There are two new posts today.

I post an entry from The Compendium for Spirit Handling daily. Its a long book with more than 400 species entries so posting it in its entirety will take a while. Today’s post is about the ritual properties of Rock Cress, also called Arabis. This formidable beauty might just be growing in you garden.

The new post in The Depth and Breadth of Ancestral Airs defines my position, as an Earth-worshipping Pagan, with regard to Christianity. It might surprise you. The post is called The Death Rattle of the Oppressor.

Rainmakers and Thunder People, found in Essays, explores the plants entreated to remain in harmony with the weather, remedy its related problems, and create a means of surviving in a good way weather associated challenges. Perhaps if we revisit our ancestors’ knowledge of these things we might just find a path through the trying times ahead. Global warming has already had an enormous impact on every species that exists on our Earth. And as you know, countless are imperiled. While we invest in scientific knowledge and learn how to live more responsibly, we cannot leave out the balance of spirituality.

There are new posts today in several blogs. Companion Planting has a nice list of herbs and flowers that attract beneficial insects to your garden. These species and the flowers that host them are absolute essentials to creating a healthy, bio diverse garden whether grown in a field, a little plot, or in a container. The Compendium for Spirit Handling discusses the ritual applications of Apium. You know this one, its celery. You would be surprised just how much ritual medicine is associated with such a common food. Hope you like today’s entries.

I am pleased to be able say that my new book, Letters to the Unborn, is now officially launched as a new blog.  It will probably be the most unusual book you have ever read and because of that I had to muster some courage before publishing it.

Letters to the Unborn is not exactly a sequel to Ancestral Airs but many of the same characters are revisited. For those of you yet to read Ancestral Airs pop-up windows will be provided,  giving you some necessary background material concerning both the original story and the characters. However, several of the characters introduce themselves in the opening segments so pop-up windows won’t be needed for a week or so. Occasionally you will see passages in quotation marks. These indicate excerpts from Ancestral Airs.

This book has been some time coming. It required additional research into lunar cycles and a few other things.  Letters to the Unborn provides a glimpse into a rare ritual that takes place only once every eighteen & half years and the consuming preparation for such an important event. I hope you will join me in this journey to the world of the Ancient Ones and our ancestors, both startling and stunning.

I am pleased and a bit nervous about launching a new blog today called The Depth and Breadth of Ancestral Airs. And what better way to do so than to post an essay recently published by The Witches’ Voice. Thank you Witches’ Voice for your enduring support of my work.

This blog explores not only what was rattling around in my head but the actual research into various fields required for the creation of Ancestral Airs. These posts will certainly be excursions into many things and thoughts.

The menu link doesn’t seemed to be activated yet but will be momentarily. For now you can find it on my Facebook page.

And don’t forget that there is a new post daily in The Compendium for Spirit Handling. It is both a book and a blog about the ritual properties of more than 400 plants indigenous to the British Isles.

I think we long for a taste of an ancestral tribal connection. Just look at the fabulous tattooes we are all sporting again. We have been tattooing and painting up for countless millennia. In Essays you will find an in depth article entitled The Keepers of Body Paint, Pigments, and Tattooing Soot. It explores the species once used for adorning our bodies, our treasures, and our habitats.

“The spirits that inhabit every single species are uniquely qualified liaisons for very specific purposes.” This is a line from an article published in Essays entitled The Spiritual Disposition of Tools. It explores the union between devoted spirituality and the practicality of tools. Always peruse the Appendix found in the Essays menu for greater insight into the vast appreciation of plant species held by the Ancient Ones.

This information is expanded exponentially in The Compendium for Spirit Handling being rolled out as a blog. Today’s post from The Compendium concerns the ritual properties of Sweet Vernal Grass.

We still place extraordinary significance on the use of musical instruments in rituals. There are uncountable drumming circles throughout the world. And where would Celtic or Native American ceremonies be without drums, flutes, and whistles? But none of the species used to create these marvelous instruments, whether plant or animal, was ever chosen randomly. Each has unique ritual properties and those properties would be well known before fashioning a flute or tying up a drum. Please visit Essays for a more in depth discussion about The Flutes and Drums of Antiquity and the Appendix where species are listed. Note that most drums and many flutes and whistles require animal components. While in Essays take a look at an associated article called Animal Allies.

