The Druid's Garden


When Recycling Fails: Home-Scale Solutions for turning Paper and Plastic Waste into Resources August 18, 2019

For decades here in the USA, recycling was touted as one of the more easy environmental things you could do. I, like many others, assumed that local recycling facilities processed materials, they were sent to factories, and then later, re-integrated into various products.  Boy was I wrong!  Turns out that recycling is an industrialized business like any other, and part of the reason is that it was so promoted is that there was profit in waste.  In fact, from 1992 – late 2018, most recycling produced in the US shipped to China, who paid top dollar for recycled resources that were used to build their own economy. China had very lax environmental laws, and the more “dirty” recycling the US produced was sent to China for cheap sorting and processing.  While some of those materials were recycled, many of the recycled materials ended up unusable and were discarded, moving down rivers and contributing eventually to one of the many garbage patches in the Pacific Ocean (Sierra Club has an overview of this situation here). This dark secret of recycling wasn’t well known–you simply put your materials in a bin, and felt good about not sending them to the landfill, and off they went–out of sight, out of mind. In late 2018, China tightened its own environmental laws, and has become extremely strict on what recycling it would take. Contaminated recycling (which is often the result of “single stream” recycle systems) is no longer accepted.  And most recycling in the US is quite contaminated. Other countries, such as Malaysia and Vietnam, started buying up recycling for a while, but they have since decided they can also no longer take recyclables due to the volume and environmental impact. 


Recycled handmade paper in progress

Recycled handmade paper in progress

Long story short, this developing situation has resulted in a recycling crisis in the USA and in other developed nations. While some see this as an opportunity, many municipalities are resorting to simply filling landfills with recycling or worse–incinerating it.  Locally, many communities in my region are experiencing these shifts: we’ve seen changes to what can be accepted in recycling or the eradication of programs entirely. For example, most of Pittsburgh is no longer accepting glass and is cracking down on plastics it accepts; here on my campus, no shredded paper is allowed to be recycled). We are also seeing higher costs for recycling, or simply programs ending entirely.  But more broadly, what seems to be taking place is the lack of a good recycling infrastructure to actually support recycling processing here in the US.


But the truth is this: even when it was being shipped to China, recycling isn’t the solution to plastic problems.  Some new research illustrated that microplastics are so pervasive that they are literally in our rain, drinking water, and everywhere else–plastics are lethal to many inhabits on this planet.


Given these challenges, I’d like to take some time today to reflect on this problem and talk about some possible ways forward centered on two possibilities: reducing one-use plastic and paper consumption and turning waste into resources. I also want to note that not all “waste” is the same with regards to this recycling crisis. The real problem materials at present are paper and plastic recycling. Aluminum cans and other recyclables don’t seem to have changed much, and they still seem to be being recycled at high rates, at least according to this article. Given this situation, I’m going to focus my discussion primarily on paper and plastic for the remainder of this post and discuss some “at home” solutions that I’ve been exploring in response.


Waste and the Sacred

The thing I ask myself is: from where do these things arise?  All of these “waste” products ultimately come from one place: the living earth.  It is the living earth that provides the raw materials that humans use.  It is the lifeblood of the earth, the oil, that creates most plastics.  It is the creation of these materials that is problematic–synthetic materials that are so altered from their natural state that they cannot break down.  It is also the gross misuse, abuse, and disposal of these materials that have polluted our world, such that some of these issues, like microplastics, may *never* be solved–at least not in the next 500 or more years.


I believe that this calls for a shift–not only to some of the practices that I am going to share next, but in our own relationship with these waste products.  We need to start seeing *all* resources as not only “non-disposable” but sacred.  These are things that are ultimately derived from the earth, and their proliferation on the earth is seriously harming all life.


Reducing Consumption of Paper and Plastic

The most obvious solution to the plastic and paper recycling challenge is to work to eliminate paper and plastic waste. This is a very noble endeavor, and there are many ways that you can greatly reduce the amount of paper and plastic you consume–but it seems nearly impossible to eliminate entirely.  There are a lot of good ideas floating around out there at present, so I’ll share a few here:

