Blog
Tending the Heartgate
The heart is not just a mindless muscle. Nor is it the simple stuff of greeting cards or blockbuster movies or even cardiology exams. In truth, the heart is a gate. And what lies beyond, and within, is the ability to access real magic. Many different medicine systems around the world have long recognized what…
Embracing Northlight
As a culture we prize all things brightly illuminated. We cherish the summer and grow bitter in the cold. We electrify our homes to be white as daylight and build with the biggest windows pointing south. But here in the mountains, where old homesteads are short and dark as shiitakes and often set into the…
Onion Grass the Plant Spirit Ally
I remember, very clearly, the day I first realized I could eat grass. Another neighborhood kid let me in on the secret. Apparently, there was a kind of grass that tasted like onions, and you could eat it (!) All you had to do was find the tall tufts, the ones that felt round when…
The Slow Dark Enchantment
Real magic takes time… and a lot of it. Like crystals growing in the deep, the biggest miracles often form far beneath the surface, and need a long fertile stretch of darkness before they can come to light. When the possibility of magic is afoot we will often be asked to slow down so immensely…
A Hymn for Optimism
I’m what you might call an “enthusiastic celebrator.” I can’t help it, I just get a kick out of life a lot of the time. I recently sent my friend a funny gif of Will Ferrell in Elf playing hopscotch with the white lines of a New York crosswalk and she immediately texted me back,…
Becoming Sovereign
A quiet has settled over these hills in the past few weeks. A hush that rises from the fading amber of the landscape and its open-limbed winds. The ebb of everything speaking to a deep need to withdraw and rest; an ache to refind one’s inner space. For the Celts, the time following Samhain…
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…
