A Druid's Blog

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I am still digesting my recent trip to Ireland. I have to admit that it was a difficult journey in many ways. In the past when I went there I focused on ancient monuments; sacred stone sites, holy wells, and old trees. This time illusions were pared from my eyes and I saw the landscape in a completely different way. As I gazed on the wild hills I realized they were denuded – where vistas of rock and scrub and sheep now appear would once have been unbroken forest. Mile after mile of naked hillsides seemed to be crying out for their lost tree cover, all romantic notions dispelled.The trees were cut beginning in the Neolithic, but it was the English who practiced tree felling on an industrial scale and the decimation of woodlands continues.

The Celtic spirit is famous for being a mixture of joy that is always tinged with sadness. I have to admit that what has stayed with me most is the feeling of suffering I encountered in the people struggling to make ends meet, and the desolation of the empty lands that should have been rich with native hardwoods and medicinal plants, and a rich mixture of birds and animals. Ireland has only one percent of her forests left.

The great hope of Ireland now lies in the common people who are rising up and working to preserve and hopefully rebuild their ancient forests and other native traditions. I am most impressed by the power and energy of Irish women. It was the women who fought to bring about the recent legalizing of abortion and it was mostly women who designed and carried out the impressive rituals at the Beltaine Uisneach Fire Festival.

There is a new fascination with the old Druid way and the old tribal laws called The Brehon Laws.  The Irish always had a hard time accepting the English law that was imposed on them; English law is punitive in nature while Brehon Law is based on restorative justice. You can’t run a tribe, which is basically a large extended family, using punitive laws. The repercussions are just too dire.

As an American born in Austria, with a good chunk of Celtic ancestry, all I can do is witness and hope as Ireland makes her slow recovery from the decimation of colonial rule and I will lend assistance where I can.

Here in the USA we are celebrating the start of summer while mourning the fate of suffering children who have been taken from their parents and dumped into concentration camps. Hundreds of thousands of us took to the streets to protest, and that gives me hope.

BOOK NEWS

The editing of the new book “The Real Witches of New England” is done. Radio shows and a book launch party are in the works. You can pre-order it here.

WORKSHOPS AND SPEAKING EVENTS

• July 14-15
  Tree Divination Using the Ancient Celtic Ogham Alphabet with Ellen Evert Hopman
  at Dreamland, in Worcester, VT.
  Sat. 10-5, Sun. 10-3
  $130.
  Contact: Fearn Lickfield
• Saturday September 8, 2018
  Western Mass Pagan Pride Day
  A talk on Witch persecutions in Europe and the US
  11am-5pm
  at the Florence Civic Center,
  Northampton MA
• Thursday, Sept. 27th,  7-9 pm
  Get your Halloween groove on early.
  The Real Witches of New England book launch party, nibbles and fun.
  At AwenTree, 102 Cottage St. Easthampton, MA 01027, 413-527-3331
  Ellen will read from her new book “The Real Witches of New England” in which she presents a time line of Witch persecutions throughout history. She will also introduce you to some of the historical accused Witches from our area; The Witch of Northampton, The Witch of Hadley and others. Her books will be available for signing.
• October 13 – April 2019
  Intro to Herbalism and Self Care~ A Six Month Intensive
  Two Saturdays a month, 1-5 PM near Amherst, MA
  Western Materia Medica, Chinese 5 Element Theory,
  Flower Essence Counseling, Formula making, Hands on Herbalism,
  Ethnobotany, Herb walks, Homeopathic First Aid, Live case taking and more.
• Sunday, October 21, 2018
  Celebrate Samhain!
  Courtyard Marriott Nashua, 2200 Southwood Drive
  Nashua, New Hampshire 03063
  Directions

*Below you will find the usual roundup of Archaeology news, Herbs, Celts, Fairies, Ethics and more. Please visit this website to view my books and classes.*

ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS

• Climate Change is drowning Arctic archaeological treasures
• A mid-Neolithic dolmen found in Switzerland
• Carbon dating ancient cosmetics
• Germany returns Maori artifact to New Zealand
• An Etruscan tomb in Tuscany
• New evidence from a Spanish dolmen
• How did Newgrange handle leap year?
• Proto-Indo-European root of modern languages (podcast)
• Bronze Age bracelets found in Donegal
• Hunter-gatherer mobility and technology
• Special purpose buildings in the Neolithic
• Bronze Age Mesopotamian beer
• Child sacrifice in ancient Mesopotamia
• A bronze hand that was a gift to a Roman God, found in Scotland
• A Neolithic ritual site discovered in Suffolk
  More…
• 5000 year old carved stone balls from Scotland
• Pre-Inca funeral towers rebuilt
• Petroglyphs discovered in India
• New finds from ancient Peru
• Finds from Medieval Estonia
• A 2000 year old Russian mummy
• A 500 year old ship found in Denmark
• Cranium of a 4 million year old hominin similar to us
• An Australian cockatoo image from 13th century Sicily
• Neanderthals hunted in bands, evidence shows
• 26th dynasty canopic jars found at Luxor
• New evidence and conclusions about canopic jars
• A Neolithic village found in Abu Dhabi
• 4 billion years of evolution in 6 minutes (video)
• DNA study reveals fate of Irish women taken to Iceland by Vikings
• 1100 year old deer skull headdresses found in UK
• Mesolithic finds under a Greek temple of Apollo
• Otzi’s tools reveal how Copper Age people lived
• A 5000 BCE site found in Iran
• Hadrian’s Wall is being damaged by metal detectorists
• Another Irish monument with a “roof box” to let in the solstice sun
• 3-D analysis of hunter-gatherer tools
• Some grossly mutilated burials from Roman era Britain
• New evidence about the Clovis culture in Montana
• Swedes have been brewing beer since the Iron Age
• New Mayan structures found
• An inscribed stone found at Tintagel, Cornwall
• Pre-Columbian Peruvian murals discovered
• Greek mosaics found in 1800 year old villa
• Debunking the Aryan invasion theory
• Ancient farming in Ireland caused massive ecological changes
• Large scale whaling in Scandinavia probably started as early as 6th century
• A 99 million year old frog trapped in amber
• The true origins of Mesoamerican turquoise
• Maps of Celtic and British DNA, tribes
• A Bronze Age oak road in Ireland will be preserved
• A Stone Age ax found in Denmark
• Did Neanderthals originate outside Europe?
• Portraits from ancient Palmyra
• Child sacrifice in ancient Peru
• Genetic history of Nevada Native Americans
• A vitrified fort in Scotland
• Persian and Arabic inscriptions that may be spells
• Did Neanderthals voyage out to sea?
• Bronze Age pigs eaten in the Hallstatt
• When the Celts came to Poland
• Support those protecting Native American ceremonial landscapes
• A new way to see “invisible” elements of ancient rock engravings
• Ancient Peru’s cranial surgeons
• A 3000 year old mystery sculpture from Israel
• A Bronze Age chariot found in India
• The Pleistocene human diet in SE Asia
• Sotheby’s sues Greece over return of an ancient horse statue
• The Celts at Prague National Museum
• New evidence for the beginning of agriculture
• How do you put a hat on an Easter Island statue?
• Underwater Archaeology off Naxos
• Dinosaur skeleton sells for 2 million Euros
• A stone age tribe addresses the world (video)
  