Today’s post in The Compendium for Spirit Handling is about a ritual species called Mayweed or Anthemis. And Monday being the day for posting in the Companion Planting blog you’ll find a new post about plant propagation. Hope you enjoy them both.

“Hunting as a sacrosanct necessity is not just a thing of the past. We are still hunters, seeking jobs and security, good health, knowledge, and wisdom.” The Sanctity of Ancient Hunters” and its Appendix is a piece found in Essays. It explores hunting medicine and the plants associated with it in the context of both the ancient and modern world.

Smoke medicine is huge and explored in an essay entitled The Prayer of Transcendent Smoke. Smoke, in my estimation, is a practitioner’s dream. You can find a list of well over a hundred species used as smoke medicine in the Appendix that is found in the Essays menu. The list is long and comprehensive and includes species not only for fire making tools and fire wood, but species associated with strength, endurance, prosperity, magic, protection, exorcism, purfication and many other things associated with ritual doctoring. Please visit Essays for the entire text.

“Everyday Things Have Ancient Roots.” There is something sacred there, long forgotten by most, disregarded by many. This piece, found in Essays, explores the sacrosanct origins that are shrouded in prayer, incantation, and ritual. This one has a fabulous appendix of plant species with what we now think of as mundane things that were once infused with magic and regarded as sacred. Please visit Essays for the entire text; then explore the Appendix found in the Essays menu. An extensive plant list can be found there. If you are student of shamanism or the craft this is basic, must-know information.

“Those that lived harmoniously in the natural world had an inherent understanding of the continual forces of creation and destruction.” This is a line from a piece posted in Essays entitled The Delicate Dance of Balance.

It isn’t possible to think of oneself as pagan and know nothing about the dynamics of natural forces that govern our beloved Earth. The essay explores the most basic features of what is now called Earth Science. Six thousand years ago, in the shamanic world of hunter-gatherers, it was the foundation of life, ritual, and mystery.

Did you know that most of the tribes in North America were Mesolithic when Europeans arrived a mere 500 years ago? No doubt nearly all of us have met the descendants, still alive today, of some of these cultures. It is commonly thought that the Mesolithic era is locked into antiquity and most of it has been lost to history. That isn’t true.

If you are European American knowing your own tribe is more problematic. The Mesolithic era there ended more than 5000 years ago and information about them is hard to come by. But it can be done, having been my quest for decades. The result of this long and arduous search is systematically being posted on this website.

Should you have an interest in knowing your European tribe or exploring the Mesolithic era I invite you to click on Essays and begin reading Introduction to Mesolithic Britain.

“…Of its secret I can only say that the puritans in my blood sigh with relief, convincing themselves it is only a dream, invoked by the devil, beyond my control. I look deeply into their eyes and shrug my shoulders, bidding them farewell forever, knowing that the ether is pure and incorruptible. I, having committed unforgivable sin, shed their condemnation like a skin I have outgrown; back to the dust from which it rose. They will never burn me again.” [Excerpt from Ancestral Airs]

History is an elusive thing, most often coming down to us (or not at all) through the filter of prevailing power. What a pity. Then there opens a window of opportunity and we can gather up the shards of what remains. Piece by piece the sacred vessel of history emerges out of remoteness and we can hear the whispered prayers of our ancestors once again. The portal to the past is, at this very moment, open wide and waiting for each of us to take the plunge.

The greatest beauty for me is to know that once we had it right. We don’t have to forge a new reality from scratch; we need only to dig into history to find the blueprint.  History not only satisfies my unquenchable thirst for mystery and magic it brings me face to face with my true value as an individual and the irreplacable uniqueness I hold within the family of mankind. History gives me the courage to confront corruption and descrimination head-on. I no longer shrink from oppressors or take to heart their lies as though I had to wear them like a shroud of disgrace. This is what history has done for me.

I would love to know what you feel about the history placed so readily in your hands. Which jewel in the treasure chest speaks deeply to you and why; which led to the realization that you are divinely created and therefore perfect.

