Years back, in saner times, I went walking in Wildcat Canyon. It was midsummer, the green was creeping down the hills as the relentless sun of the dry season drove the water downhill. I sat under an oak tree and looked at the patterns the color made as gold engulfed green. I came there often … Continue reading Carried On The Breath
I may have killed an entire ecosystem. It was my creation, and under my care, and I let creative neglect go a little too far… I have a worm bin, underneath a tiny oak tree next to my house. It’s a nice little space, shady and cool, and I was pretty diligent for years, dumping … Continue reading The Goddess of Life and Death Screwed Up…
There is a dead seqoia in the middle of a grove in California. Burned, but standing as if still alive, she is telling the story of her own death. Faint lines, eight feet apart, ring her trunk. They are the marks left by the workers who built a scaffold and removed her bark in eight … Continue reading Mother Of The Grove
Do Druids need a community center? This question comes up fairly often. I’ve definitely thought of it myself. There’s an empty church nestled next to the largest trees in the neighborhood that has drawn my eye since the services stopped many years ago. What a perfect place! An old Craftsman style building, a five bedroom … Continue reading Find Us A Place
I was lucky enough to spend the morning in Lafayette. It’s heavily wooded, as many of the more affluent East Bay suburbs are, and at 11 on a Tuesday morning, I had the back streets to myself. It was finally Fall today. Cloudy and cool, and the streets are covered with oak leaves and acorns. … Continue reading Living Among The Trees
I’m finding the Rewilding Challenge to be a very druidic exercise. It teaches you to see, not just look, and to learn from what you see. The variety to be found in the exercises and the short time given to each of them makes it all manageable, and leaves you wanting more of the ones … Continue reading Wilderness Is All Around You
My hands are filthy and I reek of redwood. I found out about the Rewild Your Life 30 Day Challenge today, and decided to go for it. Being in the middle of the city as I was at the time, finding a tree to spend 30 minutes of quality time under was definitely the first … Continue reading Rewilding My Life
Love of Land. Reverence for Water. Respect for Fire. To me, this is the Druidry of California. It shapes my land and my practice. It’s the bucket under my tap as the water warms for a shower. It’s the ashes from the pipe I tap out into my open palm to be *sure* it’s out … Continue reading The Druidry Of Place
I got to spend a little time in the remnants of the temperate rain forest that once covered my homeland. The presence of the trees was immense. We had come as Druids, to pass one of our own between us. My southern group had chosen to make the trek to the northern group and they … Continue reading The Grove of the Old Trees
Mount Tamalpais was dripping last Sunday. We went up between the rainstorms, through fog so thick the drive was frightening, but the walk through cool silence was something absorbed through the very pores of our bodies. The grass that was gray last time is now disappearing under a growing layer of green. What is left … Continue reading The Song Of Life Sings Through Us
