid’s Power bag.  This is a small leather bag I made, and in the photograph, are some *examples* of what you could put in a bag.  I believe that the bag itself and the actual contents of a power bag should never be photographed, or really, even talked about.  This is a bag of sacred objects to you, and if you talk too much about it, you can talk the magic out of it.  So I am not showing you my actual contents, but I think this gives you a good example of what could contain and look like: natural items, small clay and stone statuary, beads, stones, jewelry, etc.  So in this photo we have some things people have given me, stones, stone animals, a bracelet, a ceramic bear, a painted pendant, nuts and seeds, and more.

Potential power bag with objects

 

The other bag I want to show today is the “ritual in a bag” crane bag. I have been working on this bag for six months, and I’m delighted to have completed it to share with you.  The goal of this bag was simple: I do a lot of ritual work outside, right on my land or in a nearby state park. What was happening is that when I needed tools, I’d put them in a basket from my altar, but the tools were quite heavy and bringing them back up the mountain on my land was a problem, and carrying them into the woods at the state park was even more of a problem (it isn’t fun to carry four large ceramic altar bowls!)  Further, when I have friends that visit, we often go into the woods with sacred intent, and I wanted a bag that I could literally just ‘grab and go’ that offered me everything I needed to do a nice ritual with the bells and whistles. I’ve also been working hard to improve my leather working skills, so this bag was also a challenge to me as a bardic practitioner. Finally, I wanted my sacred plant allies to be with me with the energy of the bag.  I wanted it small enough that I could put it in my foraging bag and still had room for other tools.

Hawthorn and elder each are on a pocket on the front of the bag, behind the flap

The leather bag itself I designed and put together.  I used leather tooling and then a leather acrylic and acrylic sealer on the bag itself, which I hope will last over time (we will see!)  This brought beauty into the bag and helped imbue my own energy with it.  On the bag, I have some of my most sacred plant allies: wild yam (on the edge of the strap), ghost pipe, hawthorn, and elder.  These are all plants I regularly work with and who are local to my ecosystem.

Another shot of the bag

Inside the bag, I have everything that I need for a ritual.  This includes five copper bowls (I purchased these on Etsy from a regional craftsperson; they are great because they are super durable and light).  Four of these are for the elements and the fifth is for offerings or other purposes.  When I’m out in the woods, I usually fill the air bowl with sand or soil, then stick an incense block or cone in it.  The fire bowl gets a little candle (with jar, otherwise it will go out), the water bowl gets some local water, and the earth bowl can be filled with soil, rocks, nuts, sticks, whatever is around.  In the photo, you can also see two little incense containers and also a smoke clearing stick (smudge stick), it has its own little package.  You can also see the small altar cloth (this particular cloth was a gift from a dear friend and mentor, and is a very cherished part of my ritual gear), which rolls up nicely and fits in the bottom of the bag.

Ritual tools in the bag

Finally, I have an elemental woodburning with an awen; when I place this on my altar, it reminds me of the four directions (extremely useful for someone like me with dyslexia).

Elemental woodburned piece for remembering the directions!

Here are some other things that show up in my ritual-in-a-bag: my favorite ritual flute, a small knife (used mostly for ritual, but also for herb harvesting), a vial for water (I like to save water from my rituals or from places where I do ritual and add it to a water altar), a lighter, and a journal.

More crane bag tools

One of the keys I think to keeping a small crane bag is careful packaging.  I have used a lot of special packaging to keep things together: sewing little bags for the elemental bowls, having a wrap for my tarot deck, having a wrap for my my smoke clearing stick so that it doesn’t flake off everywhere in the bag, and so forth.  One of the bags below contains all of my land offerings.

Packaging helps!

 

Even with all of these great tools, which you can carry everywhere, what doesn’t fit in the bag is Acorn!

Acorn is blessing the altar!

 

I hope that this post helps de-mystify the druid’s crane bag and offers you a number of ideas that you might use in your own druid based, OBOD, AODA, or nature spirituality practice. In the words of John Gilbert, former AODA Archdruid of Air, “Your Druid Crane Bag is the badge of a Druid. Wear it with pride and with honor to yourself and the Druid Craft.”

Cultural Appropriation, Plant Relationships, and Nature Connection March 31, 2019

As a druid, someone who connects to the local landscape spiritually, I’ve gotten my fair share questions about cultural appropriation and druidry’s relationship to indigenous practices, particularly traditions indigenous to the USA. The conversation may go something like this, “So druidry, is that like Native American?” My response is, “Druids and Native Americans both honor and respect the land, and see spiritual significance in nature.  However, Druidry comes from a different cultural tradition (the British Isles, particularly Wales) and our relationship with the land, spiritual practices, and celebrations are completely different than indigenous peoples in North America”  Another thing that happens with some frequency is that I describe something on this blog, like land healing, building sacred spaces, or other such spiritual work. And someone who has never commented before leaves a comment that says something like “You don’t have a right to do that, this land belongs to Native Americans” or “You need to ask permission from those who used to live here to work spiritually with the land.” I usually delete these comments because they seem more concerned with virtue signaling than about honoring and healing the land and building bridges or building understanding.  But in my time in druid leadership in various places, I see a lot of white druids seriously grappling with these same kinds of questions and issues–and so I want to share my thoughts.

 

Another observation: here in the US, white people who are trying to reconnect to their land spiritually carry around a lot of baggage. Guilt about the atrocities that were committed so that we could live on this land, guilt about what was done before we were born, guilt about always being an “imposter” here on the land, guilt about living here now. Even if you don’t know your family history, if you are white, the cultural history and legacy of the broader US are more than sufficient. There’s also a lot of fear–fear of connecting deeply with nature, fear of appropriation (even inadvertent appropriation), fear of doing something wrong, of somehow doing more damage than has been already done. I never realized the extent of this fear and guilt–even within me–till I met druid who had recently came from Europe and moved to the US. I connected with her at a druid event where I was leading a workshop and ritual. After the workshop, she said to me that she felt that Americans were so afraid of their land. After her comment, we had more discussions and I started to pay attention, and I realized how acute her observation was. Culturally, there’s also this idea that if you are a white person, you really don’t have the right or privilege to connect with the land here. So the guilt sets in, the fear sets in, and people do nothing.  How, then, can white American druids build a relationship with nature, given these cultural complexities?  How can we build a relationship rooted in honoring the ancestors of the land and recognizing culturally, what work we have to do? And, do we have a right to do so? And why should we? Those questions are the subject of today’s blog post.