• The genes of the first Icelanders examined
• Leather pouch, coins found in Pompeii
• UNESCO calls for repatriation of Parthenon marbles to Greece
• 2,300 year old athletes tomb found outside of Rome
• Roman graves, skeletons, jewelry found in Serbia
• A Viking warrior burial log assumed to be male was just proved to be a female
• The hill of Uisneach in the center of Ireland
• A coastal theory of settling of the Americas
• Two ancient ancestries converged when first peoples moved into South America
• Ancient Egyptian “hawk” mummy is actually a human fetus

HERB NEWS

• Herbs for Gingivitis
• Foraging for Elderflowers
• Make Elderflower Mead
• Elderflower recipes
• Raspberry Mint wine
• All about ferns
• Pineapple weed!
• Silverweed uses and benefits
• Herbs for menstrual cramps
• Make Dandelion Mead!
• Herbs for diarrhea (I like cinnamon tea)
• Healing herbs of the Middle Ages
• Grow your own organic potatoes!
• Tormentil uses and benefits
• How to identify poison hemlock

HEALTH NEWS

• A trauma therapist explains how to cope with existential despair
• Monsanto faces law suit that Roundup causes cancer and buried the evidence
• Trump seeks to raise rates, gut coverage for 50-64 year olds
• One in ten deaths in the USA is by suicide and the numbers are rising
• Doctors cure advanced breast cancer for first time using immunotherapy
• A new approach to treating lung cancer
• Alzheimer’s linked to herpes in the brain
• No clear evidence – yet – that probiotics help anxiety
• If you make it to 105 you have a good chance of living even longer
• An implant that releases Diabetes meds when caffeine is injested that may replace shots one day
• An insulin pill may be on the horizon
• Work continues to stop future pandemics

CLIMATE AND NATURE NEWS

• Coral reefs can’t keep up with warming and rising oceans
• Saturn Moon shows evidence of organic molecules and water, the basis for life
• Interstellar object Oumuamua is a “comet in disguise”
• One fifth of Britain’s wild animals face extinction
• Rethinking orangutan evolution and future survival
• Calculating the diet of extinct animals
• New Miocene mammal species identified in Bolivia
• Germany just banned fracking forever! Yay!
• So did Ireland!
• 80 exoplanets discovered
• Einstein proved right in another galaxy
• Bedrock in Antarctica rising faster than thought – due to loss of the ice sheet
• A new map of soil loss and desertification on Earth
• Why life on Earth first got big
• Solar energy system that runs at night!
• Rewilding success stories (note the woodland roaming bison – further evidence that cows are forest creatures!)
• Likely cradles for life in our solar system
• Outer space is full of toxic grease
• T Rex could not stick out its tongue
• Bumblebees actually do better in urban environments, study finds
• The distribution of the Carolina Parakeet before extinction
• Many primates are now facing extinction
• Now extinct cow had a face like a bull dog
• Methane from mud volcanoes
• The shape of water on Mars
• Efforts to save the Sumatran rhino
• Earth’s magnetic field is not about the reverse (Whew!)
• A 900 year drought ended the Indus civilization
• Volcanoes and the Devonian mass extinction
  More on mass extinctions and how they are being identified
• The energy produced by deep sea ecosystems
• Giant viruses the size of bacteria found
• Volcanoes in the Jurassic, oxygen loss and mass extinction in the oceans
• Scientists shocked by ancient tree deaths
  More: ancient Baobob trees are dying suddenly
• A new saber toothed animal found in Russia
• When a dinosaur fossil is gone, is it gone forever?
• Earth days are gradually getting longer
• The oldest footprints ever found are bug tracks
• Mars Rover finds organic material, methane on Mars
• Raptors are disappearing in Botswana and other African areas
• Changes in Earth’s orbit affect rise and fall of species
• Dolphins are being killed for bait in global fisheries
• What did Jurassic animals eat?
  More: There were no Jurassic Puffins
• Thousands of sea turtles are killed by small scale fisheries each year
• Japan whale hunt kills 122 pregnant Minke whales
• The number of Mountain Gorillas now numbers over 1000 (great news!)
• What caused the Cambrian explosion of life forms?
• Ancient Greenland was warmer than thought
• The fate of civilizations and their planets – is apocalypse inevitable?
• Bees can understand the concept of “zero”

CELTIC NEWS

• Ancient Irish wisdom texts
• Summer Solstice in ancient Ireland
• Midsummer’s Eve in Ireland
• The Cailleach (video)
  
• Sacred Irish Trees: Ogham, Folklore, Brehon Law (video)

FAIRY NEWS

• The Fairy Census, 2014 – 2017
• Women and Fairies at work

ARTS NEWS

• Traditional trance dance and music of Poland

RELIGION NEWS

• Pope Francis: Trump border separation of families is “immoral”
• How one Irish woman became a Druid
• Pope Francis: “Continued use of fossil fuels will destroy civilization”
• Meditating with labyrinths
• A new Chosen Chief for the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids!
  More…
  Even More…
• Knights Templar and Druids (video)

POLITICS AND ETHICS

• Jeff Sessions quotes Bible as justification for separating refugee/immigrant kids from their parents
• A reminder from Romans 13
  “Love Fulfills the Law
  8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,”[a] and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”[b] 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
• Reporters thought it was N. Korean propaganda but it was a video made by the White House
• A Muslim woman has won a Democratic primary in GA (will wonders never cease?)
• Chinese state media implies Trump is “a fool”.
• UN: US is violating rights of children, must stop separating migrant children from their parents now
  More…
  Related: ACLU sues ICE over child/parent separations
• Mass graves of immigrants and asylum seekers found in Texas
• Meet Stephen Miller, Trump’s adviser who advocated separating children from their parents
• Trump cuts aid to migrant kids, even as he incarcerates children
• Meanwhile, Ann Coulter says immigrant children separated from their parents at the border are “child actors”
• LA Times : Prison like youth shelters for migrant kids are “understaffed” and “unequipped”
• 17 states are suing Trump over family separations
• Bill introduced to require all presidential candidates to release their tax returns
• When did immigrants become “illegal”?
• ICE is now checking citizenship status at checkpoints in New England
• Immigrants commit less crime than native born Americans
• A brief history of Melania’s “I don’t care” jacket logo’s  Fascist roots
  More…
  And more…
• Mexican airline offers to reunite immigrant parents and children for free
• Minimum wage doesn’t cover the rent anywhere in the USA
• UN: 18 million in US live in extreme poverty but Trump says its only 250,000
• A first hand account of what is happening at the border
• Corporate America used its tax breaks to buy back stock, not raise wages or invest in R & D
• Canada says it will take refugees banned by the US
• Milo calls for killing of journalists (as I type this 5 journalists were killed today in Maryland)
• Its time to bring back hack proof paper ballots
• Former GOP operative Steve Schmidt: “The party of Trump must be obliterated”
• June 30, 2018 sees massive protests across the US to protest the separation of immigrant parents and children
• More toddlers appear alone in immigration court, are expected to advocate for themselves

*In compliance with recent changes in European data protection laws, may I ask any of you who no longer wish to receive my blog to “unsubscribe” from this list using the link at the bottom of your notification email. For those of you who would like to stay on the list, no action is required – and read on.*
This Moonth’s blog looks a bit different than most because I was just on the road for three weeks, in Ireland. I only got to go there because I won a free tour from Wild Routes Ireland, for which I am deeply grateful. I highly recommend them if you can go and please tell them I sent you!

