Celebrating the Beauty & Magic of Nature
One of my favourite ways to enjoy the healing magick of the Autumn hedgerows is to make an oxymel with foraged berries. The name oxymel comes from the Greek word ‘oxymeli’ meaning acid and honey. Oxymels are simple herbal preparations that use a mixture of raw apple cider vinegar and raw honey to extract and preserve the potent goodness from an array of berries, herbs and spices…
Continue reading “Hedgerow Oxymel”
…you may be in for a big surprise, (but more on that later!) This is one of my favourite times of year to spend in the woods. The hedgerows are bursting with colourful berries and ripening acorns adorn the Oaks. It is an in between time where the green leaves feel as though they are making the most of the last days before they fall and I am so grateful to still be enjoying them for a little longer…
In the spirit of balance (so apt for this time of year) we spent much of yesterday’s Autumn Equinox crafting Jewellery, packing up orders and filling in our tax return so today we headed out early to visit our new local woodland. It was a glorious, blue skied Autumn day, we filled our mouths with blackberries and our pockets with rosehips and hawthorn berries. I shall be drying them out over the next week to make an oxymel with them.
As we move towards Mabon, the festival marking the Autumn equinox in the Northern hemisphere, we leave behind the long days of Summer as day length slowly dwindles.
The word ‘equinox’ comes from the Latin word meaning ‘equal night’ and twice a year, on both the Spring and Autumn equinoxes, night and day length become equal. This can be a good time to pause and reflect on the balance in our own lives…
As we enter our third week here on our land, we have been busy working on what will be our main herb beds. We wanted the beds themselves to be beautiful spaces for us to spend time within and had felt drawn to circular designs from early on. Circles are rich with symbolism, a shape with no beginning or end, they are often linked with infinity, interconnection, protection, the feminine, flow and of course the Wheel of the Year.
Circular gardens and spaces have been created throughout history, from stone circles, to medicine wheel gardens and sacred spaces for ceremony, meetings and healing…
Continue reading “Land Update – Circular Herb Garden”
If you follow us on social media, you may well have seen that after 2 years of living and working from our van home on the road, we have found a space to grow!
At the start of this year, we set an intention to find some land to be able to grow more of our beloved herbs and plants. For most of the year it felt like a pretty distant dream. However, we were met with a wonderful opportunity last month to rent some land. Set within a farm in the Northamptonshire countryside, it is just half an hour away from where we both grew up.
I had never much connected with Ash trees before this year and yet over recent months, they have become one of my strongest plant allies.
Before I talk more about the wonderful qualities of Ash trees, let me first explain a little more about the way I connect with plants and how this process has evolved over the years. My interest in plants grew upon discovering some of the medicinal and healing properties of the herbs that I was growing within my garden. I spent much time researching their qualities and experimenting using them in teas, bath soaks and other herbal remedies. It was a brilliant way to kindle my fascination with plants and open my mind to the healing held within so much of that which is found around us.
Over the years, the way I connect with plants has become more intuitive. It often begins with me noticing a certain plant whilst out on a walk. It seems to catch my attention and I feel pulled to get to know more about it. Often now, if the species is new to me, I find the name comes to me somehow too, a knowing of the plant arising from somewhere within.
Continue reading “The Magic of Ash”
Box is one of our 5 native evergreen trees in the UK alongside Yew, Scots Pine, Juniper and Holly. It is now most commonly thought of as a neatly trimmed garden shrub however was once a more common feature in our woodlands.
Small pockets of ancient Box woodland remain in the UK. Most notably on Box Hill in Surrey with other patches found in the Chilterns and Cotswolds. They are truly magical places to visit and provide stable, protective environments for rare lichens and insects amongst other wildlife.
We have a new collection of one-off Wild Jewellery pieces now in store. These pieces have evolved slowly throughout the Summer months, guided by the intricacies and life history of the woods.
This collection includes pieces crafted from Yew as well as Beech, Oak, and two brand new woods for us to work with that we will be introducing below; Blackthorn and Box.
Continue reading “Wild Jewellery Update”
Rowan trees are sometimes known as ‘Mountain Ash’ or ‘Lady of the Mountains’ due to their ability to grow higher up mountain sides than any of our other native trees. They grow quite happily in our towns and parks too, but survive, and even thrive in some of our harshest landscapes. They protect and nurture other trees around them in those environments too by improving the fertility of the soil, similar to Birch trees, earning them the title of ‘nurse tree’.
Rowan trees symbolise protection, resilience and adaptability and bringing them into the home for protection is a long standing tradition. Due to them standing high on the top of mountains they have also been connected with magic, intuition and connecting to other realms.
Making and hanging Rowan berry garlands around the home is an ancient tradition, believed to protect the space and invite good luck. Berries are gathered and garlands made as we head towards the Autumn months, crossing the threshold to the darker half of the year. Once dried, the garlands keep for years, bringing a rich pop of colour and magic to the home.
Sunflower Journal is an eco-friendly, independent print magazine that celebrates seasonal living and nature. Printed with vegetable inks on recycled paper, its pages are filled with a delicious mix of recipes, rituals, crafts and self care tips for each season.
It has become a seasonal self care ritual for me to sit and savour this beautiful publication, page by page.
You can imagine our excitement to have been asked to contribute an article for the most recent Lammas edition of the magazine about the ancient art of smoke cleansing, you can see a sneak peak below!
Continue reading “Wild Fen in Print!”
Wild Fen 