 

Building connections with nature

As I’ve discussed before on this blog, druidry as a spiritual path is ultimately about connection and relationship building. People who find druidry and take up the druid path are concerned with building deeper connections to nature, physically and in spirit, and in living a life that is nurturing of the earth rather than destructive of her. People from all walks of life, ethnicities, religious backgrounds, etc, can join the druid tradition; it is open to anyone who seeks this path. I want to frame this entire discussion about cultural appropriation in terms of relationship, as I think it is a useful and productive lens. So let’s start by thinking about the definition of relationship. Here are a few dictionary definitions, useful to get us started. Definition A: “the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected” and B: “the way in which two or more people or groups regard and behave toward each other.” In the case of druid practice, we are exploring ways that we, as 21st century human beings living in specific ecosystems, and coming out of specific cultural and historical traditions, connect spiritually with our living ecosystems around us. My definition here, then, accounts not only for a specific person, but that person living in a specific context, and bringing specific history with them.  And it is this “cultural and historical context” that has everything to do with appropriation–but also, nature relationship.

 

Here in Pennsylvania, prior to white colonization, old growth forests covered the land, producing massive amounts of mast crops (acorns and chestnuts) with about 1/3 of the total forest cover in hardwood nut trees; streams were clear and full of fish; animals and hunting lands were abundant. Native Americans, as M. Kat Anderson describes in Tending the Wilds, tended these lands and had them in a very healthy state of abundance. As non-industrial societies, they depended on the land, build spiritual practices surrounding their relationship to the land, and many tribes had rich animistic traditions surrounding the land and her spirits. Traditions that, in some cases, spanned hundreds or thousands of years.  Framing this in terms of relationship–generations upon generations of Native Americans were tending the wilds and cultivating a sacred relationship with their landscape. Every person in that tribe gained strength from those ancestral connections to land, established over generations upon generations. Even for a native person today, those connections are still present, and I think they are beautifully described in the works of Robin Wall Kimmerer, among other native authors.

 

But a white person’s cultural relationship to our local landscape here in the USA is completely different. Let’s take a look at my own cultural relationship as an example.  As a white person living in Western PA in the 21st century, I can trace my ancestors back to the late 1600’s and 1700’s arriving on American soil.  My ancestors were some of the first people to arrive to Pennsylvania; and some of the first to push westward into Western PA and settle the Laurel Highlands region. My family heritage is Irish, Welsh, Scottish, English (about 75%) and German (25%). The strongest cultural heritage I grew up with was Pennsylvania German (Dutch) traditions, passed on to me in some small ways by my grandmother. This makes me very, very white, and the descendant of coal miners, farmers, steel mill workers, loggers, and other people who worked hard to colonize and extract the rich resources of Pennsylvania to fuel growing industrialization. In our family records, and in my own ancestry research, I know that when my ancestors first arrived, these lands were a cornucopia of abundance and were pristine. Within less than 150 years due to their efforts, these lands were desolate wastelands, extracted of their wood, coal, iron, tannins, animals, fish–anything that could feed the industry.  I know from a copy of the Department of Forestry’s Annual Report from 1898 from PA, that less than 4% of forest cover remained by the turn of the 20th century in counties where my ancestors settled. Further, in less than two centuries, Native peoples who made these lands their home were slaughtered or forcefully relocated to “Indian Territory” in Oklahoma. When I look upon the lands where I was born, lands that are still the subject of many extraction activities, I have to recognize the colonialist legacy that produced me. That’s the cultural and historical reality of the blood that moves through my veins.  Regardless of how much I have personally worked to reconnect with the land, I cannot deny or change this history.  My ancestry offers me little positive spiritual “connection”, historical or otherwise, to this land.  So I return to my original question, “How, then, can I, as a white druid, build a relationship with nature?”

Acid Mine Drainage–a local stream demonstrating the cultural legacy of white people in this region

 

Probably the worst way to answer these questions is to engage in cultural appropriation. When we look at the above–it makes sense that no white person wanting to connect spiritually with nature wants the cultural and historical baggage that being white on this soil brings. (For the record, it doesn’t matter if we want it, it is ours and we need to acknowledge it and work to right these wrongs). And so, a white person might be drawn away from their own cultural traditions, which offer no spiritual connection to the land, and instead, attempt to shift themselves into a different relationship with nature. Some people choose to do this, most unfortunately, by trying to appropriate various Native American traditions. Some have tried to spiritually practice like a Native American, of appropriate Native American traditions or beliefs as their own, or, in the most extreme cases, even claiming to be offering ceremony in a Native American way or in the way of a specific tribe. Native Americans call such people who appropriate their traditions “plastic shamans”; and I think the term is apt. In other words, these white people are attempting to claim the relationship to the land that only Native Americans have a right to. Understanding this issue as tied to relationship, the appropriation is not just about appropriating specific ceremonies or traditions, but really, it is an attempt to claim that indigenous relationship to the land and her spirits. (There are exceptions: in some limited cases, a white person has been welcomed into a tribe or by an elder and taught with intention.)

 

The relationship metaphor is a really useful one here for breaking down why cultural appropriation is so problematic and why cultural appropriation should have no place in the druidry–or any nature-based spiritual practice–of white people. You might think about your current relationships you have with other people: each one is unique, each one is different. Your immediate and extended family and friend network are all relationships cultivated over a long period of time. Each person in you know has a different relationship with you than any other person. Maybe one friend is fun to hang out with and chill out, but another one is a good travel partner, and still another you can share your deepest secrets with. If you have a partner or spouse, certainly, that relationship is very sacred and very unique.  You wouldn’t want another person to try to barge in and claim your spouse as their own–you would rightfully be defensive, angry, and demand that person stop. That’s essentially what I think appropriation is–taking someone else’s relationship with the land and claiming it as yours. It is no wonder that people whose traditions are subject to such appropriation are rightfully upset about it.

 

Further, relationships are complex and nested. I’m individual, yes, with my own ethics, spiritual path, and decisions to make. I’ve worked hard to build my relationship with my local land over time.  But I bring with me–in the very blood that flows through me–the DNA of my ancestors. I bring with me, for good or for ill, that cultural legacy and that history, the choices that they made, and I am living the benefits and consequences of those choices. As a white person, I simply cannot hope to have the same kind of relationship that a Native person has on this land today–because relationships aren’t just about individuals, they are about cultures and generations of people. Under no circumstances could I *ever* replicate someone else’s cultural relationship to the land, even if I tried.  Not only is trying to do so problematic from a cultural, ethical, and historical standpoint, it is deeply problematic from a spiritual one (and I don’t think the land spirits are having any of it).