Those who have read my books know that most of them are very Irish centered, Ireland has been my muse for decades.

I have been to Ireland three times and each journey had its own unique qualities. The first time the focus was on discovering the ancient archaeology and sacred sites. The second trip was all about the “troubles”, I spoke to Druids in Armagh during the marching season and was near Omagh when the huge bomb went off. On this most recent journey I glimpsed more of the ecological and economic reality of the island.

I began the journey by spending a week on a farm in Ballinasloe, County Galway, where a fascinating tree project is underway. The land owner is inviting people to plant “memorial trees” in the name of a loved one on a reclaimed bog. The eventual goal is to grow a native hardwood forest of trees, each one nourished by the scattered ashes of the dead. (If anyone is interested in having their ashes taken to Ireland please contact me privately).

I have learned that Ireland only has one percent of her native forests left. The cutting of Irish forests has been going on since the Neolithic farmers moved in but was accelerated by English colonial powers. These days the government has a really short-sighted scheme of taking common lands and handing them over to private companies for “tree plantations” of monoculture Sitka Spruce, a tree that is native to Alaska of all places. Walking inside one of those “plantations” is like a vision of Hell – nothing can grow under the trees because they are so thickly planted and the dark, dank understory is nothing but a dead zone. The trees were chosen because they grow fast and turn a quick profit.

In contrast, when you visit an intact old growth forest of native hardwoods there is a super abundance of life. Many tree species, shrubs, flowers, birds, deer, pine martins and other life abound. One begins to see how the Irish could have survived nicely in those forests; gathering abundant food, firewood and medicines. The loss of the forests has meant increased dependency on corporations for food, shelter and survival.

Something else I learned on this trip – cows are basically forest animals. It turns out that letting cows graze in a woodland produces wonderful milk. The cows graze on herbs and trees, even yew, with no ill effect. I remember seeing cave paintings of bison in Altamira and Lascaux and I knew that bison roamed the forests of ancient Europe but I just hadn’t made the cow connection.

There are groups working hard to stop the monoculture plantations of exotic trees. The Woodland League is one such association. Other groups are fighting to stop corporations from harvesting seaweed using heavy machinery that scrapes the sea bed, killing everything in its wake. Traditionally seaweed was harvested by hand and that remains the most sustainable way to manage things.

Legend has it that the Hag of Beara was banished into this stone by a monk. When I went there she whispered in my ear; “They could never put me into a stone. Don’t you know I am walking beside you?”

Another thing I understood is that Ireland was long the poorest country in Europe. The Republic of Ireland was only founded in 1937 – after a bloody war of independence with Britain followed by a civil war. In many ways Ireland is still recovering from those conflicts and from the eight hundred years of English occupation and plunder of natural resources before that.

Many homes still don’t have electricity and I found myself living the first week in a trailer with no electric power and no running water, which came as a bit of a shock as I was not forewarned. I was assured that I had come at a good time because until that week the area was a sea of mud! I had been invited to stay there to do ceremony on the land, a pretty big honor for a Yank.

I did a Land Blessing ritual for the Memorial Forest where I incorporated the ancient idea of milk offerings. That went so well that they asked me to do yet another ceremony – to bless the children.

A week or so later I went on the Wild Routes tour and experienced the opposite end of Irish culture. We stayed in some of the most luxurious digs I have ever experienced; a house with multiple living rooms and fire places and two cooks, and then an equine riding center that catered to riders of many nationalities.

Besides the natural beauty of Ireland’s west coast (who knew that Cork was so wild and breathtaking?) there were insights into the current politics of the island. Just a few years ago, Ireland voted to approve gay marriage and last week abortion. Amazing! I have a firm sense that the Catholic church is losing its vice grip.

In ancient times the status of women among the Celts was high and its seems the women are making a strong comeback in modern Irish culture. Goddess worship and strong female political involvement are everywhere.

Many thanks to Bob Thompson for permission to use his digital photographs. I took my own pictures with slide film (yes, I still have two Kodak projectors and screen!)

Ireland had a very hard winter this year and the hawthorns were weeks late in blooming. Coming home after our own record breaking winter here in New England (at the end of April there was still snow on the ground) the plants responded with a lushness I have not seen before. Things that haven’t bloomed in years are covered with blossoms and green growth. And there has been a chorus of wild turkeys coming from the woods behind the house, signs of fertility are everywhere.

BOOK NEWS

• The Real Witches of New England is available for pre-order now!
  Here is a review found on Goodreads:Annarella‘s reviewJun 01, 2018it was amazingA very good book, full of interesting facts.This book is so well written that it can be read like a novel. Strongly recommended!

• My herb books get reviewed in a nice podcast
  
• Tree Medicine Tree Magic is reviewed in this article
  

UPCOMING EVENTS

• Tuesday, June 19, 7 PM to 8:30 PM
  A talk on Chinese Five Element Theory
  Living Waters Chapter of Dowsers, located in Claremont, NH.
  Contact: Alice Harwood
• July 14-15
  Tree Divination Using the Ancient Celtic Ogham Alphabet with Ellen Evert Hopman
  at Dreamland, in Worcester, VT.
  Sat. 10-5, Sun. 10-3
  $130
  Contact: Fearn Lickfield
• October 13 – April 2019
  Intro to Herbalism and Self Care~ A Six Month Intensive
  Two Saturdays a month, 1-5 PM near Amherst, MA
  Western Materia Medica, Chinese 5 Element Theory, Flower Essence Counseling, Formula making, Hands on Herbalism, Ethnobotany, Herb walks, Homeopathic First Aid, Live case taking and more.
• Saturday September 8, 2018
  Western Mass Pagan Pride Day
  A talk on Witch persecutions in Europe and the US
  11am-5pm
  at the Florence Civic Center, Northampton MA
• Sunday, October 21, 2018
  Celebrate Samhain!
  Courtyard Marriott Nashua, 2200 Southwood Drive
  Nashua, New Hampshire 03063
  Directions

Below are the usual links for archaeology news, herbs, nature, climate, Celts, Fairies and more. Reminder – you can order my books from this website and receive a signed copy with a personal note! 