  • Avoid any single-use plastics. These include things like straws, plastic silverware, styrofoam take-out containers, plastic bags, plastic plates, plastic cups, etc.  You can almost always pre-plan or simply decline.
  • Even single-use paper cups can largely be avoided by bringing your own reusable cup.
  • Eliminate plastic packaging whenever possible; opt for things that aren’t packaged (such as bulk food purchases) or packaged in paper over plastic. Being selective here can make a huge impact.
  • Eliminate plastic toothbrushes and toothpaste containers by purchasing alternatives (like bamboo) and toothpaste tablets from small online startup companies
  • Eliminate plastic bags or paper bags by bringing your own or opting not for a bag (or shopping at stores that don’t provide them, in the USA primarily this is Aldi)
  • Ask to be removed from all mailing list and reduce junk mail
  • Be contentious about paper use; print on both sides of paper and use scrap paper
  • Shop locally at farmer’s markets and so forth to eliminate plastic packaging (food packaging is a source of much waste)
  • If you enjoy soda or fizzy water, invest in a Soda Stream or something similar to eliminate drink plastic
  • Obviously, stop drinking bottled water and fill your water bottle up from the tap
  • Eliminate one-use paper products as much as possible – use rags and cloths and wash them rather than paper towels, etc.
  • When purchasing online, ask before buying about the plastic packaging.
  • Write to companies about their packaging and encourage change.
  • When purchasing clothing, purchase clothing that is of natural materials rather than synthetics (a big contributor to microplastics)
  • Try to purchase items that are made of materials close to the earth: natural fibers, woods, etc, rather than those synthetically derived and that will take much longer to break down
Many non-biodegradable plastics I discovered in my vermicompost bin!

Many non-biodegradable plastics I discovered in my vermicompost bin! I didn’t even know they were in there!  The worms couldn’t break them down and ignored them. What to do?


There are many opportunities out there to reduce plastic and paper consumption. By reducing demand and seeking alternatives we can help stop these plastic and paper waste streams before they start. And to me, that’s a really important piece of this larger systemic issue: eliminating the problem as close to the source as possible.


At the same time, even with extremely conscientious purchasing and attention, it is almost impossible to get paper and plastic consumption down to zero. Unintended plastic, in particular, always seems to make it into your life. It might not even be stuff you buy, but stuff other people bring in: for example, a family dinner, a gift someone gives you, unexpected layers of plastic packaging, garbage you pick up in the woods or along the beach, stuff that literally blows into your yard during a storm, and so on.  These plastics are present, and I believe, once they are in our lives, we are responsible for their cycle and making sure they don’t become pollution. So, let’s now move on to some home-scale solutions for turning both paper and plastic waste into resources!

Paper Waste into Resources: Handmade Paper, Sheet mulch, and Mushroom Cultivation Opportunities

For years I’ve been trying to eliminate as much paper use as I can. I love trees, and paper comes from trees.  Thus, I don’t like to see wasted paper because each bit of wasted paper is literally from something I hold so sacred.  So let’s explore a few uses for paper that would otherwise go to waste.


One of the ways I’ve worked with waste papers for over two decades is to create handmade recycled papers. I save up clean papers (usually colored or simple computer paper, often from my classes and university work) and when I have enough, I spend a day making delightful papers. These papers can be turned into handmade journals, gifts, cards, and many such resources. While this can handle some of the paper in my life, it certainly can’t handle it all, and not all papers are good for papermaking. Cardboards and newspaper, for example, do not make good handmade papers due to higher acid content and poor fiber content.


Sheet mulch in progress

Of particular concern to me is the cardboard and newspaper that seems to pile up.  Despite repeatedly removing myself from every mailing ad campaign and magazine, each week I still seem to get more junk mail than the week before. This, combined with various boxes and other packaging seem to add up quickly. Thus, one of the other things I’ve been using these materials for many years on my homestead is for sheet mulching; newspaper and cardboard are both excellent resources for making paths, weed suppression for garden beds, and so on.  For this to be successful, you need a lot of cardboard and newspaper!  A 20 foot path may require at least 20-30 cardboard boxes or a huge stack of newspaper.  Using these in this way transforms waste into resources!


Another option that is useful is to use vermicompost to handle some of your paper waste.  Worms will break down not only vegetable scraps and coffee grounds, but they also will make short work of damp paper and shredded cardboard. Their process takes time, but it certainly can be a good supplement to other methods.


A final way I’ve been exploring with home paper recycling is through mushroom cultivation; oysters can be grown on cardboard and paper (see a good discussion of this at! So far, I’ve been successful in growing mushrooms in fresh coffee grounds layered with pizza boxes. The key, I’ve found, is not to compact anything too tightly (I will post about this process once I have it perfected enough to share something that is consistent and works).


A combination of these options at the homestead means that we very rarely end up needing to take any paper or cardboard to the recycle center–instead, these materials are treated as the resources that they are: wanted, honored, and used.