I have often wondered about the compelling notion that draws individuals to embrace the idea that the creative force in the universe is female rather than male. My own beliefs have certainly taken on a life of their own since the moment I put that first seed in the soil nearly sixty years ago. And I can’t deny that my convictions haven’t been ever-evolving, much like our Earth busies Herself with the forces of creation, destruction and re-creation throughout all of infinity. In all of my years of study, this holy trinity of process has always gone on, where revelation was constantly pulled apart and rebuilt into greater and greater understanding of the holistic and mystical nature of the primordial Mother Goddess, the Earth.

Even as a child I found the male god of prevailing belief something of a snob, always a “my way or the highway” sort of guy, a bit too cold and illogical for my taste. If such an entity created the extraordinance of diversity on this planet why then was so much of it confined to the “do not enter” box? I also thought that the lofty mysticism that few if any of us could comprehend was a bit beyond the pale, big empty talk designed to make most of us just feel stupid. So even as a child I found something profoundly honest and tangible about dirt. Dirt was the spirit of abundance: food, clothing, shelter, medicine, and ceremony. It was complex and mystical yet I could hold that mystery in my hand. It had substance and texture. I could examine it and as I did so I could contemplate its wonder and smell its bouquet. For me, that was the heart of the Goddess. Out of that heart grew a rainbow of vitality and expression of worship from hunting and gathering to the pageantry of human sexuality. And such worship was entrenched in the belief that our kaleidoscopic displays were the very energy that fueled the regenerative power of our Earth and in doing so She provided us with an abundance of food. In its simplest terms this is not an idea shrouded in incomprehensible mystery, its right there for each of us to touch, smell, taste, see, and hear, a thing tangible with which we can interact. The misconception that Goddess worship has its foundation in anything other than the Earth or is nothing more than a re-run of the old male god with a new agenda is fundamentally wrong. The Earth and the abundance She provides is not just a sidebar to this faith, it is the faith, the outgrowth of which took many forms.

Predation when harmonically balanced is an essential part of sacrosanct natural order. I studied the predator/prey relationship extensively for Ancestral Airs as a feature of the animal clan stories, as well as developing the attitude toward doctoring malevolent spirits as hunter-gatherers do.  In both the spiritual world and the biological one predation is wholely based on vulnerability and opportunism. Preying on the strong is most often an act of desperation fueled by starvation. This shifts somewhat in the mating rituals of animals (and probably humans too) where the young, virile ones try to out do the weaker but wiser older ones. Youth does not always prevail. The same concept tends to govern spirit handling where we might, for example, live in such a way as to invite predatory spirits to prey on us. Such ways of livng create vulnerabilities that include, in part, losing the protection of benevolent spirits or set up the perfect environment in which predatory spirits thrive. The third scenerio seems to take place between practitioners and malevolent spirits whose existence is threatened by the strength, knowledge and healing ability of the practitioner, that through helping others heal, takes away the breeding and feasting territory of the malevolent. The flip side to all of this is the essential feature of balance in nature and a thing that is divinely created as in all the sacred twins of light and dark, summer and winter, day and night, and so forth. The dance between these elements and the predator/prey relationship is found everywhere in healthy, well balanced ecosystems. Perhaps what we have failed to remember are the prayers. Hunter-gatherers conduct deeply spiritual rituals in preparation prior to hunting. These rituals insure that the prey, like the hunter, is entering into the sacred dance.

I have several new posts today. The Compendium for Spirit Handling is featuring Alder, and I posted two new articles in Essays. Both of these first appeared in BroomRiders for Samhain. One is called “And The World Shall Forget You For Kings”. It addresses the plant species entreated when suffering the loss of a loved one. The second essay, “I Beseech Your Soul to Arise” lists the species used to either invoke spirits and ancestors or convene with them. I will leave you with the following thought.

The spiritual devotion to the Earth that tribal people cultivated upheld the principles of living frugally, never taking more than was needed, and giving back more than was taken. They believed that such a way of life was deeply spiritual and brought abundance to their people, by no means defined as society defines it today. The hunter-gatherers of antiquity have a great deal to teach us about the stewardship of our planet and each other. My belief that they did indeed have it right remains my inspiration for this extensive website.