HERB NEWS

• Green Tea may help prevent heart attacks
• Psyllium uses and benefits
• Dandelion uses and benefits
• An old growth forest in Ireland (video)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx82ZRMnKZ4&app=desktop
• Herbal remedies for constipation (personally I like Triphala)
• Woad!
• Woad  (video)
  
• Aloe vera uses and benefits

HEALTH NEWS

• Antibiotic resistance crisis deepening due to lack of supplies
• People who wear glasses really are smarter

ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS

• The Beaker folk and their replacement of Neolithic DNA may be remembered in Irish myths
• Olive oil from the Sicilian Bronze Age
• Crannogs on Loch Tay dated
• Pictish finds in Orkney
• Viking raid and fire helped preserve a Pictish fort
• A Viking dockyard on Skye
• Ancient Southern Africa was much wetter than today
• New finds at Pompeii
• First dating for Homo Antecessor
• Mysterious carved stone balls from Scotland
• Meet a 3,700 year old woman from the Scottish Highlands
• Art from the Ice Age hunter gatherers
• Roman era graves found in London
• New paintings and frescoes found in Pompeii
• Human thigh bone daggers from New Guinea
• Horses were more important to ancient Kush than once thought
• The ancient use of fungi for tinder
• Domestic seeds found in ancient nomadic burial sites
• The Neanderthal brain examined
• Ancient humans vs giant sloths
• An Anglo-Saxon settlement and Roman camp found in UK
• A 1000 year old mummy found in Peru
• Simulating prehistoric uses of fire
• Wars and clan structure cause a Y chromosome “bottleneck” 7000 years ago
• 5 disputed museum treasures
• A papyrus of Seneca the Elder found
• An Iron Age Gallic sanctuary found in the French Alps

CLIMATE AND NATURE NEWS

• 121 planets may have habitable Moons
• New images of the Tarantula nebula
• After the asteroid extinction event life rebounded at the crater site
• The mother of all lizards
• The smallest biggest Theropod dinosaur
• Microbes in the stratosphere
• The search for fossils on Mars
• Visit a virtual exo-planet
• Rise and fall of the Great Barrier Reef
• Bird-Dinosaurs had dandruff
• Earth’s temperature will rise 4 degrees by 2084
• Pangea split happened much later than thought
• The quest for a 1 million year old ice core
• When the dinosaurs died so did forests and tree dwelling birds
• How humans and apes are different
• It’s time to rethink our burial practices. According to the Green Burial Council, traditional burials put 20 million feet of wood, 1.6 million tons of concrete and 4.3 million gallons of embalming fluid into the ground, every year.
• How slow CO2 rise ended the last Ice Age
• Ancient south Africans survived a super-volcanic eruption
• How dinosaurs used their teeth
• Monsanto loses right to patent seeds in India
• Carl Sagan on the future of the human race (video)
  
• Sluggish ocean currents caused heat wave 12,000 years ago
• NASA’S golden record may baffle aliens

RELIGION NEWS

• US senators introduce “do no harm” act
• Get Druid training on line (program takes about 3 years)
• The magic of the number 9

CELTIC NEWS

• Elen of the Ways – an ancient British Goddess
• Beltaine at Uisneach (video)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6nwEBWCWPk&ab_channel=MoonCrone
   
• How to type Gaelic accented letters
• May Day in Ireland – traditional customs
• Witch bottles in Ireland (video)

FAIRY NEWS

• Eddie Lenihan – The Black Dog (video)
  
• Moving house and animism in Scottish folklore

POLITICS AND ETHICS

• In 1927 Donald Trump’s father was arrested in a Klan riot (updated story from the Washington Post)
• Trump did not pressure North Korea to drop their nukes – China did
• When Oregon banned all blacks from the state
• UN expert: Alabama has the worst poverty in the developed world
• After big Democratic win in ND, GOP supress the Native American vote
• Why the birth rate in the USA is declining

It is April 30, “Walpurgisnacht”, the night before Beltaine or May Day, as I write this. We have had record cold all month and later this week the weather will be twenty degrees above average! We sure live in interesting times.
Of course, it isn’t really Beltaine until the first hawthorn blooms, but modern folk have taken to using a calendrical date.
Beltaine is one of the four great Fire Festivals of the Celts. Here is a description of the traditional observance of this holy day in Scotland though many other countries and cultures have their own way of celebrating. As it happens I am writing another herbal just now – on the herbs and Spirits of Beltaine. May your Beltaine fires be bright!
“The night before, all the fires in the country were carefully extinguished, and next morning the materials for exciting this sacred fire were prepared. The most primitive method seems to be that which was used in the islands of Skye, Mull, and Tiree. A well-seasoned plank of oak was procured, in the midst of which a hole was bored. A wimble of the same timber was then applied, the end of which they fitted to the hole. But in some parts of the mainland the machinery was different. They used a frame of green wood, of a square form, in the centre of which was an axle-tree. In some places three times three persons, in others three times nine, were required for turning round by turns the axle-tree or wimble. If any of them had been guilty of murder, adultery, theft, or other atrocious crime, it was imagined either that the fire would not kindle, or that it would be devoid of its usual virtue. So soon as any sparks were emitted by means of the violent friction, they applied a species of agaric which grows on old birch-trees and is very combustible. This fire had the appearance of being immediately derived from heaven, and manifold were the virtues ascribed to it. They esteemed it a preservative against witch-craft, and a sovereign remedy against malignant diseases, both in the human species and in cattle; and by it the strongest poisons were supposed to have their nature changed.”
 “After kindling the bonfire with the tein-eigin* the company prepared their victuals. And as soon as they had finished their meal, they amused themselves a while in singing and dancing round the fire. Towards the close of the entertainment, the person who officiated as master of the feast produced a large cake baked with eggs and scalloped round the edge, called am bonnach beal-tine—i.e., the Beltane cake. It was divided into a number of pieces and distributed in great form to the company. There was one particular piece which whoever got was called cailleach beal-tine—i.e., the Beltane carline*, a term of great reproach. Upon his being known, part of the company laid hold of him and made a show of putting him into the fire; but the majority interposing, he was rescued. And in some places they laid him flat on the ground, making as if they would quarter him. Afterwards, he was pelted with egg-shells, and retained the odious appellation during the whole year. And while the feast was fresh in people’s memory, they affected to speak of the cailleach beal-tine as dead.”
*the “tein-eigin” is a “need-fire” – a sacred fire kindled for rituals of healing and for the great fire Festivals
Frazer, The Golden Bough, Wordsworth Editions Ltd, London, 1993, PP. 617-618
*Below you will find the usual assortment of archaeology news, Celtic news, Herbal news, Fairy news, religion and ethics and more. Enjoy!*

SOME UPCOMING EVENTS

• Tuesday, June 19, 7 PM to 8:30 PM
  A talk on Chinese Five Element Theory
  Living Waters Chapter of Dowsers, located in Claremont, NH.
  Contact: Alice Harwood
• July 14-15
  Tree Divination Using the Ancient Celtic Ogham Alphabet
  with Ellen Evert Hopman
  at Dreamland, in Worcester, VT.
  Sat. 10-5, Sun. 10-3
  $130
  Contact: Fearn Lickfield
• October 13 – April 2019
  Intro to Herbalism and Self Care~ A Six Month Intensive
  Two Saturdays a month, 1-5 PM near Amherst, MA
  Western Materia Medica, Chinese 5 Element Theory,
  Flower Essence Counseling, Formula making, Hands on Herbalism,
  Ethnobotany, Herb walks, Homeopathic First Aid, Live case taking and more.
• Saturday September 8, 2018
  Western Mass Pagan Pride Day
  A talk on Witch persecutions in Europe and the US
  11am-5pm
  at the Florence Civic Center,
  Northampton MA
• Sunday, October 21, 2018
  Celebrate Samhain!
  Courtyard Marriott Nashua, 2200 Southwood Drive
  Nashua, New Hampshire 03063
  Directions 

BOOK NEWS

• THE REAL WITCHES OF NEW ENGLAND has its own page and can be pre-ordered now on Amazon and other places.
• A nice review of my herbals (video)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROmzSBujPWQ

ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS

• Roman wheat farming advice was very accurate
• The Celts: mobile men, sedentary women
• Did the Romans invent the Hamburger?
• Family life at Hadrian’s Wall
• A Cro-Magnon man’s face reconstructed, warts and all
• Spear points and Native American migrations
• Neanderthals were big nosed and very active
• A new Cretaceous monosaur
• Inca origins
• A giant ichthyosaur from the UK
  More: a pregnant ichthyosaur
• First human migration out of Africa more widespread than thought
• The color of 200 million year old insects
• The most primitive kangaroo ancestor
• Early humans in Indonesia
• History of the sweet potato and cross Pacific contacts
• Dinosaurs began and ended with a bang!
• Insects were a major food source for early humans
• Surviving climate change: then and now
• Nomadic foodies along the ancient Silk Road
• Looted Dacian treasure returned to Romania
• Roman graves found under a York hotel swimming pool
• The Celtic God of beer
• A fossilized elephant, older than mammoths found
• Peace from antiquity to the present
• A Cornish barrow found
• Bust of emperor Marcus Aurelius found in Aswan
• Mysterious head of a female Pharaoh found in a storage facility
• The lessons of Chaco Canyon
• The colorful past of Scotland’s Roman wall
• A new Jurassic exhibit in the UK
• An ancient site in Syria is looted and destroyed by ISIL
• Did Neolithic vets practice on cows?
• Recreate ancient recipes (videos)
• A Bronze Age burial urn is found in Cornwall
• Boy finds treasure of Danish king Bluetooth in Germany
• Humans moved out of Africa earlier than thought
• Exploring the sea bed and ancient Doggerland
• Butser Iron Age farm (video)
  
• Clovis points examined. The first Americans were not from Europe.
• Origins of the domesticated horse
• Archaeologist “discovered” his own fakes at Catalhuyuk
• New Nazca lines discovered by a drone
• Human languages traced back to single African mother tongue
• A standing stone on Arran (video)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kdxl4VagKo&feature=share
• Lost Amazon villages uncovered
• The Irish-Spanish connection
• Why Neanderthals had big noses
  More…
• Celtic beer
• How hunter-gatherers maintained their egalitarian ways
• An ancient Cornish barrow found
• Caesar, Rome, and the Gaulish genocide
• The oldest foot prints in North America found where native historians said they would be

HERB NEWS

• Masterwort, an herb similar to Angelica
• All about Turmeric and Curcumin
• Purple Dead Nettle – medicinal and culinary uses
• Guerilla grafting – grafting fruit tree slips onto city trees
• Pasque Flower (Pulsatilla)
• Chaga mushrooms
• 25 things to do with Dandelions
• Make Dandelion salve
• The science behind smudging with Sage
• Magic mushrooms shown to help depression
• Nettles!
• Fermented herbal root beer
• Horse Chestnuts
• Morel mushrooms + recipes
• It’s time to stop fertilizing with chemicals and to instead grow healthy soil
• Plant a night blooming flower garden
• Grow a bee friendly lawn
• Detroit bee keepers are reclaiming vacant city lots for bees
• Drug maker about to get patent for CBD and THC for gliom
• Stevia kills Lyme disease pathogens better than antibiotics
  More…
• A 9th century Anglo-Saxon remedy that kills MRSA

HEALTH NEWS

• Texas school beats ADHD by tripling recess time
• Is coffee good or bad for your health?
• Majority of Americans 74% support single payer healthcare for all
• US healthcare ranked worst in the developed world – in terms of cost, accessibility and outcomes
  More…
• Splenda shown to cause cancer in mice
• Older Americans are slapped with an old age tax in the GOP health care bill
• A blood test for colon cancer, polyps (but you will still need a colonoscopy if you have a family history of polyps)
• Antibiotics and side effects – If you take ANY antibiotic – including herbal ones like Goldenseal – you have to rebuild your intestinal flora. Yogurt, sauerkraut, miso soup, garlic, raw (not pasteurized) apple cider all help.

CLIMATE AND NATURE NEWS

• US is cutting down forests for wood pellets used in the UK
• Electric vehicles will not crash the power grid as some have claimed
• Renewables will be cheaper than coal by early 2020’s
• Massachusetts has wind power to spare
• Colorado’s insanely cheap renewable energy future
• Biogenome project will attempt to record DNA of all complex life on Earth
• We just breached the 410 ppm CO2 emissions threshold
• After the asteroid 66 million years ago some fish won the evolutionary lottery
• Ancestor of modern sea turtles found in Alabama
• From birth to ban, the history of the plastic shopping bag
• Fresh water in oceans affecting storms, climate, faster than ever
• Europe’s biggest bank divests from oil sands
• Record amounts of plastic found in arctic sea ice
• US official delay protecting endangered species at the behest of oil industry
• An ancient juniper forest in Pakistan under threat
• Cambodians living amidst mountains of plastic
• 95% of plastic in the oceans comes from just 10 rivers
• How letting nature reclaim farmland produces amazing results
• 67 environmental rules on the way out due to Trump
• People who are planting trees and making a difference
• Heat wave has now forever killed off 30% of Great Barrier Reef
• How birds navigate the Earth
• The search for habitable planets continues (I wish we would just concentrate on saving this one!)
• Evidence for a “lost planet” from our early solar system
• New Zealand takes steps to ban all off-shore oil exploration
• Trump’s border wall is a disaster for wildlife
• Antarctic ice retreating faster than expected
• Who’s tops in the pops – animals that make jazz
• Dinosaur footprints found on Skye
• How the Giant’s Causeway was formed
• Exxon-Mobil and its deceptive ads (video)
• World could be 2 degrees hotter in 10-15 years thanks to fracking, US energy policy
• Scotland is on track to have 100% renewable energy by 2020
• Gulf Stream current is dramatically weaker now
  More…
• Major international corporations tied to illegal rainforest destruction
• 2018 hurricane season predicted to be above average
• Possums – the unsung heroes against ticks and Lyme disease
• How Trump is breaking the environment beyond repair
• A Texas town will pay people to install solar panels
• Plastic bag bans really do work
• In March Portugal made more than enough renewable energy to power the entire country
• Trump administration declines to protect 25 endangered species
• An elephant caught “smoking” ash (video)
• Robotic “bees” are being sent to Mars to detect farts (yes, farts), possible life forms
• Hubble captures image of most distant star ever seen
• A galaxy found with no dark matter
• China is refusing “foreign trash”, putting American recycling into chaos
• Africa is starting to split in two, via a giant rift
• Climate change will affect American culinary traditions; maple syrup to hot sauce
• African religious leaders encourage tree planting to combat climate change, desertification
• Sea Salt is contaminated by plastic study finds
• First Direct Observation of Carbon Dioxide’s Greenhouse Effect
• Trump vs. California – a growing confrontation regarding auto emissions
• Mobil CEO admits his product causes climate change
• March 2018 was third warmest on record
• Scientists are growing vegetables in Antarctica with no daylight or soil
• Climate change is shrinking African rivers and streams, fish disappearing
• Antarctic ice is melting faster than thought
• Vegetation and the future of water cycles
• 2C degrees no longer seen as global guardrail against devastating climate effects
• World’s biggest solar array is in India
• Earth’s first trees were more complex than modern ones
• NASA: Cape Town drought is a global harbinger
• EPA instructs staff to cast doubt on climate science
• New bill could put oil companies on the hook for climate change costs
• Melting Arctic permafrost could release toxic Mercury
• California bans climate pollutants in refrigerators, air conditioners
• Climate change threatens people and animals in Africa
• In the stores of the future plastic will be a thing of the past
• 3-D printed homes for the homeless and under-housed