Plastic Waste as a Resource

Paper is perhaps the more easy thing to recycle; you can do a lot with it and even if you can’t, it breaks down readily in the environment in a year or two. In my mind, plastic, which can literally last thousands of years in the ecosystem, is the more serious of my concerns. And in truth, plastic is literally destroying our world, getting into the bodies of animals and fish, trashing ecosystems, and it will persist for centuries and millennia. In early 2019, after seeing the crisis that was looming with recyclables, I began to explore options in earnest to reduce plastic consumption. Even with my many reductions, however, plastic was just flowing into my life all the time! A lot of this wasn’t even recyclable to begin with, so even with avid recycling, I was still ending up throwing a lot of plastic away. Each time I did, I thought about the growing Great Pacific Garbage Patch and  hung my head in shame.


Plastic film, cellophane, styrofoam, packing peanuts, plastic wrap, plastic bags–these are the kinds of things that are almost never recycled, and do not often have even a number to recycle.  These are also the kinds of waste plastics that are filling our world. This video does a great job in explaining how “single use” plastic is really the worst, and that’s the stuff we see most often showing up in marine ecosystems. So what’s a druid to do?


Because I have an interest in building things and making things, I focused my energy and research on that route, and came up with two viable solutions for turning waste plastic into a resource on a personal / home scale. Before I present my two options, I will also note that there seem to be some options at a community level for more industrial scale models for plastic recycling, like this cool machine that turns plastic recycling into bricks that can be used in homes. But these kinds of things aren’t home scale, and therefore, out of reach of a single person.


The first thing I looked into is a great open source community called “Precious Plastics.” This community offers open source plans, resources, and video guides to produce a number of different machines that actively convert different types of plastics into cool stuff. There is a global community doing work with these machines and maker spaces, and it is really a wonderful idea! Precious plastics does require that you pay attention to certain kinds of plastic and does seem to have some limitations.  At the same time, it is a worthy, open source endeavor and might be of use for many people!  I ultimately decided a different route due primarily to scale: I don’t have the fabrication skills needed to build many of the machines, I don’t know how much use I’d get from them for the investment, and my needs and uses ended up being different.


What I decided to pursue was a building block method called “ecobricks” or “bottle bricks.” This video gives a great short introduction to the concept (complete with the spiritual and meditative aspects of ecobrick making, which I adore). Ecobricks are very simply made: you take a 2 liter soda bottle (readily available in any recycling bin along any street, or simply ask people who drink soda) and fill it with as much plastic as you possibly can. You mash it down with a stick or dowel rod as you fill it, and keep filling it till it is completely full of plastic. This, you use as a building material. In next week’s post, I’m going to go into more depth about how to make ecobricks and how you might build with them (and my own plans for them over the next 2 years.) I’ve been excitedly making ecobricks for about a month now, and I’m surprised at how much waste plastic can go into a single brick.  So stay tuned for more on this next week.


Spiritual Dimensions of Waste


There is no such thing as away!

There is no such thing as away!

It’ss easy to live fully immersed in industrialized culture, where waste streams are part of daily life.  Where we throw things away without a thought; where generating waste is literally an automatic behavior.  However, I think that shifting away from these practices, and putting in the effort to do something different, is not only an environmentally conscious act, it is a spiritual one. Thus, I want to conclude by talking a bit about the spiritual dimensions of waste.


I’m an animist druid. I see the world, all of nature, as sacred. I also understand that all natural things on this planet have spirit. Knowing now, that even my recycling (while well intentioned) caused the land suffering, has really had me reflect on my current and future actions.  The animals, oceans, rivers, fish, amphibians–all are my sacred brothers and sisters. Throwing away even a single bottle brings my waste into their world. Thus, I see reducing plastic waste and doing all that I can to repurpose it as an absolutely critical part of a nature-centered and earth-honoring spiritual practice. There is no such thing as away–all stays here on this beautiful planet. Let us treat our mother with all the respect and love we can.


The Tears of the Earth: A Hike on Sólheimajökull Glacier July 21, 2019



It was our final day in Iceland before returning back to the US. We so many great experiences visiting this country of beautiful extremes, but more than anything, what we wanted to see on our last day was a glacier. We talked about it, and decided that we should see a glacier, as we might never be able to see one again. We booked a beginner glacier hike on Sólheimajökull glacier, a hike that took you way up into the glacier.


Where the glacier used to be, 2010. Where I am standing and taking the photograph is where it was in mid 2009.

