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  • Home: Earth Sanctuaries
  • Pilgrimage Stories
  • Garden Sanctuaries
  • Seasonal Celebrations
  • Natural CommunitiesThis section honors our native plants and animals and the diverse and beautiful habitats in which they live. It includes an article on Drawing the Natural Gardens of North Carolina and selected illustrations of mountain, piedmont, and coastal plain habitats. I hope these drawings of the sacred natural communities where I live will inspire you to savor the wild lands where you live and help to conserve them.
  • About BL
    Contact Me
  • Home: Earth Sanctuaries
  • Pilgrimage Stories
  • Garden Sanctuaries
  • Seasonal Celebrations
  • Natural CommunitiesThis section honors our native plants and animals and the diverse and beautiful habitats in which they live. It includes an article on Drawing the Natural Gardens of North Carolina and selected illustrations of mountain, piedmont, and coastal plain habitats. I hope these drawings of the sacred natural communities where I live will inspire you to savor the wild lands where you live and help to conserve them.
  • About BL
    Contact Me

Pilgrimage Stories

These pilgrimage stories are tales of journeying to sacred and re-sacralized landscapes close to home and to myth-filled lands of megalithic stone circles, Celtic sites, Christian holy wells, and sanctified ritual landscapes abroad. They are stories about being in relationship to the wildness within us and in communication with the wild of Nature, the wild of Spirit all around us, and the wild of our own Souls. They include such archetypal themes as liminality, synchronicity, transformation, and healing through loving contact with ancestors of place and of blood, the divine feminine, plant-animal allies and our heart-breakingly beautiful natural world. We hope that these pilgrimage stories will invoke a sense of the Oneness of nature, spirit, and us humans. It is our intention to provide inspiration for the passionate efforts that are gathering on all fronts to join together to re-honor and protect the lands and waters of Mother Gaia. Hope is building that we may listen and hear the indigenous ancestors of past and present peoples speak their wisdom to us through their sacred lands, through our sacred Earth.

The Cailleach: A Witch for Our Times
15 Oct 2020

The Cailleach: A Witch for Our Times

by Betty Lou Chaika | posted in: Pilgrimage Stories | 14

For many of us the figure of the Cailleach, the crone, has become synonymous with wisdom and autonomous female agency operating outside the oppressive hand of patriarchy. Cailleach, ‘veiled one,’ means a wise or spiritual woman. She has also been … Continued

A Magical Stone, A Healing Chant
29 Nov 2019

A Magical Stone, A Healing Chant

by Betty Lou Chaika | posted in: Pilgrimage Stories | 20

Everyone seems to keep a special stone in some honored spot on a small table or sunlit sill, perhaps hoping you’ll ask to hear the story of what it means to them. We try to stay connected to the healing … Continued

ancestors, Celtic, healing chant, incantation, labyrinth, magic stone, milky quartz, pagan Germanic, stone circle
Sacred Landscape: Native American Effigy Mounds
13 Oct 2019

Sacred Landscape: Native American Effigy Mounds

by Betty Lou Chaika | posted in: Pilgrimage Stories | 14

Our souls, to truly thrive, need whole, intact landscapes, even sacredscapes, lands that are revered and ceremonially marked as sacred. On this Indigenous People’s Day I want to honor an aspect of our First People’s heritage — the earth-based spirituality … Continued

ancestors, Animal Spirits, Effigy Mounds, Indigenous People's Day, Native Americans, Sacred Landscape
Sacred Trees: Rag Tree, Rock Tree, Witch Tree
3 Aug 2019

Sacred Trees: Rag Tree, Rock Tree, Witch Tree

by Betty Lou Chaika | posted in: Pilgrimage Stories | 35

When people are asked about memorable childhood experiences in nature, time spent with or in a special tree is often mentioned. In my beloved grandmother’s backyard there was a wide-spreading sugar maple that was also, somehow, my grandmother. This was … Continued

clootie tree, holy wells, Ojibwe, rag tree, sacred trees, Witch Tree
Earth-Dreaming: Liminal Waters
19 Mar 2019

Earth-Dreaming: Liminal Waters

by Betty Lou Chaika | posted in: Pilgrimage Stories | 12

Liminal Waters is a story about a dream that comes from the Earth. Earth-Dreaming is the process by which the Earth dreams through us. Earth-Dreaming takes us beyond using dreams to track our individual psychological growth. Earth Dreams come not … Continued

dune swales, earth-dreaming, liminality, mystery, spring ephemerals, spring equinox, swamp forest, synchronicity, wetland
Divine Feminine/Sacred Landscape: St.Gobnait, Lady of the Bees
11 Feb 2019

Divine Feminine/Sacred Landscape: St.Gobnait, Lady of the Bees

by Betty Lou Chaika | posted in: Pilgrimage Stories | 22

We are just past Imbolc, Brigid’s feast day, traditionally the beginning of Spring in Ireland. Signs of Spring are emerging here at home. On these intermittent warm days the spring peepers and chorus frogs are starting to call for mates. … Continued