Every object, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, holds an element of power. But objects, even if merely everyday objects can accumulate power as well. I often think about my grandmother’s spoon. My grandmother was blind by the time she was about twenty and yet everyday she cooked. Her spoon hung in a specific place next to her stove and she used it everyday. One side of that spoon is flat from daily stirring because of the way she held it. That spoon is utterly infused with the spirit of her life. And although she left long ago I can hold that spoon and see her life, listen to her words, and continue to learn from her wisdom. That is a power object.

I have now-old plumes and things I used in rituals long ago concluded. They were certainly powerful to begin with but now these plumes contain detailed memories of all the rituals of which they found themselves a part. I can re-live those rituals in detail every time I hold them. I can hear the songs and the prayers, smell the fire, and the perfume of the smudging herbs. That is a power object.

Don’t be fooled into buying what is sold as a power object. It is not. Wait for one to come your way, wait until you have earned one. The seemingly insignificant pebble you might have picked up along the way and finds itself in your pocket all the time has more power than anything you could buy. That simple, little stone has become the repositiory of your life, your thoughts, your dreams, your spirit. That is a power object.

I want to thank all of you for so many comments and such an out-pouring of encouragement. I know your time is valuable and I deeply appreciate the time you have spent here and the comments you have made. So far in The Compendium for Spirit Handling blog Lady’s Mantle/Alchemilla, Monkshood/Aconitum, Sweet Vernal/Adonis, and Maple/Acer have sparked some interest. Please note that these entries are actually alphabetical by the botanical Latin name.

The Companion Planting blog has received some as well in Corn…, Atichokes…, Lettuce…. and Eggplant… Others are peppered throughout Essays, Reviews, here on the News page an on the Books page.  To find the comments you must click on the post title. A new page comes up and the comments and responses are found at the bottom of the page.

Thank you so very much and please keep them coming. I promise there many more posts coming from me.

There has been much discussion about animal totems and animal medicine for a long time now. Some people believe that they can pick their animal totem; others believe their animal totem picks them. The Old Timers that I knew said that ain’t necessarily so. They taught me that animal medicine had a great deal to do with ones inherent predisposition. If your nature was such and such an animal with a similar nature was your medicine. I have a piece that can be found in Essays called Animal Allies. It is brief and only includes the animals drawn on for Ancestral Air’s clan system. Nevertheless, read it over and while doing so read the entries in the context of your own nature, not what you find cool or special. You might just see yourself there and chances are that particular creature or one related to it is your animal totem.

I have just posted three more reviews by Nancy Wait, Temple of Cybele, and Pagan Book Reviews.  They are terrific and I am grateful. Please check them out in Reviews.

After many years of research I settled on my own list of what I believe are the 21 sacred trees (some are actually shrubs) of the British Isles. I based my choices not only on their spiritual, magical and ritual properties but also on their extraordinary scope of practical uses such as food, clothing, shelter, medicine and tools.

Our misconception that the characteristics that define a plant as sacred is its ability to alter the senses has absolutely no foundation in history or the cultures that pioneered the discovery of them. Within these cultures not only are all plants regarded as equally sacred there exists a deep spiritual appreciation for those species that secure life such as food, clothing, shelter, medicine and tools. Practical species are most often the foundation of spirituality and ritual, not hallucinogens. And what are referred to as Sacred First Foods and Famine Foods are regarded as panaceas, plants that can accomplish and resolve anything.

Decades of study concerning both esoteric and practical usages led me to the understanding I now hold with what is often and erroneously referred to as the 21 Sacred Trees of the British Isles. I remain so convinced of this that I used the 21 species listed below as clans in Ancestral Airs. Ancestral Airs devotes many pages to both the practical and ceremonial uses of hundreds of plants. The Compendium for Spirit Handling, published as a blog on this website, deals exclusively with the ritual properties of about 420 species including the list of trees here.