 

My druid’s garden full of sacred plants!

Now, let’s take a look at a very specific plant example here, to further illustrate my point. A few posts ago I wrote about the issues surrounding white sage and other at-risk plants. Let’s dig into white sage specifically, as it is an American plant used by a number of native traditions. There are a lot of different perspectives surrounding white sage and whether or not white people should use it.  These perspectives range from “don’t even look at this plant if you aren’t native” to “buy white sage from natives and support them” to “anyone can use this plant for any purpose.” I think the first line of reasoning suggests that only one culture can have a relationship with a plant that grows broadly, thus, cutting off that plant medicine and spirit to anyone else. As a druid, I see all of nature as sacred, particularly, the nature growing in my own ecosystem, and I think each person and culture can build new relationships with plants. At the same time, I also think the last perspective is problematic, as that is the source of white privilege and cultural appropriation.  What I see as the thing here is acknowledging that other cultures and people may have a specific relationship with a plant, and it is not ok to try to mimic that relationship with a plant. Instead, druids and others can build their own relationships with plants–relationships that are their own. White sage certainly has chemical properties that may help clear and heal. However, native tribes, such as the Luiseno and Cahuilla people in California, built up a very sacred relationship with white sage over millenia. Someone who is not part of that cultural legacy has no right to try to claim that specific relationship with white sage. This goes back to why indigenous peoples get upset when white people try to appropriate their plants and ceremonies–its trying to lay claim to a spiritual relationship that belongs to a culture.  If the plant’s use comes from a cultural tradition that you can rightfully access, then great, access it.  But if it doesn’t, those doors are closed to you, and you will never have a key. But it will be yours.  But what you DO have the ability to do is to create your own relationship.  It will be a different door.  It will be a different relationship. It will be a different key.

 

 

The land, her spirits, here in the US, even after all that is happened culturally, welcome relationships with white people.  But for white people living here, these must be *new relationships* and they need to be built upon acknowledging and honoring the past, building trust, and about repairations, accountability, and building trust. It is up to each of us to forge those connections, and for larger druid groups to start to do that on a broader, generational level. In other words, white people have build those relationships ourselves, and they are going to be inherently different looking because of our own identities, cultures, and histories. This is why talking about cultural appropriation matters–because we have our work cut out for us, and there are no easy short cuts. If we want to build deep, meaningful, and lasting relationships with the land here, we’ve got to do the work from the ground up. If we are appropriating someone else’s culture and spiritual practice, we aren’t doing the hard and necessary work of relationship building for our own tradition–hence, we are perpetuating more colonizing behavior.

 

So, as white druids living in 21st century American soil, we have a lot of work ahead of us.  I see at a number of things that we can do to build our own traditions and relationships with this land, and offer this list as a starting point.

 

A love of the land and nurturing of spirit

Become a nurturer and healer of the land. Reject the cultural values of exploitation and colonization that have shaped white people’s legacy here on American soil. Instead, work to reduce your own ecological footprint, learn to heal the land (through permaculture, sustainable living, conservation, other means), and develop a very different relationship with the physical landscape than other white people, past or present. Relationships with spirits are mirrored on the physical world. To get the land and spirits to trust you, to recognize you are different than other white faces that have come before, you have to behave differently–outside of the typical behaviors of exploitation. This is part of breaking down the past cultural legacy and establishing new patterns.

 

Honor the ancestors of the land and recognize those who came before you on this soil.  I think there are lots of ways to honor the ancestors of the land, and here are a few of those that I use.  First, learn about who the ancestors of the land where you live. Learn about who they were, what they did, how they lived, their stories, and what happened to them. For example, the peoples who lived where my home is located now were Osage, Shawnee, and Susquehannock. Today, the Osage and Shawnee are in Oklahoma, which is where they were forcefully moved by the US government. The Susquehannok are said to be extinct. (To find out who used to live in your region,  you might start with this site.) Once you know about them, find some way of honoring them regularly: perhaps say their names at the start of your rituals, create a shrine, or do an honoring ceremony as part of your practice.

 

Support and recognize the rights of indigenous peoples today. If there are still native peoples in your area or region, find ways of supporting them–if they need someone to come to a fight or take a stand, be that ally.  If there are not native tribes in your area, consider finding a cause that you can assist in that supports the rights of indigenous people regionally or globally. For example, I donate regularly to an organization called Cultural Survival, which fights globally for indigenous peoples’ rights. I also subscribe to their mailing list, which often has items you can take action on and keep you informed about global developments. I also think, as a white person, it is really important to do the “ground work”  to speak up for indigenous rights. Have compassionate conversations with other people about cultural appropriation, indigenous rights, and history.  Talk about these issues.  Recognize your own flaws and misjudgments.  Apologize. Learn and grow.

 

Recognize that we are building relationships, over time, in a new way. Because we are white people on US soil, we have very little to build upon. We are here, inventing and growing this tradition organically, a tradition imported from white ancestors, yes, but from a far off place. While this is a major challenge before us, it is also a really exciting opportunity.  In permaculture terms, we talk about the problem being the solution–in this case, our problem allows us to build something anew.  Something that responds to this time, this place, and honors our own path as white druids in the 21st century while not dishonoring those who were here before us. This requires us to deeply invest our time in learning about the land through building nature wisdom, nature connection, and our own rituals.

 

I hope this piece is helpful for those white druids who are struggling with these issues.  For this post, I am indebted to members of Sun Spiral grove, who spoke with me at multiple settings about these issues, and including members of the grove who read and offered me feedback on this post.  I also realize and recognzie that there may be things I haven’t thought about.  This is a tough topic, and I appriciate your respectful feedback. Blessings!

The Druid’s Garden: Principles of Sacred Gardening March 10, 2019

Part of my own Druid’s Garden!

One of the greatest blessings of gardening and growing things is the deep energetic connections that you can develop with plants. When I grow a pepper in my garden, I have developed a relationship with that plant from the time I planted the seed in February, where I tend it and keep it sheltered from the winter weather, to the planting and mulching of that small pepper in late May. This relationship continues as I nurture it into maturity throughout the summer, where flowers and the actual peppers start to emerge. I monitor that pepper plant for insects and disease and do what I can to ensure its success. Finally, I watch the peppers grow large and fat in the heat of the summer. At that point, I have an eight-month relationship with that pepper plant. When I eat the pepper in late August, I know where it came from, and just as importantly, I’ve developed an energetic connection with it. When I save the seed from that pepper for next season, the relationship becomes even stronger. The pepper will not be casually wasted, given how much energy has been put into it. We are connected; that connection is sacred. The connection is rooted in the time, the hard work, and the co-dependence that I create with the plants. This isn’t a lesson that I would have ever understood had I not started growing and preserving some of my own food and in dedicating myself to gardening as a sacred practice. You wouldn’t know the difference between a factory farmed pepper or your home-grown pepper if the factory farmed pepper is all you’ve ever eaten. Someone growing up in a non-industrialized culture from birth would learn to recognize and nurture that sacred connection between the human and the soil, and the codependency that connection provides. However, for people growing up in western industrialized cultures, not only do we not have the connection—we don’t’ even realize one is missing.