It was a misty and cool day; small droplets of rain pressed against us at the parking lot at the base of the glacier. Before us, the Sólheimajökull glacier loomed, white and black and gray. After getting fitted with safety harnesses, helmets, crampons, and pick axes, our group of twelve set off to the glacier hike. Our guide, who was originally from the Alps and who had been hiking glaciers his whole life, first took us to a sign as we walked along the edge of an enormous lake. He stopped and said, “In 2010, this is where the glacier was. Each year, it gets smaller. In the winter, it stops melting but never regrows. But we’ve still got quite a hike to get to the glacier as you can see.” The sign he showed us had many different numbers with years. Last year, in 2018, the glacier receded more than any other year: 118 meters. And so, we continued our hike, which took about 15 minutes, walking along the edge glacier’s melt pool.  This link offers a video that shows the melting of the Sólheimajökull glacier from the years 2007- 2015.


One of the tours they now advertise in Iceland the “kayak the glacier” experience. There is a kind of horseshoe shaped lake that is made when a glacier reaches its largest size and then begins to melt. You’ve seen this shape before on a map: its reflected in the bowl-shaped bottom of Lake Michigan. That bowl shape is created by the melting of a glacier. As a glacier advances, it  moves earth itself, pushing up stone, soil, and bedrock; the powerful edge of it creating a wall of stone. As the glacier recedes, it leaves that wall of stone behind, and as it melts, that stone creates a natural dam, and the bowl-shaped area behind the dam fills with water. Water that tourists can kayak in. Water that is created, in part, by the 2600 miles it took me to fly to Iceland. Water that is, for all intents and purposes, the tears that the earth cries.


Icebergs and the melt pool at Sólheimajökull

Icebergs and the melt pool at Sólheimajökull

As I stood at the bottom of the glacier, I realized how small I was in comparison to the massive block of ice. The Sólheimajökull glacier took up all the space, moving into our field of vision, white, black, and sometimes blue, daunting in its appearance. As we got close, you could see the shimmering of the melt water coming off of it, moving into the lake below.  Icebergs, also, floated in the lake–our guide explained that those icebergs crack off the glacier frequently and will likely be gone by the end of the summer.  So much ice.  So much to melt.


We carefully put our crampons on our feet and, single file, began our ascent into the glacier.  As soon as we stepped foot on the glacier, my heart grew heavy with sorrow. The most striking feature of the glacier wasn’t the beauty. It wasn’t the black ash from various volcanic activity, or the white and blue ice. The most striking feature was how fast it was melting. Everywhere the glacier was melting. The day we were there, it was around 50 degrees, now a fairly common temperature for Iceland this time of year. And everywhere you looked, the glacier was glistening. Little drips became streams, streams became bigger streams, and eventually, they flowed into quite large rivers, running down the glacier. Standing anywhere on the glacier, you could observe this and watch the ice melt and take milennia of black and gray ash along with it.


At one point, our guide stopped and pointed to a mountain quite far off from where we stood. Less than a decade ago, he told us, the glacier reached up to that nearby mountain. Now, that mountain isn’t reachable, the glacier is much lower, and there is a glacial river between us. I stood there and thought about it: that must have been millions of gallons of water in that short time, all melted away into the lake and eventually, ocean nearby.


Mountain where Sólheimajökull used to reach

Mountain where Sólheimajökull used to reach

The amount of melting made the Sólheimajökull a bit difficult to traverse. The tour company maintained a trail on the glacier, but it was an ever-moving target. As we hiked, we two people working on the trail on the glacier. They would cut a set of stairs, and then, within an hour or two, the stairs would melt and become dangerous and they’d have to cut new ones. This ever-evolving trail was now just part of the experience of walking on a glacier, as our guide explained.


The walk was a walk of extremes. The solid white and blue ice. The black and gray of the volcanic ash becoming unlocked as the glacier melted. One of the folks on our walk asked, “can we tell what volcanic eruption this ash came from?” Our guide said, “No, it all just melts together.” You could be standing on ash and melt from 10,000 years ago or even 100,000. Scientists with specialized equipment drilling core samples could tell, but we could not.  Here is an image of the entire glacier, Myrdalsjokull, from 1986 to September 2014.  The glacier we walked was one “arm” of this larger glacier.  You can see how massive it is, and you can glimpse the volcano that sits beneath.


