A Sense of Place
Finding gods you know in places is one thing, but helping someone find a god you don't know is another. Read more
Finding gods you know in places is one thing, but helping someone find a god you don't know is another. Read more
On the way I could see elder bushes, water hyacinths, and a million wildflowers in bloom, known and unknown. I could even, at times, see the tracks of critters in the muddy ditches beside the tracks: deer, rabbits, and raccoons. I could see small towns, too: sun-bleached shotgun houses, comfortable old down-towns with brick courthouses, the utilitarian and the whimsical and the abandoned. As a friend said, it was like a tour of America's back yard. Read more
Today I am going to New Orleans, on the train. I’m conscious of the irony of talking about place while traveling, deliberately displacing myself. But the flora and landscape I can see out of my window are deeply familiar, and will remain so for hundreds of miles; ecologies are large. Human places are more constrained but are created by confluences of forces including human needs, the natural setting, and human technology as an expression of a particular location and time. Read more
The second in a five-part series on where I've met the gods. Part Two: Arianrhod. Read more
Love can be like a magnolia: valued but wild, blossoming suddenly out of nowhere but also growing and lasting for decades, bringing beauty and transformation to your life, offering dizzying heights and a lovely view for the intrepid climber but not without dangers and pain. All of the things I mentioned above...family, legacy, prosperity, fidelity, even clarity, have their proper roots in love. What plant or tree means home to you? What speaks of love? Read more
As I sit here listening to the ragweed and grass whisper next to a canal, I know that this has all been seen before and will be seen again. It's not exactly the same, because we aren't on a circle, we're in a spiral. We're moving along the groove in the vinyl record, and if the cycles seem like they are getting closer, that might just be because we're getting closer to the center of the record. I don't know. Read more
The first in a five-part series on where I've met the gods. Part One: Bran The Blessed. Read more
Every so often, I teach a workshop I call "Ditch Witch: Magical Uses of Common Roadside Plants"...Nearly everything I could possibly need, magically speaking, is within a mile of where I am sitting right now. I live in a treasure trove built partly of ecology and partly of culture; both the vibrant, complex, living ecosystems of the Southeast, and the slow-built web of knowledge that ties the people to the land. Read more
When you visit a friend's home, you can feel if you are welcome or not. You can tell, even if it's another family member or housemate you never see directly, if someone doesn't want you there. You also get a feel for the dynamics of the people who live in the space. How do they get along? How do they work together? How do they feel about this space, about their lives, and about each other? Read more
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