Oak (Querus)

Holly (Ilex)

Birch (Betula)

Pine (Pinus)

Crabapple (Malus)

Hawthorn (Crataegus)

Willow (Salix)

Dogwood (Cornus)

Bearberry (Arctostaphylus)

Ash (Fraxinus)

Poplar (Populus)

Blackthorn (Prunus)

Currant (Ribes)

Linden (Tilia)

Elm (Ulmus)

Maple (Acer)

Alder (Alnus)

Hazelnut (Corylus)

Yew (Taxus)

Juniper (Juniperus)

Elder (Sambucus)

New in the news. The mystery with the inability to respond to your wonderful comments has been solved. And apparently there were some glitches with the e-book downloading and to date that has been remedied as well.

 A few things I have seen on line lately has compelled me to bring something else up.

“Shamanism: What The Heck Is It Anyway” is a piece first published by The Witches’ Voice and can now be found in Essays on my website here. It illustrates that the class distinction and snobbery prevalent in the Neo-Shamanic community has no foundation in history or among shamanic cultures today. Every single individual born is psychic, prophetic, and has a profound ability to heal themselves and others. Authentic medicine people know this. If someone or some group is treating you in a way that makes you feel badly about yourself or what you are trying to learn, know that their behavior is highly inappropriate. Find another group; good people are out there and they know what it means to live in good way.

News for me is whatever happens to be floating around in my awareness at any given moment. I am thinking about the elders I have known and the tribal cultures in which they were born.  The perception among tribal people is exquisite in its simplicity. Their world is older, more complete than ours but it is not a complex world or one shrouded in mystery.  And yet it is one singularly magnificent in its spirit of devotion.

In the decades I spent among tribal elders I never questioned their wisdom. Western culture would have preferred that I had and act as an inquisitor into the nuances of every detail. I simply couldn’t because I understood in my bones that within ancient cultures elders had the last word.  And like it or not their words stood as absolute, as law, and were final.

I invested my heart and soul into tribal elder systems as the community that spoke most deeply to me. And in doing so I had to learn to bite my tongue and accept whatever those elders dished out. It was often frustrating.  Their words sometimes angered me or hurt my feelings but I endured it because I wanted to know and embrace “the old way”. It required that I set aside whatever contemporary cultural had taught me when it conflicted with more ancient thinking.  In time it changed me. Those old ones taught me to think and perceive as they did, to live in good way. And I remain in their debt forever. Their generosity of spirit gave me the life for which I had longed.

As far as what news might seem more conventional, today I posted a piece on Lady’s Mantle (Alchemilla) in the Compendium for Spirit Handling and one on soil in the Companion Planting blog.  I have also completed an essay entitled “What’s In A Name” that I will submit to The Witches’ Voice for publication. They have been extremely generous in their support of my work and I hope they accept it. It deals with the significance of names and the tribal perception of the importance of names, often given by elders (there’s those elders again). Eventually this article will end up in Essays here.

I am something of a reclusive fuddy-duddy. That isn’t “news” to most of you. What might be news is my fabulous new website created by Green Willow Designs. And step by step it becomes more interactive, and hopefully for you, increasingly more user friendly.

To date I have two blogs well on their way. At the prompting of my incredible Facebook friends, friends who have vastly expanded my knowledge of the world, I created a blog entitled Companion Planting-Bio Diverse Container Gardens. My awareness was drawn to the economic issues wed to greater and greater concern for our beloved Earth. Thanks to my friends I realized that there were many people developing a profound desire to grow their own food and contribute to the health of our planet while doing so. Consequently, I was compelled to write this blog.

Companion plants are plants that enhance the garden environment exponentially. And increased bio diversity triggers robust health within any system. The Companion Planting blog combines the practicality of growing common vegetables, regardless of the space or lack of that you have, with the sophistication of bio diverse wild tangles.

The Compendium for Spirit Handling is the botanical companion to Ancestral Airs. It deals exclusively with the ritual properties of about 420 species of plants as perceived by shamanic hunter-gatherers. There is a great deal of information about the medicinal uses of these plants in Ancestral Airs but I wanted to write a book that also illustrated that at one time we understood illness as a manifestation of spirit. And the practitioners that doctored these illnesses were spirit handlers.

And finally in a few weeks my newest book will be launched as a blog. It is a sequel of sorts to Ancestral Airs. I will reveal the title to you very soon.

I am deeply grateful for the enduring support and encouragement you have extended to me. I will do my best not let you down.