Categories: Herbal

• Why Isn’t Your Altar in the Garden?

  You say that you feel the most connected with the divine and the land when you are working in your garden.
  You’re happiest when you are doing things like repotting your geraniums.
  But you are frustrated when standing in front of that altar, candles burning and all, while trying to pray because it has no real meaning to you, you just don’t feel it.
  So
  Why aren’t you praying when you are repotting your geraniums?
  Why are there no geraniums on your altar?
  Why isn’t your [...]

• Correspondences: Step One Towards Figuring it Out for Yourself

  Correspondences: Figuring it Out For Yourself
  Many years ago, people had no microscopes or laboratories to tell them what to use a certain plant for. They relied on shamanic practitioners and their own daring to discover the properties and uses of the plant life that grew around them.
  Here is an exercise to help you see what it must have been like for early humans learning about our world.
   
  Choose one culinary herb, your choice, fresh if possible but dried is fine. It [...]

• Concerning Wildcrafting

  Concerning Wildcrafting
  Hints & Tips 
  Also some common sense, and not so common sense, rules
   
  Make sure you have all the tools and equipment you need before you head out.
  Get to know as much as you can about your area, the weather, climate, the plant and animal life etc. It is very important you have intimate understanding of the land you gather from.
  Take the time to learn about the area/land you will be gathering from, in all seasons. Also, get to know the [...]

• Gathering in the City

  Gathering in the City
  So you live in the city and/or an apartment eh? Don’t despair!
  It is harder to walk a nature path if you live in an urban area, or in an apartment, but there are options available to you. Waiting for the once a year chance to go to a campground takes a lot of patience. Let us also not forget most parks and campgrounds are nature reserves, national parks and the like, [...]

• Juniper Cupressaceae Juniperus communis

  Juniper

   
  Common Name: Juniper (common)
  Botanical or Scientific Name: Cupressaceae Juniperus communis
  Other Names: Western Juniper, Rocky Mountain Red Cedar, Dwarf Juniper, Mountain Common Juniper, Old Field Common Juniper (there are many names, for many species of Juniper)
  Genus and Species: Junipers are coniferous plants in the genus Juniperus of the cypress family Cupressaceae.
  Type: An evergreen coniferous shrubby tree of the cypress family. There are many different junipers in the world.
  Physical Description: A wide and low tree with an irregularly rounded crown. A knotty, [...]

• The Turning of Spring to Summer

  The Turning of Spring to Summer
   
  The most amazing thing, for me at least, about coming home is returning to the rhythms of the place where I first began to study Paganism, and thus the Wheel of the Year. As a smart-a**ed teenager, I didn’t pay much attention as I followed along behind my garden obsessed Mother. In fact, it took living out in the country, on a small acreage in Alberta, to make me pay proper attention to the turning [...]