Throughout our week in Iceland, I didn’t get a strong sense that the spirits of the land were welcoming or open to outsiders. Icelanders certainly capitalize on their island’s natural beauty as part of their tourist industry. And while you might enter a lava cave and be told of rooms called “the banquet hall of the elves” or “the troll’s den”,  or, you might see the stone stacks throughout the land that are there to appease the little people, the Icelandic people are not willing to talk about those aspects of their land.  They don’t speak of their relationship to the land spirits with outsiders. And neither do those spirits of the land seem interested in saying hello.  So I spent the week in Iceland not engaged heavily with the spirits of the land; things were just quiet.  Thus, I was certainly surprised when even before I walked up to it, the glacier immediately reached out to me and wanted to convey a message.


Meltwater on the Sólheimajökull glacier

Meltwater on the Sólheimajökull glacier

As we climbed Sólheimajökull, I connected deeply with the spirit of place. The glacier itself, and the spirit of the mountain—between two active volcanoes, Katla and Eyjafjallajökull. Sólheimajökull first shared with me its anger, so angry that it was melting away. So angry at humans. I could feel the stress and strain as it spoke to me: to tell people what you have seen here. Tell of how the melting will flood their cities. Speak of the truth you have witnessed. I felt the anger in its voice, the anger radiating out of it, as it knew it was dying.


We continued to climb the glacier, witnessing its tragic beauty among the melting ice. Then a second voice emerged from Sólheimajökull, this one of sadness. I am losing myself, the glacier said. I am crying tears for the world. How many people who climb me today will speak of what they have seen? How many will change because of it?  How many have made me cry further just to walk upon me? I cry for us, the glacier said, and I cry for the world.


We had to climb over a large crevasse with water rushing through it. Our guide explained that this kind of crevasse was very dangerous and could easily drown you if you fell in.  Eventually this crevasse would literally crack a large chunk of the glacier off into the melt pool. As I navigated the crevice, I heard the glacier speak once again, this time, in despair. What is happening is happening. There is nothing to be done.  Our melting will reshape the world. I have been here for so long, and someday, I will be here again. But in the meantime, my waters will travel far and wide.


Upon meditation on this experience after returning home, I realized that I was hearing the many voices of this glacier working through the many stages of grief.  I was experiencing the grief that this sacred place was experiencing, conveying to me, perhaps so I could convey it to you.


Crevasse in melting glacier

Crevasse in melting glacier

We got to a high point on the glacier where you could see it continue to rise up for many miles into the mist.  Here the glacier flattened out quite a bit. It was here that our guide swung two pickaxes in the ice to create handholds and let us kneel down on them to drink the fresh glacial melt-water. Pure, cold, refreshing. As I drank the water, thirsty from our climb, I could feel the energy of the glacier. As I drank, the emotions that the glacier was conveying to me welled up within me, overflowing. Anger, fear, sadness, despair, acceptance. All at once, those feelings spread throughout me. As we made our way back down, I simply allowed myself to experience the myriad of complex feelings of this place.


The next day, on our flight home, we flew over Greenland and the lower part of the Arctic before landing back in the US. I looked down, out of the window of the plane, and saw so many small chunks of ice participating in their own complex patterns of melting, this time, with nobody to hear or witness up close.


Melting ice from the plane

Melting ice from the plane

How much damage did this trip to Iceland cost the earth? That’s the part that has been perhaps the hardest for me to process, as I’ve been thinking about and meditating on this experience. I went on this trip for pleasure. I’ve had little chance to travel, and I wanted to experience new things and visit somewhere completely different. But my very engagement with this glacier, my presence there, was part of why it was melting. Sure, you can say, but Dana, you can always offset your carbon for this. And yes, I always do offset my carbon from travel at the end of the year (most of it work related). But does that  offset matter? In the end, I chose to engage in an activity that speeded the melting of this sacred place.helped this glacier melt. One article, I read recently suggested that each trans-Atlantic flight, like the one I took, melts about 30 square feet of Arctic sea ice.  So for myself, my round trip contributed to 60 square feet of ice melted in the Arctic.


Just like the glacier, I’m full of a myriad of complex emotions. I’m glad to have this experience. I’m saddened by it. I recognize my own part in this.  I feel sorrow and anger and acceptance. We are all on the front lines of climate change, the 6th extinction happening, the age of the Anthropocene.  Every one of us is living in a time where we are aware of the problem, many of us trying to do something about it. At the same time, by participating in modern life, we can’t help but contributing to it.  This is the great Catch-22 of our age.  To see the glacier is to destroy the glacier.  To use fossil fuels necessary for modern life is to burn them.  How can I afford solar panels for my home without commuting to work each day in a fossil fuel powered vehicle?  The glacier weeps as I write.