 

Whether we are growing in pots on our porch or in a big garden, all gardens offer us opportunity for these connections. It is in these gardens that we can begin to cultivate and to understand the sacred: a sacred awareness of the plants and their cycles; a sacred awareness of the magic of the seed and the soil; and a sacred awareness of our relationship to the growing things, the mystery of life.

And yet, conventional ‘gardening wisdom’ is often full of things that aren’t that healthy for cultivating natural relationships.  I had hoped, a few years ago, to get a Master Gardener certification–once I saw the amount of pesticides and non-organic methods they taught, I went the permaculture design route instead.  I think a lot of the conventional wisdom about gardening, whether its importing non-natural additives, spraying, etc, taks us further from a sacred relationship with the living earth.  Given that, in this post, as I’m excited to start gardening again soon and have been starting many seeds, I wanted to share some ideas and ideas for a true “Druid’s Garden!”

Sacred Gardening: Wheel of Principles

In order to think about sacred gardening, druid gardening, I’ve developed a “wheel of principles” that help me make decisions about my garden. Some of these are rooted in permaculture design, others are more druidical in nature, still others are insights I’ve gained over the years of living and working with this approach.  Think of the wheel of principles like general ideas to think about or guidelines; ways of ensuring a sacred experience while you are starting to tend your plants for the coming year.

 

Working on the Inner and the Outer

Working with Spirit and Matter (an original painting I did a few years back!)

This basic magical principle, derived from hermetic magical practice, is perhaps best epitomized by the magical adage, “As above, so below, as within, so without.” The underling idea here is that what we do on the inner planes (that is, realms of experience beyond the physical), has a direct impact on the physical plane. Similarly, what occurs on the outer planes has an impact on the physical. This also applies to us as people—the inner work we do (reflection, meditation, journeying, ritual) impacts our outer living; and vice versa. In the disenchanted world we live in, the non-physical, spiritual aspects to various activities are simply not considered—gardening is no exception. We’ll be working with this principle in every chapter of this book—it is cornerstone to sacred gardening. 

 

Harmony with nature

Nature provides us an incredible amount of lessons and patterns to work with—by studying nature, we learn all we need to know about how to live regeneratively.  This was the basic practice that allowed permaculture design to develop, and its similarly the basic understanding that drives our actions.  A big part of the challenge with harmony with nature is that a lot of people don’t know how to live harmoniously any longer, and many of the other principles in this chapter and this book give clear guidance in how to do so.

 

The most basic principle to sacred gardening is to create a landscape that is in harmony with nature, rather opposed to it, and to create a landscape that produces yields beyond food for the human being. Yes, you read that might—sacred gardening is about much more than vegetables, and embraces the permaculture ethical principles of earth care, people care, and fair share. This requires us to question everything we know, or think we know about growing plants, to reject the urge to consume, and to throw out a good deal of the “conventional” wisdom that has been ported into our heads in the name of consumerism. This is because most conventional wisdom has a price tag attached, and rarely is anything you purchase to put in your garden from a big box store is healthy to you or to the land.

 

We think of a “yield” from a garden, the amount of vegetables, fruits, and herbs you can harvest is likely the first (and possibly only) thing that comes to mind. But if we are thinking about gardening as a regenerative practice for our lands, earth care also is critical. This means that our yield can also be habitat, nectar, improved soil fertility, improved biodiversity, better water retention, beauty, community, a place for meditation and prayer, and so many other things. In other words, if we extend our idea of what a yield from the garden looks like, then we can yield as much for the land as four ourselves.

 

Parts to the Whole

This principle is derived from permaculture design, and it can be easily illustrated in any forest. Our culture currently encourages metaphors that suggest that things are not related to the other, when in reality, what affects one thing affects many. So this principle asks us to consider how the parts are related to each other and to the whole. This principle suggests that parts work best when they are working together as a system, rather than in isolation.  In specific garden terms, this might be practicing integrated pest management, working to plant guilds and do companion planting, and understand how your garden ties to–and supports–other kinds of life.  Perhaps you grow sunflowers and amaranth and leave them out all winter to provide forage for hungry sparrows!  Gardens shouldn’t be in competition with nature, but rather, support

 

Layered Purposes

Layering garden beds in the fall to build soil

This principle is also derived from permaculture design.  It suggests that each element can serve multiple purposes. For example, meditation works for calming the mind, focused thought, relaxation, and spiritual development (that’s at least four functions).  My chickens produce eggs, create compost from household and garden waste, provide enjoyment and companionship, and reduce problematic insect populations.  When we engage in sacred action, we can use this principle to help us find activities that allow us to address more than one purpose.

 

Think about what you are planting and its relationship to everything else. Permaculture design asks us to de-compartmentalize our thinking and realize that everything is connected.  Many plants do well with certain companion plants (as epitomized in the book title Carrots Love Tomatoes) but not necessarily with others. Certain herbs and plants, like chives, lavender, nasturtium, and garlic, can ward away pests and critters, eliminating the need for chemical deterrents. A garden hedge of wildflowers that bloom different times can provide beneficial insects homes and food—these insects help keep the pests down in your garden. Even within a home, thinking about these principles can be used to create systems that require little inputs—home aquaponics is a fantastic way to grow tons of fresh vegetables—just feed the fish! Composting not only reduces food waste and what goes into a landfill, it provides incredible finished compost for use in the soil. We see here the idea of both embracing diversity and building an ecosystem and making sure each plant in that ecosystem is chosen carefully to have multiple functions when possible.

 

Embrace Renewables

Stemming from the idea of earth care, one of the major issues we have in industrialized culture is an over-dependence on fossil fuels and other non-renewable sources of energy and goods. The truth is, we have finite resources on this planet; things that are renewable or free (like the sun or wind for energy) are better than those that are not (like coal for energy). This principle is derived from permaculture design, but it also can be found in many other places.

