Category: The Otherworld
Ten Ways To Celebrate Samhain
Samhain (pronounced sow-en) is the traditional Celtic holiday of death, endings, beginnings and visionary magic. Straddling the transition from fall into winter, Samhain marks the start of the Celtic calendar year. Considered to be a time when the boundaries between the worlds dissolve, during Samhain the unseen energies of the earth are more apparent…
What Happens When The Veil Thins?
Growing up, I always felt the power of fall. I loved Halloween and its lantern-lit festivities, the amber hue of the canopy and gold leaves falling from the trees. I adored the apple crisps and cozy blankets but the thing I loved most of all was the feeling of fall. It wasn’t until I was older…
Ancestral Herbalism
Once upon a time all of us were indigenous. At some point in the past we all had ancestors who came from a very particular place, a land where our stories lived, where we birthed our babies and buried our grannies, a place where we picked the herbs that healed the hurt and gave…
The Way Beyond Death
In autumn, we embrace the dying. As the leaves grow spotted, then yellow and aflame, we watch the world around us begin to wane. We’ve grown so accustomed to the idea of autumn, the disappearing of the green, that we forget how truly profound it is. For those of us in the deciduous belt…
The Ancestors’ Bonfire
Last month I traveled to Ireland to visit the old neolithic burial mounds and the seaside where my forebearers most likely made their home. I made a pilgrimage to the old sites— the hills shaped like breasts, springs tucked in a moss-covered hazelwood, the circles of stones. I went by myself Ireland, to put…
Pilgrimage Project: Ireland
I began these pilgrimage trips last year, with a visit to Japan. Sometime last summer I got the nudge to begin visiting places in the world where the history of animism (the belief that all facets of the earth are conscious and alive) was still thriving. It began with Japan, place of Kami and…
Working with Elementals
I feel like I need to get something clear right from the get go. I never believed in faeries as a kid. It just wasn’t a thing for me. Growing up in the wonderfully Seinfeld cynicism of the northeast, faeries were pretty much the last thing I was going to invest myself in (at…
Psychedelics + the Ecosystem of Meaning
Autumn is a psychedelic season. More than just a waning golden hour, autumn has its own texture. And just by touching it, our consciousness begins to shift. In our culture psychedelics are often synonymous with “drugs,” exotic substances that blow open the gateways of your perception, concentrates that tip the cup of the world over…