But the other thing that this lesson has powerfully taught me is the power of experience. How many people, in seeing that melting glacier could really deny the truth of climate change? How could it be denied that these things are happening, powerfully and directly, before our very eyes?  This experience has changed me. I “knew” about the glaciers melting before.  Knew as in I intellectually engaged in an understanding about the fact that glaciers worldwide were melting. But it was not till I stood upon one, till I connected with the spirit of that place, and until I confronted my own contribution to that melting, could I really have wisdom surrounding it.


The glacier

The glacier

As I write these words, I’m attempting to convey some of that wisdom, that direct experience, but my words cannot have the impact of that weeping glacier. Book knowledge is what we engage with intellectually and logically, what we read or hear in order to better understand something. Book knowledge is mitigated by human language, words on paper or spoken aloud. These words, as I write them, are read by your eyes and processed by your brain. But they are a pale representation for the experience of standing there, of seeing the glacier weep, drinking its meltwater, and feeling its pain. But I’ve done my best, dear reader, and I hope it gives you a small piece into this experience and into that of one melting glacier. Can we find these same kinds of changes in our own ecosystems, and use them as local teaching tools? Perhaps we can, and perhaps that’s a message I can leave you with today.


PS:  I’m excited to announce that I just signed my first book contract a few weeks ago!  Because of this, I will be taking a few weeks off of blogging so that I can prepare my manuscript to submit to the publisher (which is quite a bit of work).  I’ll keep you updated on the progress, release date, etc.  Thanks for your understanding!


Web of Life Ritual for Interconnectivity and Awareness July 14, 2019



Building connections with nature

Building connections with nature



Meditation on Interconnectivity



Web of Life Ritual (Group and Solo)



  • The soil web of life
  • The waters of the world
  • The animal kingdom
  • The plant kingdom
  • The fungus and lichen kingdoms
  • The fishes, reptiles, and amphibians
  • The insect life
  • Humanity (save this for last).







Soil web

Soil web












Web of Life Ritual: Group Variant



Healing the Web of Life Ritual

















Close out your space.


A Druid’s Primer on Land Healing: Ecosystems, Interconnectivity, and Planting Guilds July 7, 2019

I had a recent conversation with a friend who lives in the town where I work (and where I used to rent a house). I had commented on how “nice” her lawn looked, as it was growing tall full of clover, dandelions, all heal, and so many other blooming plants; it was wild and beautiful.  She laughed and said that she wished her neighbor felt the same way!  She said that her lawn would have to be mowed that very day, and if she didn’t do so, her neighbor had already threatened her with calling the township due to the 6″ grass ordinance. Even though my friend isn’t a druid, this prompted a deep conversation about nature, ecology, and ecosystems. We started talking about the broader ecosystem, and the connectivity of all life–how she wanted to support insect life, bees, and larger life in her small patch of land.  How the town had serious stormwater issues, and more vegetation could help slow the water from entering the stream as quickly. But how her neighbor, and the borough, refused to allow any deviance from the 6″ high law, and wouldn’t listen to any reason.  Yet, she was doing her best to not only heal this small patch of land, but do good for the larger ecosystems in our county.  In other words, my friend wasn’t just thinking about her small patch of land, but how that patch of land might be interconnected with other ecosystems and cycles more broadly–and how decisions she made there had impact beyond her.


The web of life

The web of life

The earth, on the largest level, is an interconnected system and web of life.  As we move further into climate change and ecological destruction, we are starting to see how true this really is: what people do in New York City can have a strong effect on the melting of glaciers in the North Pole and Greenland. What acid mine drainage pollution goes into a river in Western Pennsylvania makes its way to the Chesapeake River and the Gulf of Mexico. Indingenous peoples in the Pacific are being driven from their homes due to rising oceans from glacier meltwater on the poles. This concept—that earth is a whole and interconnected system—is critical for understanding land healing both locally but more globally as well. Today I want to talk about ecosystems and interconnectivity as critical concepts in relationship to land healing. Thinking in terms of systems, and ecosystems, is more challenging for us because these are often large scale and not localized. And yet, for doing good land healing work, its important to reflect upon these larger levels and understand the broader systems present.


This is a new post in my land healing series, which is now sprawling several years with many posts!  For other posts in the series, you can see A Druid’s Primer on Land healing I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, as well as rituals and more rituals, and finally, refugia and permaculture as physical land healing practices.  Last week’s post explored creating a healing grove for long-term land healing work. Those aren’t required reading for this post, but certainly offer many different perspectives on land healing.