CELTIC NEWS

• May Day and butter stealing Witches
• The Padstow ‘Oss
• May Day customs in Ireland
• A May poem
• Maypoles are a recent custom in Ireland
• Sacred Groves (video)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsHghGwdWNg
• The legend of O’Donoughue on May morning

FAIRY NEWS

• Fairies of the Cairngorms
• House Fairies and Elves
• Eddie Lenihan on the Fairies (video)

RELIGION NEWS

• Paul Ryan fires House Chaplain who said the Republican tax plan should be balanced and fair for all parties. “The Rev. Patrick Conroy, the House chaplain for the last several years, delivered a prayer on the legislative floor urging lawmakers debating the Republican tax plan that benefits should “balanced and shared by all Americans.”
  More…
• “I am a Marxist but not a Leninist” says Dalai Lama
• The Fairy Faith in Canada (video)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH_dOuC8a0c
• How to say Beltaine (video)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOmsWOz0xMs&feature=share
• Why white Evangelicals don’t care about climate change
• Are racists trying to take over Paganism? (This is nothing new – we have to keep speaking out when we see it)
• Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute, scholars say
• Is Evangelical Christianity Sociopathic?
• Sweden’s Easter Witches (video)
  
• Pastors says true Christians own an assault rifle
• Finnish magical healers

CELTIC NEWS

• The Celtiberian God Eburos (Yew Tree) (video)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjYLdL1iflE

POLITICS AND ETHICS

• Vermont passes gun control bill
• In America its expensive to be poor
• America is killing off its farms
• Sinclair broadcasting network and its right-wing propaganda machine exposed
• Madeleine Albright warns against Fascism in the USA
• Judge: Orange County can’t enforce anti-camping laws if it can’t shelter the homeless
• Hate groups increasing under Trump
• US now at “developing nation” status, economically says MIT study
• Moral tribalism in politics explained
• Putin allies funneled money to senior Republicans
• The NFL’s plan to protect America from Witches
• How Trump is stealing America blind
• Federal judge upholds Massachusetts assault weapons ban
• Trump asks CIA why drone strike didn’t also kill targets family
• Amid teacher revolt over wages, lack of school funding KY passes massive tax cut for the top 1%
• Should gun owners have to buy liability insurance, just like car drivers do? (yes)
• The alt-right movement is in disarray due to antifa activism
• How the “corporations are people” with full legal rights idea got started
• Thanks to Trump tax cuts US will borrow 1 trillion this year, and 84% increase from last year
• Unions are asking where all that tax cut money went
• Raytheon stock surges after missile strikes on Syria
• How often do people use guns for self-defense?
• The US is in a housing crisis, evictions, homelessness soaring
• Senator asks the NRA to hand over records of foreign donations, US election spending
  More: NRA admits receiving $ from 23 Russian donors
• US sub that struck Syria “not welcome” in Naples sea port
• Mike Pence’s e:mail scandal. Why don’t Republicans care about it?
• Protected Dreamers now being deported
• Thanks to Trump tax cuts the USA is the only developed nation that will see its public debt ratio increase over the next three to five years
• DeVos education department is dismissing civil rights cases in name of “efficiency”
• Despite massive tax breaks one in three Amazon employees is on food stamps (SNAP)
• 15 years, more than a million dead, the Iraq war drags on and no one is held responsible
• DeVos rescinds 72 documents outlining rights of disabled students
• Americans are working into their 70’s. Here’s why.
• Bernie Sanders to introduce plan to guarantee a job to all Americans who want one
• US income inequality at highest level since 1928
• Republican plan for parental leave will damage social security
• How to stop fake news: bring back the fairness doctrine
• 60% of Republicans do not want a female president in their lifetime
• Hobby Lobby anti-gay lawyer appointed to lifetime federal judgeship
• The US is now ranked 45th in terms of freedom of the press
• Bill Gates: US is losing its global leadership role thanks to Trump
• Could this be the real reason N. Korea stopped testing nukes?
• CA senate candidate has called for a country “free from Jews”
• Trump transfers clean up liability for mining pollution from companies to tax payers
• May 4 NRA gun convention bans guns so VP Mike Pence will be safe (huh?)
• The first Native American woman to run for Congress

 

There are still a few patches of snow up here on the mountain, but the first brave crocuses are finally making an appearance. There is a large gaggle of geese and ducks hanging out at the nearby reservoir, newly arrived to their traditional nesting grounds. The weather is cool, misty and mysteriously bleak for early spring. I am taking advantage of the cold weather to do a little baking. Today I ground up some acorns I gathered last fall, to make into a cake for a friend’s birthday party. Acorn cake is spicy and warm, perfect for rainy, chill days (you can find the recipe in my book Secret Medicines from Your Garden). There is something soothing about observing the seasonal rituals; in fall I pound and grind the acorns, in spring and summer I bake acorn cakes. It’s reassuring that some things stay the same, year after year.

Spring is when I think about the stretch of grass in front of the house. I recently learned that its best not to mow your lawn more than every two weeks. That allows wildflowers like Dandelions and Clovers and Prunellas to take hold, which is nourishment for tiny native bees. Please consider this as you contemplate your summer lawn. And for goodness sake, do not use pesticides! Manicured chem-lawn fed yards are nothing but wastelands for bees. They need all the help we can give them.

Below you will find the usual book news, Archaeology, Nature, Climate, Herb, Religion, Celtic, Ethical and Political fare. *Reminder – you can purchase signed books from this website, just please specify who you want the book signed to!*

Enjoy!

BOOK NEWS!

• THE REAL WITCHES OF NEW ENGLAND is now available for pre-order and will be out in September (just in time for Samhain!).
• And Inner Traditions just told me that the next book – THE HERBS OF SAMHAIN (HALLOWEEN) – herbs to contact the Spirits of the dead has been accepted. That’s the one I was working on all winter. I have already started on the sequel which will be an herbal focused on the herbs and Fairies of Beltaine (May Day).
• In May I am heading to Ireland, to perform a land blessing at a green cemetery and then to participate in a plant oriented tour of the west coast. And we are forging ahead with the film project, based on the book PRIESTESS OF THE FOREST – A DRUID JOURNEY, we now have a small production company getting ready to film a short. We still need your help and support;
• Here is where you can help make the film happen! 
• The world of the film
• The book

EVENTS AND CLASSES

• Tuesday, June 19, 7 PM to 8:30 PM
  A talk on Chinese Five Element Theory
  Living Waters Chapter of Dowsers, located in Claremont, NH.
  Contact: Alice Harwood
• July 14-15
  Tree Divination Using the Ancient Celtic Ogham Alphabet 
  with Ellen Evert Hopman
  at Dreamland, in Worcester, VT.
  Sat. 10-5, Sun. 10-3
  $130.
  Contact: Fearn Lickfield
• October 13 – April 2019
  Intro to Herbalism and Self Care~ A Six Month Intensive
  Two Saturdays a month, 1-5 PM near Amherst, MA
  Western Materia Medica, Chinese 5 Element Theory,
  Flower Essence Counseling, Formula making, Hands on Herbalism,
  Ethnobotany, Herb walks, Homeopathic First Aid, Live case taking and more.