 

Support diversity

This principle asks us to consider diversity in our designs. We might think about this in terms of polycultures rather than monocultures.  A perennial garden is more diverse and resilient—it can handle pests, disease, and drought much better than a monoculture cornfield.

 

Monocultures refer to a single plant (like a field of soybeans) while polycultures refer to many plants sharing the same space. Polycultures are found all throughout nature; monocultures generally are not. Polycultures can work together, where different plants accumulate nutrients (dynamic accumulators), fix nitrogen, provide forage and nectar for insects, provide food for the gardener, and so on. Monocultures do not regenerate the soil, they do not provide a healthy or balanced ecosystem, and they encourage explosions of certain kinds of pest populations due to the concentration of many of the same plant in an area. The largest monocrop grown in the USA is the lawn; but many other monocrops are also present (wheat, corn, soy, etc). Mimicking nature and using nature as our guide, we can shift from cultivating monocrops to polycultures.

 

Perennials always come back!

Along with this, we might carefully consider what that we plant and those plants’ relationship with the land. Annual agriculture (that is, your typical plants like tomatoes, corn, zucchini, beans, and so on) require the yearly work of bed prep, weeding, sowing, seed starting, and harvesting—this disrupts soil ecology and causes extra work. Shifting to use at least some perennials in your growing means that the plant is planted once—and only once—and then the soil is not disrupted again and the plant can grow and be abundant. Most of our most balanced ecosystems occurring in nature have more perennials or self-sowing annuals than the tender annuals we typically use as food crops. Entire books are written on this subject (see resources, Appendix A), so I won’t go into too much depth here. But if we are thinking about building an ecosystem, we should consider the role of our perennial crops—herbs, nuts, fruits, berries—in that garden.

 

Reflect and Revise

Reflective activity, when we simply stop what we are doing and carefully think and meditate on our actions, is a cornerstone of sacred action and its used in nature-based spiritual practices as well as permaculture. Quite contemplation (through discursive meditation, discussed in Exercise 1 below, or simply sitting quietly and pondering), is critical for this kind of work. Revise, here, suggests that if we spend time periodically really thinking through and reflecting upon what we are doing, new insights may arise that we will be able to employ in our sacred action.  Revise here also implies that not being too committed to any particular approach is good—revision is a process where we shape and hone earlier ideas into something better. Sometimes, it takes us working through a project or meaningful change partway before we see a better way we can do something.

 

A sacred, sustainable garden is not a fast process. The soil takes years to establish, the seeds take time to grow, perennials, trees and shrubs take time to bear fruit, compost takes time to make, all these stress time and patience. Just as importantly, we have to grow our knowledge to really achieve the kind of relationship with the land that we want to have. The idea that we’ll have a perfect garden in one season is simply not realistic. Like the tree that takes years to bear fruit, we must also realize that gardening, like other forms of growth, takes patience and time. Even growing sprouts on your counter, which is about the easiest way of growing anything, requires patience and time (in days, rather than weeks, months, or years). Understand that sacred gardening is a learning process and the best way to learn is to constantly educate yourself.  Take classes, help friends, visit farms, read books, watch videos—anything that will give you new perspectives on growing food. You can see a complete list of books to get you started in the appendix.

 

Reclaim Waste

Excellent compost bins!

This is another principle derived from permaculture design. Waste is a resource that has not been given a proper place—we can think about “waste” in new ways. Human waste and urine, for example, can safely be used as a fertilizer under certain conditions.  Producing no waste goes far beyond recycling!

 

When it comes to growing things, we want to make sure that everything that we grow does not go to waste and whatever nutrients are in the soil go back if at all possible. I am always saddened when I go out for bags of leaves in the fall and find whole bags of plants ripped up from someone’s garden in the brown “compost” bags they place on the curb. After spending a whole season with the plants, my neighbors would rather send them “away” than make a compost pile and add those nutrients back into the soil. These same people then go to the store and buy bags of compost and fertilizer (again, demonstrating the consumer mindset of consumeà throw awayàconsumeà throw away). I think this practice demonstrates how little modern people really understand about growing our food from a permaculture-informed and ethical perspective.

 

Consider any waste streams that can be integrated into a gardening system, like composting. Even for those growing food inside their homes, a worm composting system combined with container gardens can make use and re-use of many nutrients. For those on the more radical side, humanure (that is, composting your own waste) is always an option! Even when I’m growing sprouts on my counter, I save the water from rinsing to water my other house plants—again, turning “waste” water into something needed.

 

 

Spiraling Changes

Strawberry Spiral – Freshly Planted

Rather than starting big and going all out, we create small, slow solutions that allow us to build upon success slowly from within. You might think about your own path as that of spiraling slowly up a mountain. You don’t climb a mountain all at once and you certainly don’t do it without preparation, ongoing evaluation, and occasional breaks. Unexpected issues—and opportunities—can arise as part of the climb.  With each step you get further along and deeper into the practice. The other way of climbing is kind of moving along, bit by bit, and then suddenly looking out and realizing you are way higher than you thought! Shifting to regenerative practices are really no different: when we begin the ascent, we have a lot of energy and enthusiasm, but we also have to take our time and make sure what we are enacting is permanent and self-sustaining or our efforts are in vain. Or, we might find that in our many daily meanderings, we are doing more than we realize. Both are valuable insights!

 

One of the biggest mistakes that new and enthusiastic gardeners and sacred activists do is to go crazy, convert a huge portion of their land to various gardens in one or two seasons, and then be overwhelmed with the maintenance of those gardens. This is exactly what happened to me on my homestead—within three years, I had all but eliminated an acre of lawn and replaced it with perennials, an annual vegetable garden, herb gardens, fruit trees, and more. And while it was incredible and diverse and all of the things I’m writing about in this section—it was also way too much for me to manage. This example nicely illustrates the concept of spiraling changes: start small, work slow, and allow things to naturally unfold. See how it is managing a small garden (maybe 2 4×10’ beds) and build accordingly. Consider perennials for less intensive management over time as well.

 

Living in Gratitude

Gratitude is something missing from our everyday lives in industrialized culture, and bringing gratitude back into our actions is useful in all cases, and certainly, in a garden.  Gratitude practices for me include developing shrines to honor nature and her spirits, making regular offerings, respecting the plants and life itself with respectful planting, harvesting, and so on.

 

These are some–of many principles–that I try to live and grow by with my own relationship to the living earth.  I hope you find something in here worth taking with you–and gardening with this year!  I’d love to hear from you on other principles for sacred gardening that you use!