In today’s post, we’ll explore two interrelated ideas critical for land healing: ecosystems (and systems in general) and interconnectivity.  After exploring these concepts, I’ll share some things to consider from a physical land healing perspective.  Next week’s post will look at ecosystms and land healing from a ritualistic and awareness building perspective.


Ecosystems and Land Healing

On the broadest scale, Earth is made up of many smaller ecosystems.  An ecosystem is a biological community of organisms that are interconnected and depend on each other for life; ecosystems include both the biological community as well as the physical environment. Many different ecosystems exist; with several major types: forests, grasslands, desert, tundra, freshwater, and marine. These can be broken down into much more specific ecosystems based on the latitude, geology, soil composition, water composition, altitude, topography, and larger climate patterns.  Regardless of where you live on earth, you will live in one—or on the border of more than one–ecosystem. It’s useful to learn what your dominant ecosystem is where you live, so that you know what a healthy ecosystem looks like.


For example, here in Western Pennsylvania, we live in a forest-dominant ecosystem that has several different types.  In my region, it is either considered a “Northern Hardwood” forest, made up of Beech, Birch, Sugar Maple, Cherry, Eastern Hemlock, and White Pine). Or, it is an “Oak-Hickory Forest” made up of Oak, Hickory, Tulip, Red Maple, and prior to the 20th century, American Chestnut.  Each of these ecosystems are carefully evolved: the species of plants, animals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and insects live in careful balance with each other and all are necessary for the broader functioning of an ecosystem.  If we remove just one species, particularly a keystone species (say, Eastern Hemlock through logging or American Eagle through pollution), its not just that species that suffers, but every other species in that ecosystem. (This information was freely available through my state extension office.  Anyone living in the US will have a state extension office, and they will offer many free publications and materials on these topics. Other countires often have similar offices focused on conservation and public education on natural resources. Field guides and other books on natural ecology may also be useful here.)


An Ancient Black Oak

An Ancient Black Oak

This interdependency is critical for understanding land healing: all life depends on other life for survival.  In many cases, that life has very specific needs.  A well known example is the monarch butterfly that needs various species of milkweed in order to survive: it has adapted to an abundance of milkweed, and now that milkweed is in short supply, its numbers are radically declining. Just like the monarch, all life has these needs.  Part of the reason “invasives” can be damaging (such as the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid) is that they aren’t part of the ecosystem, and they do not have the check and balances that native species have to live in harmony with each other.  Thus, all life depends on other life, and healing one part of life (even energetically) can help heal other parts of life.


Understanding Interconnectivity

Ecosystems teach us a powerful lesson about interconnectivity. Interconnectivity is everywhere, but the enormity of how it functions ecologically is hard to wrap one’s head around.  I like to think of it in a few different ways to make it manageable. One is through the hydrologic cycle:  as I write this, I have a glass of spring water (from the spring on our property, which is our primary water source) that I am drinking.  Where did this glass of water come from?  From the ground and land surrounding my home.  But where was it before that?  Perhaps this water soaked in through the last few spring rains, and those had melted from a glacier and moved from the artic across the land.  In otherwords, these same molecules of water that I am drinking right now have been cycling through the earth for potentially billions of years.  Thus, how we heal–or harm–water in one place will cycle in many other places.  This is part of why I like to focus on water as a land healing practice: unlike earth, which remains stationary across the course of our lives, water moves and the water we heal or bless in one case can make a major impact across the globe.


Another managable way to think about this interconnectivity is within our own bodies, each a complex, interconnected system. If we engage in unhealthy behaviors (smoking cigarettes, eating poor food, being sedintary), our bodies as a system can handle that for a while.  At some point though, these poor choices will have done enough damage to our body’s system that they will be disasterous.  You don’t see the effects from one bacon cheeseburger and one lazy day on the couch.  But 30 years of bacon cheeseburgers and lazy days on the couch significantly harms the body’s whole system.


Using Interconnectivity and Systems for Land Healing

From an ecosystems and ecology perspective, humanity has been metaphorically eating bacon cheeseburgers for three meals a day and sitting on the couch for 30 years, and that long line of bad choices is coming due. The whole earth, as a whole system, is starting to break down. The need for healing is everywhere, it is so extreme, it is overwhelming at times.  We certainly can’t physically heal that whole ecosystem on our own, but we can understand it, and we can use the principle of interconnectivity for great effect.