Here is a little Spring gift for you;

From SECRET MEDICINES FROM YOUR GARDEN
“Flower Tea
This magical and delicious tea is also a love potion. Share it with your intended on a full moon night.
Take equal parts fresh or dried Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis) leaf, Rose Buds (Rosa spp.) and Chamomile flowers (Matricaria recutita, (synonym: Matricaria chamomilla), Chamaemelum nobile (synonym: Anthemis nobilis) and 1/4 part Lavender (Lavandula vera, L. officinalis) blossoms. Infuse the mixture in a pot of freshly boiled water. Cover tightly and steep no more than ten minutes or the delicate flowery aroma will be lost. Serve immediately with a touch of honey.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE

• Learn Celtic languages in Canada

ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS

• Assembly places in early Medieval Ireland (paper)
• New digs in the north of Scotland
• A Medusa pendant and Medieval village found in England
• Anglesey tomb excavation
• A new look at Neolithic burials in Orkney
• More excavations in Orkney
• Building a Celtic round house (video)
  
• 2,000-year-old liquor unearthed from ancient tomb in western China
• Concrete poured on world’s oldest temple Göbeklitepe
• Medical text by ancient Greek doctor Galen uncovered beneath religious psalms on parchment
• Skilled female potters traveled around the Baltic nearly 5000 years ago
• A star disturbed the comets of the solar system in prehistory
• Dinosaur frills and horns did not evolve for species recognition
• Triple Archaeological Find In Barcelona
• Normandy’s Mont Saint Michel reveals new secrets
• Large chamber tomb with multiple burials revealed in Mycenaean settlement at Dimini
• Why Aren’t Humans ‘Knuckle-Walkers?’
• New linguistic analysis finds Dravidian language family is approximately 4,500 years old
• New insights into late Neanderthal history
• Archaeology in the Highlands
• Medieval houses found in Dublin
  More…
• Gold grave goods in sarcophagi of Thessaloniki
• ‘Majestic’ Roman villa discovered in Amyntaio, Northern Greece
• Researchers add 700 years to Malta’s history
• Hair was dyed for first time as part of funeral rituals, study shows
• A volcanic eruption influenced Iceland’s conversion to Christianity
• First evidence of live traded dogs for Maya ceremonies
• Stone Age Scandinavians ate mostly fish
• Agriculture was developed by indigenous peoples, not by migrants from the Fertile Crescent
• Agriculture and social hierarchy evolved together
• 115,000 year old bone tools from China
• Glen Urquhart a Bronze Age settlement
• A major Celtic settlement in Poland
• Raths (ringforts/Fairy forts) in Ireland
• An 8th century Frankish casket with runes
• Fossil footprints show showing dicynodonts coexisting with dinosaurs
• A pre-Columbian ritual center found in Mexico
• New evidence pushes back history of early human innovation
• Genomic ancestry of ancient Morocco
• The ancient Greek port of Naples found
• First Saharan farming 10,000 years ago
• Are your Neanderthal genes doing you any good?
• Denisovians bred with humans more than once
  More…
• A huge Iron Age feast on Orkney
• Pterosaurs were more abundant than thought before extinction
• A 16000 year old skull found in China
• Neanderthal medicine
• Neanderthal genomes
• Celtic ceremonial buckets
• Metal casting in ancient Orkney
• A new Pompeii district about to be uncovered
• Pre-Cambrian animal behavior shown in fossilized burrows
• Ancient Africans survived a super volcano eruption
• Climate change and looters threaten Mongolia
• Iberian genetic pre-history differs from Europe
• Women moved across Medieval Europe, not just men
• An ancient Japanese kiln is found
• New radiocarbon dates for Iron Age finds in Orkney
• Aerial photography of archaeological sites
• The Harappans had hydraulic engineering
• Drilling holes in a skull was never a migraine cure
• Homo Naledi had wear resistant molars
• The Celtic Triple Mothers (video)
  

• An Iron Age skeleton found at Margate caves
• Storm uncovers Roman aqueduct in Cadiz
• A giant Bronze Age ritual dagger
• Who were the Celts?
• The triskelion in Celtic culture
• Artefacts from Llyn Cerrig Bach
• The hill of Uisneach, Co. Meath, Ireland
• What did Vikings put in their pillows?
• How humans changed the ecosystems of central Africa
• Parts of a statue of Ramses II found
• Finds from ancient Nubia
• Roman era sarcophagus unearthed in Istanbul
• A Roman commander’s domus
• Treasures from Thessaloniki metro station on display
• World’s earliest figural tattoos
• A 7000 year old Native American burial off Florida
• Acoustics thought to play a role in rock art locations
• Nicotine found in ancient dental plaque
• Spanish Conquistadores in the American south
• Genetic displacement and language continuity in the South Pacific

HERB NEWS

• Herbs for hypothyroidism
• 5 benefits of Parsley juice
• 12 flowers to plant for the bees
• Vervain was a sacred plant of the Druids and Roman priests
• Silver Birch twig tea
• Japanese preserved cherry blossoms
• Beech leaf tea
• Medicinal uses of Wood Avens
• 10 wild foods to harvest in spring
• Herbs for varicose veins
• Grow chives for heart and digestive issues
• Elder!

HEALTH NEWS

• The gig economy celebrates Americans who are working themselves to death
• Americans relying on whisky, pliers and chisels for their dental work
• Last year more Americans died from opioids than died in Vietnam
• A wide range of drugs, not just antibiotics, appear to impact intestinal flora
• Virus risk on airplanes is lower than thought
• Obesity dulls the sense of taste
• Congress protects medical marijuana from Jeff Sessions
• Astronaut’s DNA no longer matches his twins after prolonged space travel
• Medicare for all: we don’t need insurance, we need health care
• The stupidity of Trump Care: government will spend $33 billion more to cover 8.9 million fewer Americans
• The adverse health impacts of daylight savings time (I think it’s time to scrap it)
• The US has the worst healthcare in the developed world and it’s also the most expensive
• Black women three times more likely than whites to die in childbirth
• Pharma billionaire arrested for bribing doctors to sell opioids to those who did not need them
• Kids need microbes, not antibiotics to develop immunity. Let them eat dirt
• Is Vitamin D a cure-all?