Sacred Tree Profile: Juniper’s Medicine, Magic, Mythology and Meanings February 3, 2019

Here on the East Coast of the USA, we are still in deep winter. Soon, the maples will be flowing.  Soon, the winter snows will melt.  Soon, spring will return.  But until that time, the conifers, particularly offer strength and wisdom.  One of my favorite conifers is Juniper, also known as Eastern Red Cedar.  It is delightful to come across a wild juniper in the winter months, with her sweet and pine-scented berries and her delightful sprigs that offer friendship and hope through the darkest times.  So come with me today as we explore the sacred Juniper tree.

 

Juniper here on the land

This post is part of my Sacred Trees in the Americas series, where I explore sacred trees within a specifically American context, drawing upon folklore, herbalism, magic, and more!  I think it’s particularly important that US druids and those following other nature-based paths in North America understand how the trees here might be different and just as magical as traditional European trees.  So this series does just that–providing research and insight on the many trees here in the US East coast.  Previous trees in this series include Birch, Elder, Walnut, Eastern White Cedar, Hemlock, Sugar Maple, Hawthorn, Hickory, Beech, Ash, White Pine, and Oak. Let’s delve into the magic, medicine, and mythology of the Juniper tree!

Description

In Eastern North America, our dominant Juniper variety is Juniperus virginiana, also known as Eastern Red Cedar. Other names for Juniper include: red juniper, baton rouge, pencil cedar, savin, or just cedar. Despite being called a Cedar, Juniper is actually in the cypress family, offering different kinds of needles (which are technically leaves)-very sharp, pointed, and prickly when they are young, and flattened, scale like, and overlapping as they age. These older needles are reminiscent of Eastern White Cedar, perhaps this is why the two are sometimes both called cedar.

 

According to John Eastman, Juniper is a long and slow growing tree.  It can live 200-300 years, and prefers open fields and other sunny locations. Junipers can produce cones starting between age 10 and age 25; some trees bear female cones and other trees bear male cones and the cones are wind pollinated. The tree is not very shade tolerant, so needs the sun in order to thrive. According to Grimm, Junipers can grow up to 30-40 feet high with a trunk diameter of 1-2 feet. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Juniper that large here in PA, as it is often instead found on dry or rocky soils, on limestone outcroppings or soils, and in abandoned fields. Unlike many conifers, Juniper cannot handle fire and can’t rehabilitate or re-establish after fire-burned sites.  However, Juniper is great at helping repopulate what are often called “wastelands” – overfarmed and abandoned fields, old gravel pits, and the like. At a distance, the Juniper tree looks like a flame, blazing up on the landscape–they are easy to spot and since they are conifers, they stay green year-round.

 

In the summer, you might come across a Juniper that looks more like an alien, with strange orange tentacles coming out of it everywhere! I remember the first time I saw this and I had no idea what i was seeing! Turns out it is the Cedar apple fungi (G. Juniperi-virginianae), which is largely harmless to the Juniper but which infect apple and hawthorn trees with a gymnosporagium rust. The rust is very detrimental to harvests of both apple and hawthorn, meaning that many who have orchards prefer to cut Junipers down rather than let them grow and possibly carry the rust.  You can tell whether or not a Juniper is infected with the rust–it will have large brown galls on it on the outer branches that have small holes within them, almost looking like potholes all over the gall. The orange alien-like tentacles come out of the nodules to spread the rust once a year–quite a sight to behold!

 

Juniper produces leaf litter that is high in calcium, creating slightly alkali soil (as compared to most conifers, whos leaf litter produces a more acidic soil).  Because of the increase in calcium, it is also an excellent place to find earthworms if, say, you wanted to go fishing.  Here in Western PA, we hae particularly acidic soil, almost too acidic, so juniper leaf litter is very useful for helping bring the acidity back into balance.

 

Dried delightful juniper berries!

Further, almost 90 different birds feed on the fruit of Juniper, Birds help disperse the seeds, which require cold stratification to sprout.  Others who eat the delicious fruit include chipmunks, mice, and opossums, voles, coyotes, red squirrels, and foxes. In the late winter, you will often see multiple species feeding on a juniper tree when there is little else to be found!

 

Regenerating Damaged Landscapes

Juniper is quite good at growing in thin or depleted soils, or soils that are polluted.  This makes it a critical tree for replanting and regeneration of the land, particularly in the rust belt region of the USA.  In the Rust Belt, three centuries of heavy mining activity has left a lot of boney dumps and other kinds of wastelands–places where there is only shale, no soil, and it gets hot and its hard for any plants or trees to take root. Thus, we often see this tree planted as part of replanting efforts after mining efforts; the tree’s roots help hold back erosion and over time, build soil, and slowly regenerate the land.  I’ve been to areas where there are hundreds of acres of juniper and scrub pine (pinus virginiana) and little else. Eventually, these two trees will help replant the entire landscape, but for now, I’m glad there is *something* that can grow there and begin nature’s healing process.

 

 

Juniper Berries and Wood Uses

The heartwood of Juniper is a beautiful red, with the outer wood going to cream or white, making it a highly sought after wood for a variety of woodworking endeavors.  This includes making “cedar” chests and other furniture as well as using it for decorative wood paneling. A lot of pencils are made from the Juniper wood; you might remember those nice smelling #2 pencils from your childhood! “Oil of Cedar” which is frequently used in polishes, medicines, and perfumes is distilled from the leaves and the wood of the Juniper tree.  The inner bark has also been used to make a reddish dye–it is a very beautiful dark red and just delightful.

 

Probably the most famous use of Juniper berries is for flavoring Gin. Juniper berries are used for flavoring in many contexts. Juniper oils in the foliage are toxic in higher doses, so the berries are used almost exclusively for this purpose

 

Juniper berries are ripe when they are a dark purple/black, often with a white residue on the surface.  You can eat them throughout the late summer and into the late winter, and on an abundant and mature juniper, the tree can produce hundreds.  They do contain a center seed, which you want to remove, so you are essentially nibbling on the fruit on the outside of the seed (which is like a thin skin).

 

You can do a variety of wonderful things with the juniper berry, and wild foraged ones are oh-so-good!  One of my favorite things to do is to make an infused vodka by taking a nice high quality vodka and putting in a good handful of berries.  Let macerate for a month, and you have this delightful beverage to share with friends.  Another favorite of mine is including them in a tea, particularly with nettle leaf, mint, and oatstraw.

 

Mortar and pestle use for mixing up incense with Juniper!