As with all land healing, there are energetic ways of healing and there are physical ways of healing.  In the remainder of this post, I’m discussing physical land healing using these concepts.  In next week’s post, we’ll consider some ritual work and spiritual ways of working with these concepts.


St Johns Wort

St Johns Wort: nectar and medicine

On the most basic level, when we think about physical land healing, thinking in a ecosystems approach is really helfpul  Thus, its not about individual plants but rather how to support an interconnected web of life.  One of the ways that I find helpful when I’m doing this kind of thinking is to use some terminology and categorization from permaculture design:


  • Dynamic accumulators: plants that enrich soil, by deep tap roots that bring nutrients up from the ground, possibly also from the air
  • Nitrogen fixers: plants that “fix” nitrogen in the soil by pulling it out of the air.
    • Some examples: Most legumes and clovers.  More info on these can be found here.
  • Nectary plants: plants that provide nectar or pollen for bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, etc.
    • Some examples: St. John’s wort, goldenrod, apple trees.  Here is a more complete list.
  • Habitat and forage plants: those that provide other kinds of habitat (such as the milkweed for the monarch) or forage for wildlife.

When we are replanting a space, like a lawn, its useful to think about how these plants may work in conjunction with each other to form an interconnected web of life.  Not just that we are planting plants that may look good, but plants that can help serve different functions and work together.  This is how we start thinking on a larger (eco)systems level and considering the role of interconnectivity.  In addition to this, of course, there are many other considerations to supporting a healthy ecosystem: clean rainfall, removing pollution, supporting a healthy soil web of life, building soil fertility, and much more.  But these concepts, at least, help us start to think about the ecosystem as a system, rather than plants as individuals! In permaculture, we call these “guilds” where the goal isn’t just to, say, plant an apple tree, but plant a whole ecosystem that helps support that tree and all the life around it.


And you might be saying, but what about the animals, insects, amphibians, birds, and so on?  I would respond: if you plant it, they will come.  The whole idea of focusing on plants is that we are building habitat, food, shelter, and places for wildlife–and its that life that bring the other pieces of a more complete ecosystem.


Someday, my trees will be abundant like this!

Someday, my trees will be abundant like this!

As a simple example of how this can work in practice, we recently planted two apples and two pears in the back of our garden (on the northern side).  The garden is on a bit of a slope, so part of the role of these trees is to establish good root systems to help hold in the soil in addition to our swales.  But the other idea, here, is that we want to create an ecosystem as part of our garden and support the trees for us and for wildlife.  So rather than just planting apple trees, we did (or are planning to do) the following:

  • Wood chip inoculated mulch around base of the trees
  • Comfrey plants so we can “chop and drop” for extra nutrients; comfrey also functions as nectary plants for bees
  • A variety of nectary plants to support insect life and that are also medicinal in nature: St. johns wort, wood betony, lupine, red clover
  • Nitrogen fixing plants: red clover and lupine

Now, rather than having just some apple trees for good eats, we have a whole mini-ecosystem that supports us with food and medicine, brings good insect life to the garden, and supports life.


Concluding Thoughts

In the end, the major take aways are these: earth as a whole is a single interconnected system, and as land healers, we can work with any part of that system energetically or physically and help offer healing.  We will always be working at a local level, within one or more ecosystems, but through doing so, because earth is all interconnected, we benefit all of the earth through our efforts.



Reishi growing from a stump!

Reishi growing from a stump in my sacred forest









Slow time, Slow Ritual, and Nature’s Healing






A safe space for all life

A safe space for all life






Step 1: Choosing Your “Grove of Renewal” Space.










Step 2: Create your plan.







Larger Spiral Garden Design Inspired by the Three Druid Elements

Larger Spiral Garden Design Inspired by the Three Druid Elements












Step 4: Visit your space regularly and let it flourish.


  • If you planted anything, how are the plants growing?
  • How does the space change in different seasons?
  • How do you feel when you are in the space?
  • What messages from spirit might you be experiencing?








Spirals of energy

Spirals of energy

Example: A Woodland Grove of Renewal







Hemlocks in a quiet grove

Hemlocks in a quiet grove



Concluding thoughts




Butterfly on choke cherry





Black Cherry Growth and Ecology





Younger and older black cherry trees



Wood and Other Uses







Cherry Leaves and Cyanide



Foraging for Cherries

Thick bark of an older black cherry tree









Cherry as Medicine







Magic of the Cherry Tree in Global Traditions


Leaves of cherry tree









Meanings and Magic for North America





A small grove of cherries on the edge of the homestead





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

Sacred rays of the sun

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

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

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

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!