CLIMATE AND NATURE NEWS

• How to plant a climate smart garden
• The Arctic climate bomb maybe far worse than we thought
• NASA receives a message from Voyager after 37 years
• Greenland ice sheet update
• Greenland is melting at fastest rate in 5000 years, ice cores show
• A climate change sceptic changes his mind after seeing Greenland
• Climate change is threatening bio-diversity
• Wildlife populations are plummeting
• Scientists may have spotted light from oldest stars in the universe
• Rare comet moth born in US nature museum
• Two-billion-year-old salt rock reveals rise of oxygen in ancient atmosphere
• Short-faced bears, largest carnivores in the Ice Age, became omnivores to survive
• The great Pacific plastic garbage patch is now twice the size of Texas
• Even the big oil companies agree that global warming is human caused
• A purple aura named “Steve”
• How the earliest plants made our world muddy
• DNA reveal tragic reality of Atacama “alien” skeleton
  More: Once-mysterious ‘Atacama Skeleton’ illuminates genetics of bone disease
• Climate and environment news updates from the NY Times
• Auto makers shift gears on climate change
• NOAA releases spring forecast for US – expect moderate flooding
• In search of tiny owls
• ‘Oumuamua likely came from a binary star system
• Mars oceans formed early
• Micro plastics litter river ways (and the oceans too)
• Geophysicists record volcanic thunder for the first time
• Women are marrying trees to help save them
• Hail and Farewell Stephen Hawking
• He is to buried near Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin
• How brightly colored spiders evolved on Hawaii
• The genetic origins of sex
• Plant fossils reveal Earth’s history
• Green algae- the original ancestor of plants and animals
• NASA searches for interstellar water
• Unravelling the mystery of recurring ice ages
• 15 new planets found – one may have water
• Elephant decline threatens Africa’s forests
• Trump’s EPA cancels air pollution policy
• Live eagle cam! (video)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jUoogkBjFM
• Forests protect us from storms. What climate change will mean.
• Trump administration wants to de-list Canada Lynx, even though they are threatened
• Is our universe a hologram?
• Shifting vegetation in the Arctic, due to climate warming
• Oxygen loss will be a huge issue for oceans
• Ancient farming methods can mitigate climate change
• Photosynthesis developed 1 billion years earlier than thought
• It’s time to phase out single use plastic
• Sweden is so good at recycling it now imports rubbish
• The history of horse’s hooves
• Pictures of Jupiter reveal facts about its interior
• Paris climate agreement targets may still be possible
• Arctic spring now starting 16 days earlier than just a decade ago
• We are on the brink of nuclear fusion
• Trees are basically Socialists
• Underwater grasses are back in Chesapeake Bay
• Geological change and plant diversity in tropical rainforests
• Genomes of extinct and living elephants
• A new ancient turtle species identified
• How controlled fires can help save water/forests
• Could fecal sludge be the new coal?
• Ancient woodland exposed by the sea in the UK
• New theories about water and the Moon’s origin
• The formation of East Asian flora and new clues
• The motion of the Hawaiian hot spot
• Looking at rocks from the inside out
• Black holes may be transforming planets
• A new theory for the Moon’s formation
• Rainforest regeneration rescues bats
• Small flightless birds
• An upside down dinosaur mystery
• A 127 million year old baby bird
• Volcanoes tied to events in Earth’s early history
• Unprecedented warming in the Arctic
• IKEA will start using mushroom packaging that bio-degrades in your backyard
• Trump directs EPA to dismantle clean water rule

CELTIC NEWS

• Shamrocks on St. Patrick’s day
• Celtic language conference in Newfoundland May 23-26
• Bessie Dunlop – The ‘Witch’ of Lynn (video)
  
• Animal folklore
• East Galway – a farm with Fairies
• The second battle of Moytura (video)
  

RELIGION NEWS

• Pope Francis says Hell does not exist
• The religious left is emerging as a political force in the Trump era
• Druids doing prison work
• We have a nice collection of Druid Kid’s material on the Tribe of Oak site
• Societies that are less religious are also less violent
• Evidence for the ancient Lithuanian bee Goddess
• Who Saint Patrick really was
• Happy Nowruz! (Persian New Year)
• A virtual shrine of the Triple Mothers/Matronae
• Why White Evangelicalism is so cruel
• On Patrick, Druids and Snakes
• Worshippers bring assault rifles to church to be blessed
  More…
• Bulgarian dancers who have warded off evil spirits for millennia

POLITICS AND ETHICS

• March for our Lives – photos
  Best signs…
• KY court blocking law to prevent child marriages over “parent’s rights“
• Why arming teachers is a bad option
• Rick Santorum: kids shouldn’t protest they should learn CPR
• If you beat your wife you should lose your gun
• States with stricter gun laws have fewer gun deaths
• Trump, Ivanka, and money laundering in Panama – Reuters report
• How biased is your news source? A chart.
• Assault rifles not protected by Second Amendment federal appeals court rules
• Because of ICE California fruits withering on the vine
• Trump administration decided – again – to allow elephant trophy imports
• A Depression historian on the GOP tax bill: “It’s straight out of 1929”
• For every person shot in “self defense” in America, 34 innocent people die
• Election officials going back to paper ballots to stave off Russian hacking
• FBI’s gun background check system is missing millions of records
• Its time to cancel all student loan debt for the economy’s sake
• Sally Yates, fired by Trump for resisting Trump’s Muslim ban gets John F Kennedy Profile in Courage award
• The myth of invader hoards: most of the world does not want to come to America
• MIT economist – USA is now basically a third world nation
• Trump claims fraud cost him the popular vote, wants armed guards at polling places
• Gun rights are about keeping white men on top
• 2 assault weapon bans in Congress are supported by Democrats and 0 Republicans
• Veterans oppose Trump’s vanity parade
• Elizabeth Warren is probing into suspect loans to Kushner companies
• It was the South Korean president who brought Trump and N. Korea to the bargaining table
• Parkland student survivor delivers powerful rebuke to the NRA
• 12 Democrats who voted for a big bank giveaway (remember them when you go out to vote this fall)
• How they influenced the election: The Russians pretended to be Texans and the Texans believed them
• Trump’s tariff war show how ignorant he is of basic economics
• Sinclair news is forcing anchors to spout right wing propaganda
• Illinois is now officially a sanctuary state for immigrants
• How the Trump family shifted money from a kids cancer charity into their own pockets
• Trump’s trips to Mar a Lago in 2017 cost taxpayers $6.6 million (and that’s just airfare)
• Federal court orders EPA to put back smog rules passed in 2015
• California man arrested for killing over 100 raptors, an owl, a mountain lion
• Montana Green party candidate was on the GOP payroll
• GOP candidate calls a Parkland teenage shooting victim a “Skin-head lesbian”
• The March 14 student walkout against gun violence in pictures
  More…
• Understanding jury nullification and why it could still save us from creeping Fascism
• The second amendment does not protect assault weapons
  More: What American gun fanatics won’t tell you
• Meet Beto O’Rourke – a punk rocker who could turn Texas blue
• In 1969 courts ruled that students have a right to protest
• Cambridge Analytica mined Facebook data to help Trump campaign
  How they mined the data…
  And offered to entrap politicians…
  Kushner was involved in hiring them to help the Trump campaign…
  More…
• The NRA is threatening Parkland student survivors
• Conservatives retweeted Russian trolls 30 times more than Liberals did, study finds
• Former head of Nazi party wins GOP primary seat in Illinois (this is what America has come to)
  More…
• Steve Bannon oversaw collection fo Facebook data for Cambridge Analytica
• A majority of Republicans now belive education is a waste of time, bad for America, poll shows
• Court blocks voter “proof of citizenship” requirements in 3 states
• YouTube bans firearms demonstration videos
• 44 countries still have no US ambassador
• US is an oligarchy, not a Democracy (well, Duh.)
• House Intel Republican says panel did not investigate collusion (and proclaimed they found no evidence of collusion anyway)
• Puerto Ricans still suffering after Maria
• 55 senators vote to continue US backed carnage in Yemen
• Parkland students manifesto on ending gun violence
• More Americans now living in extreme poverty says UN study
• Retired justice Stevens argues for a repeal of the Second Amendment
• 10 lies about gun control
• Guns and the military-industrial complex
• Trump and Bolton are gearing up for war
• Right wing extremists are a bigger threat to the US than ISIL