Tarot of Trees Incense with Juniper Berry

I developed this incense recipe as the perfect complement for the Tarot of Trees. This incense blend is a non-combustible powdered incense blend that you will need to burn on a charcoal block. Charcoal blocks can be purchased at most metaphysical stores and also online. You will need a mortar and pestle to grind your ingredients and tin or jar to keep the incense dry and fresh. The recipe is as follows:

• 2 parts frankincense
• 2 parts sandalwood (powdered)
• 1 part cinnamon (powdered)
• 1⁄4 part sweet orange Essential Oil
• 1 part juniper berries (dried or fresh, see below)
• 1⁄2 part lemongrass (dried)
• 1⁄2 part yarrow (dried)

In a mortar and pestle, powder your frankincense as finely as possible. Combine the frankincense with the sandalwood and cinnamon until blended. Set aside. In the mortar and pestle, crush the juniper berries. They will be fairly easy to crush if they are dried. If they are fresh, freeze them for 30 min or more and then crush them–they will crush much easier. Crush your lemongrass and yarrow separately. Combine all ingredients, including sweet orange essential oil, in the mortar and pestle and blend thoroughly. Enjoy!

 

 

Herbalism and Juniper

Juniper has been used in multiple traditions (western, TCM, Ayurveda) as a blood tonic and blood purifier.  In folk herbalism, it was considered a “fall tonic” plant, to compliment Dandelion and other spring tonics, and would be used to help support the kidneys and “clear” or “thicken” the blood.  What this essentially means is that in both spring and fall, our bodies need to prepare for the extremes: the heat of the summer sun and the work of planting and harvest, and the cold of the winter with less food and activity. Juniper, as a fall tonic plant (along with Sassafras and Sarsaparilla) helps prepare us for the cold of the winter.  Most of the fall tonics are warming and are said to “thicken” the blood (in folk herbal terms) so that you will stay warm and healthy during the winter.

 

Translating that folk wisdom into modern herbal practice, we know that Juniper has an diuretic action on the kidneys, meaning it helps flush the kidneys through urine production.  Stagnation is one of the worst things you can have in terms of the body, and keeping the kidneys moving and healthy is key to a healthy elimination system.  Juniper is a wonderful complement to that system, along with a number of other herbs such as dandelion leaf and nettle.

 

Juniper also has strong anti-inflammatory action, with at least three specific chemical constituents that help reduce inflammation in the body, and it is often taken for this purpose as well.

 

Magic of the Juniper in the European and Western Traditions

In the Western Esoteric traditions, Juniper has a long history of use, particularly tied to the work of fire, as a purification herb, and as something used to drive away disease. Its interesting always to see how the herbal wisdom ties to the magical uses and practices surrounding plants–and we can certainly see that at play with Juniper. We’ll now consider some of these uses:

 

John Michael Greer in the Encyclopedia of Natural Magic suggests that Juniper is tied to the element of fire, with its astrological aspects being Mars in Aries (can’t get much more fiery than that!) Juniper was traditionally used in spells to get back property that was stolen and as a deterrent to theft. It was also used in purification rites, as it both helps purify and drive away lingering spirits. We can see this from its use in the Key of Solomon (which lists Juniper as a herb tied to invocations of Saturn). The purification uses of Juniper go back to the Greeks, who burned it and to the Egyptians, who used it both medicinally and to embalm their dead.

 

Amazing cultivated miniature juniper tree; it is often used as a bonsai

Culpepper suggests that the Juniper is a “solar shrub” and the berries are hot in the 3rd degree and dry in the first degree.  He notes that they were used as a counter poison, against venom and other kinds of poison.  He also notes that they are “as great a resister of the pestilence, as any growing.”

 

Juniper seems to have a connection to animal purification as well. In Scotland, a tradition developed of fumigating animals, barns, and homes to prevent disease.  In “A Journey in Southern Siberia” Jeremiah Curtin (1909) describes how the Siberian Shamans used the smoke of juniper to purify animals prior to their sacrifice.

 

A book specializing in lore from Italy, “Etruscan Roman Remains in Popular Tradition” (1892) from Charles Godfrey Leland describes a charm.  In the book, a woman has a beautiful baby and it is attacked by a cat; she believes this attack was caused by witches.  She creates a charm to protect her child, and that charm includes the protection of the juniper berry, along with the cat’s hair, frankincense, cumin, salt, bread crumbs, iron filings, and much more.

 

Magic of the Juniper in North American Contexts

In an North American context, Juniper has uses in folk magic, hoodoo, and Braucherei, particularly surrounding getting back stolen property. Juniper is used in Hoodoo, and is interchangeable with any other Cedar.  It is used, according to Cat Yronwode’s Hoodoo Root and Herb Magic, when a “benevolent power” is needed for various activities: to rent one’s home, to get someone to move away (like a neighbor), or to get your love to move with you.  This same kind use of Juniper can be seen in Pennsylvania Dutch Folk Magic, or Braucherei, as described in Long Lost Friend by John George Hopman.  In one particular charm, a juniper tree is used to help get the Thief to return stolen goods.  In this case, the tree is bent towards the rising sun with the left hand in a kind of sympathetic magic (which is a lot of what Braucherei is). As the Braucher bends down the tree and ties it fast as part of the magic, the magic will bend will of the thief to return the stolen goods. Finally, Juniper berries in Hoodoo are also used for romance and sexuality-oriented workings.

 

In some Native American legends, juniper berries are featured prominently as a nutritious food important to the people.  This is the case of the the Hopi Legend Balolookongwuu and the Coyote, as well as the Apache legend, Turkey makes the Corn and Coyote Plants it.  Another Hopi Legend notes that Juniper is one of the chiefs of the world.  In one Navajo legend, Juniper helps two monster slayers overcome noxious vapors from a monster that they killed. They chew on the juniper and it offers them recovery. In a Blackfoot Legend, Sacred Otter, it describes an altar to the sun, with juniper laid upon it. In one of my favorite Seneca legends, one I’ve written about on the blog before, the Junipers are one of the many conifers who stand against old man winter and bring the return of spring.

Juniper’s Magic and Meanings

To summarize, Juniper, particularly through her wood and berries, is an absolutely wonderful tree with a wide range of uses.  In terms of overall meanings in a North American context, we might summarize with the following:

 

Juniper here on the land …

Juniper is about warmth and fire. Juniper helps warm people up and is a strong fire-dominant tree, suggesting many associations with fire: passion, energy, warmth, and the sun.

 

Juniper offeres hope in dark times.  Juniper’s berries have long been a staple through the darkest of winters, and I see this both physically and metaphorically.  Culturally, we are in a period of darkness, and trees like Juniper can help see us through.

