I’m teaching a course for the Shift Network for the third year running, starting 30th October. It’s always a great experience: seven weeks of exploration with a live group online. Here’s how Shift describes the course in their usual enthusiastic way!
Have you ever felt an unspoken longing to reconnect with the living spirit of the Earth — to remember the wisdom our ancestors once knew by heart?
Across continents and millennia, Druids and Vedic seers tapped into the same astonishing truth: the Earth and the human spirit are inseparably woven, and real healing begins when we remember that bond.
In his new course, renowned Druid teacher Philip Carr-Gomm invites you on a sacred inner pilgrimage through the landscapes of Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and England — to experience how your body and the Earth reflect and heal one another.
Philip is a pioneer in bridging ancient Druidic wisdom, psychology, and spiritual practice. Through ritual, guided journeys, and ancient myth, he’ll guide you to awaken seven energetic gifts of the Druids, from belonging and creativity to love and illumination.
This isn’t just an intellectual exploration — it’s a deeply embodied path of renewal. You’ll feel your connection to sacred places, experience the power of the elements, and realize how tending your heart can restore vitality to both you and the Earth.

FIND OUT MORE HERE

A 4 minute example of Manchan Magan’s ability to convey wonderful ideas lyrically and clearly:

I am delighted to announce that the 27th Mount Haemus Lecture: Participant Experiences of Learning from Tree Teachers in the ACER Integration Community by  Dr. Rosalind Watts is now up on the OBOD website!

This essay explores the origins, ethos, and evolving impact of the ACER Integration Community, a nature based, community-led model for psychedelic integration rooted in the archetypal teachings of twelve Trees Teachers. Born from personal heartbreak and cultural disillusionment, ACER offers a circular, relational, and soul-centred approach to re-connecting that honours grief, welcomes vulnerability, and draws wisdom from the forest. Through a blend of personal narrative, participant reflections, and ecological metaphors, the essay explores the proliferation of numbing techniques offered by mainstream culture, and considers how community integration practices can support us to feel deeply and stand for our values. Each of the Tree Teachers serves as a guide through phases of ‘psychological photosynthesis’, helping participants compost pain, grow resilience, and remember their place within a wider web of life. Central to the essay are participant narratives drawn from our in-house monthly podcast – ‘The Treecast’. These firsthand accounts breathe life into each Tree Teacher archetype, and illuminate profound experiences of change that can emerge from committed, long-term integration practice. At its heart, this is a story of returning: to the body, to the Earth, and to community. ACER is not a solution to the polycrisis, but it is a response. It invites us to feel, to witness, and to live in rhythm with what is real. In a time of collapse, we dare to trust in regeneration through the steady unfurling of collective roots. Click here to read the paper.

Dr. Rosalind Watts is a clinical psychologist, named one of the 50 Most Influential People in Psychedelics and among the Top 16 Women Shaping the Future of Psychedelics. Dr. Watts developed the ACE model of psychedelic-assisted therapy (Accept, Connect, Embody) and has led clinical teams guiding participants through this process. Her qualitative research led to the creation of the Watts Connectedness Scale (WCS), a psychometric tool measuring connectedness to self, others, and the wider world. Her current focus is on community-building to contribute to our collective work of restitching a fabric of care strong enough to support the introduction of psychedelics into western culture at this time of systemic collapse and reimagining. She is the founder of ACER (Accept, Connect, Embody, Restore) Integration acerintegration.com, a global mycelial network of people seeking to regenerate their inner and outer worlds via a 12 month process guided by the wisdom of Nature. Her websites are acerintegration.com and drrosalindwatts.com.

In this episode of Tea with a Druid we honour the writer and broadcaster Manchan Magan, whom I met at the Borris Literary Festival this Summer and who featured on a recent Tea with a Druid.

We were due to talk again about the fascinating subject of the links between Irish and Indian culture, but he set sail for the Otherworld last week. You can read a moving account of his funeral in the Irish Independent here and the BBC tribute to him is worth reading. Manchan was a truly gifted and open-hearted man – and in the meditation in this episode of Tea we send him blessings on his Otherworld journey.

His funeral is very moving. You can watch it here:

I have recorded a webinar on the topic he and I were due to discuss, and which is the subject of his recent book “Brahmins & Brehons’. The webinar is titled ‘Druids & Vedic Sages’ and you can register to watch it here. 

It is due to be first aired at 12.30am BST (night time!) October 15th, but if you’re not a night owl just watch it later through the link you’ll receive on registering.

Tea with a Druid offers a weekly exploration of a spiritual topic and a meditation. Live every Monday at 8pm UK time. Learn more about the Druid community and training at https://www.druidry.org To find all the Tea with a Druid meditations on the ‘Yewtube’ Outdoor Woodland Cinema, go to: https://zodogo.com/yewtube/ The music used in the opening title is ‘Druid Circle’ by Charlie Roscoe. #spiritualmeditation #druidry #druids#pagan

Heavy

by Mary Oliver

That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying

I went closer,
and I did not die.
Surely God
had his hand in this,

as well as friends.
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter,
as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel,
(brave even among lions),
“It’s not the weight you carry

but how you carry it–
books, bricks, grief–
it’s all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not,
put it down.”
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?

Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?

How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe

also troubled –
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?

I am hosting an event for the wonderful Fintry Trust: The Autumn Equinox and its Spiritual Significance on Wednesday 24th September 2025 at 18.00 – 19.15 (London Time)

The Autumn Equinox has a special spiritual significance, as the light and dark of the day are held in perfect balance. In this session I will explore this moment of stillness and peace.
We offer gratitude for the blessings of the year’s harvest, but also contemplate and prepare for the journey into the darker months.

Tickets for this Zoom session are £12 – book online here.