Ballyvourney, bees, Dingle, Divine Feminine, fairy dogs, holy ground, Inisheer, St.Gobnait
Hazelnut Wisdom – Practical, Mythical, Mystical
26 Oct 2018

Hazelnut Wisdom – Practical, Mythical, Mystical

by Betty Lou Chaika | posted in: Pilgrimage Stories | 20

I went out to the hazelwood, Because a fire was in my head -Yeats. I said to myself: Who would want to read a story about hazelnuts? People are what folks want to read about. People are the clear winners … Continued

Hazelnut Divination, hazelnut nutrition, Otherworld, Pilgrimage to Ireland, sacred trees, Well of Wisdom
Pilgrimage: Ireland on One Foot
27 Sep 2018

Pilgrimage: Ireland on One Foot

by Betty Lou Chaika | posted in: Pilgrimage Stories | 14

This was to be our ninth pilgrimage to Ireland. But, I was bitten on the foot by a poisonous snake, a copperhead, so we chose to cancel. If we had left sooner we would have been in the land where … Continued

Druids, Fairy fort, Pilgrimage to Ireland, shamanic stance, stone circles
Visiting Ojibwe Family: Gakina Awiiya – “We Are All Related”
30 Aug 2018

Visiting Ojibwe Family: Gakina Awiiya – “We Are All Related”

by Betty Lou Chaika | posted in: Pilgrimage Stories | 28

When my husband and I set out on a pilgrimage, I write my hopes and intentions for the trip, but the actual theme of the pilgrimage often emerges during the journey. My hopes for this second visit [see first visit … Continued

Ashaweia, Chief Buffalo, Madeline Island, medicinal plants, Namekagon River, native foods, Ojibwe, sweetgrass, white cedar, wild rice
Community, Art, and Landscape: Ireland Reflections
1 Jan 2018

Community, Art, and Landscape: Ireland Reflections

by Betty Lou Chaika | posted in: Pilgrimage Stories | 6

Here are some reflections on our 2017 pilgrimage to Ireland in which we realize that it is the intersection of community, art and landscape that creates such unparalled beauty. Our first morning home from Ireland I awoke with this dream: … Continued

art, Cailleach, community, holy wells, Ireland, Pilgrimage to Ireland, Sacred Landscape

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Recent Posts

  • Earth-Dreaming: The Mysterious Tree House December 20th 2020
  • Indigenous American Thanksgiving November 25th 2020
  • Celebrating Samhain: The Mystery of Transformation October 31st 2020
  • The Cailleach: A Witch for Our Times October 15th 2020
  • Autumn Equinox: Circles of Peace September 21st 2020
  • Pond Love August 25th 2020
  • Celebrating Lughnasa: A Vision of Leadership August 4th 2020
  • Ceremony: Welcoming Back the Pollinators June 30th 2020
  • Beltane Maypole Sun Celebrating Beltane: A Passionate Burning April 30th 2020
  • Five bluebird eggs Restoring the Forest, Restoring Ourselves March 28th 2020
  • The Stone Garden The Stone Garden: A Delicate Balance February 21st 2020
  • TundraSwans flying over moon at Pocosin Lakesmoon Miracle at Pocosin Lakes January 30th 2020
  • Drawing of orange marigold Earth-Dreaming: Marigold Transformation December 30th 2019
  • A Magical Stone, A Healing Chant November 29th 2019
  • Sacred Landscape: Native American Effigy Mounds October 13th 2019
  • Turtle Teachings September 9th 2019
  • Sacred Trees: Rag Tree, Rock Tree, Witch Tree August 3rd 2019
  • Summer Solstice: Co-Creating Ritual and Ceremony June 24th 2019
  • Thomas Berry: Celebrating a Wise Earth Elder June 4th 2019
  • Garden Path Earth Day: Temenos Garden Sanctuary April 22nd 2019
  • Inventory of Garden Native Plants and Animals April 1st 2019
  • Earth-Dreaming: Liminal Waters March 19th 2019
  • Divine Feminine/Sacred Landscape: St.Gobnait, Lady of the Bees February 11th 2019
  • Belonging to the Community of Life December 31st 2018
  • River of Life: An Elder, A Community, A Ceremony November 28th 2018
  • Hazelnut Wisdom – Practical, Mythical, Mystical October 26th 2018
  • Pilgrimage: Ireland on One Foot September 27th 2018
  • Visiting Ojibwe Family: Gakina Awiiya – “We Are All Related” August 30th 2018
  • Happily the Rains Subside August 3rd 2018
  • Memorial Day Ritual: Grieving for the Trees June 4th 2018

EarthSanctuaries content © Betty Lou Chaika unless otherwise noted.