 

Juniper offers regeneration and bringing things back. Juniper’s ability to grow in places few other trees can demonstrate that this tree is a true land healer, offering us hope in these dark times and sharing the critical message of the healing power of nature. I also think this is tied to its sympathetic magic uses in the American magical traditions–Juniper helps bring things back.

 

Dear readers, I hope you enjoyed this exploration of the juniper tree!  I would love to hear any stories or additional insights about the Juniper tree that you are willing to share. Blessings of the Juniper!

 

Recipe: Wildcrafted Herbal Blessing Oil January 27, 2019

A herbal blessing oil is a simple magical tool that you can make that directly comes from the living earth. The herbal blessing oil can be used to bless tools, seed balls, trees, yourself, other people, or anything else you like. You can include it as part of your Druid’s Crane Bag. Your own unique blend of herbs and wildcrafted ingredients will make it an amazing and potent tool for your practice.  While druidry doesn’t use oils extensively, other traditions, like the American folk magic and Hoodoo, use oils a lot to dress candles and do other kinds of energetic work.

 

Choosing Plant Material

You can harvest material from one plant or from a variety of plants and combine them. Here are some possibilities for you:

• Lavender, Sage, Rosemary, Thyme, Lemon Balm, Majoram, – Garden herbs that offer healing and protection.  Add one or more of these as a blend.
• Mugwort, Yarrow, St. Johns Wort, Goldenrod, Aster – Field herbs that offer protection, vision, and inspiration.  Mugwort is particularly good for dreaming.
• Needles from White pine, eastern hemlock, and/or blue spruce – Tree herbs that offer strength, consistency, and vitality

You might also look at my series on sacred trees ( Elder, Walnut, Eastern White Cedar, Hemlock, Sugar Maple, Hawthorn, Hickory, Beech, Ash, White Pine, Oak, and Birch) to create a specific tree oil that will be useful to you and the work you are currently doing.  You can also refer to my longer list on smudge stick making for details about many plants and their uses.  You can also refer to any good magical herbal, like John Michael Greer’s Encyclopedia of Natural Magic or Beryl’s Master Book of Herbalism.

The oil in my photos is a journeying oil for dreaming and deep journeying work.  It contains mostly plants I grew and dried myself, but also some wildcrafted ingredients.  The recipe is: mugwort, bay leaves, rosemary, tobacco, lavender, borage, and heather.  Given that its winter here, these materials have been preserved from earlier in the year.

Plant material for a dreaming/journeying oil

Gathering Materials

You want to gather fresh or dried plant material.  Fresh material can be obviously gathered in season; you can purchase or dry your own plant material otherwise.

Gathering Material. At a time of power (full moon, one of the eight holidays, another day of significance) go out and gather aromatic plant material. Aromatic plant material is that which has a high concentration of volatile oils (which is what essential oil is made from). When you crush the leaves of a plant or needles of a conifer and you can smell that wonderful smell, this is an aromatic plant. Even if its winter, you can gather conifers to make a potent oil.

You can gather your plant material from a variety of places a cultivated garden, an abandoned lot, an edge space, a field, or a forest. Before you gather your material, ask for permission from the plant and use inner listening skills to see if you can gather–I do not advocate taking any plant material without permission and an offering (see this herbal blend as a potential offering). If you are given permission, make an offering  and then harvest a small bit of the plant.

Purchased material. If you purchase your material, make sure it is organic and ethically sourced.  You don’t want any chemicals in your blend, and certainly, no suffering of the land.  Even though you purchased it, I suggest still making an offering to the land in thanks for the herbs before proceeding.

Dried material.  You can also use home-grown and dried materials from your garden or wildcrafted.

 

Making Your Oil

Fresh plant material. Once you’ve gathered your plant material or have obtained dried material, chop up the plant material into small pieces (1” or so in length). Spread the plant material out on a baking tray or similar surface. Allow the plant material to wilt on the counter indoors for a day so that some of the water is removed from it (wilting it in the sun will strip it of the aromatic oils). Wait till it dries out at least partially to reduce and/or eliminate the water in your sacred oil–water makes the oil go rancid.  It shows up like small bubbles at the bottom of the oil.

 

Open Up a Sacred Grove. Open up a sacred grove for magical crafting; as I described in my hawthorn post. You don’t have to do this, but I think if you are making an oil for magical purposes, its good to do so with intention and the right energy.

Making your Oil. Get a pint jar or other glass jar.  Using a pair of scissors or a mortar and pestle, break up the large plant material/grind up the plant material.  You can do this while changing, loosely pack the plant material into the jar. Now, take a good quality olive oil or other shelf stable oil (fractionated coconut oil or almond oil are other good choices) and pour the oil over the plant matter until it is completely covered.

Pair of herbal scissors with multiple blades easily cuts up dried plant matter!

Infusing your oil. Let the plant matter infuse in view of the sun and moon (like in a windowsill) for at least seven days.  If the plant matter is wet, you want to infuse it no longer than 7 days.  For dried matter, you can infuse it longer, up to a single lunar cycle.

Coconut oil is being used for this recipe

On the seventh day, get a fine strainer and strain the plant matter out. If you don’t have a strainer, 1 ply of a paper towel can work, but it takes a while to drip through. Sometimes, a cheesecloth or thin paper towel (one layer) can be used to get final bits of plant matter out. Getting out as much plant matter is critical because plant matter will make the oil go rancid much faster.

 

Finishing Your oil: At this point, if you want, you can add a few drops of your favorite essential oil. You can get a small portable bottle and take the oil with you. Store your oil in a cool, dark place.  It will stay good 1-2 years.  Make sure you label it carefully and write your recipe down so if you want to make more, you will remember how to do so!

 

Using Your Oil

Here are just some of many uses for this kind of oil:

• Put it in your crane bag or in a bottle necklace and take it with you to bless trees, rocks, or any other aspects of nature on your journeys.
• Consider using it to support meditations and dreams; you can dab a bit on your temples before meditation, dreaming, ritual work, journey work, and more
• Dress candles with it, using traditional folk methods.  Dressing a candle means putting oil on your finger and holding the candle in front of you.  If you bring your finger from the bottom of the candle and up, toward you, you are “bringing in”.  If you do the opposite, and move your finger away from you and down the candle, you are “removing”.  You can do this and then burn the candle (I like the little 4″ chime candles for this purpose).  Use this for healing, meditation, and more.

I hope this is helpful to you as yet another druid tool for your crane bag!  Readers, can you share any additional tips for how you’ve used magical and sacred oils in your practice?