Magical Sanctuary
Hello friends. Just a couple of pictures taken today to show you some of the beauty and sacredness that you are supporting. Thank you. 💕(Swamp milkweed)Bright Blessings,Jean
Event: Crossing Hedgerows Circle Meet-up
August 20th from 10 AM to 1 PMOur first meet-up was a lovely, intimate gathering and I am so excited to continue to offer these times of connecting with each other. The next Circle Meet-up topic will be, Fire is Medicine, with a celebration of our life force energy, sunshine, sexuality, and the Sun God Lugh / Lughnasadh. Our activity for this session will be to make Corn Husk Dolls together. Corn husk dollies are meant to ...
Buttonbush
By Brennah Cavanaugh, Board Member of Crossing Hedgerows Sanctuary Buttonbush is a bush with very unique looking flower clusters that are almost perfectly spherical. Its flowers are adored by pollinators of all sorts, but due to the long tube-like shape of the individual flowers in the cluster they are especially attractive to pollinators with longer tongues, like butterflies, bumble bees, and hummingbirds. (The unusual shape of the flowers make them attractive to humans, too!) It is ...
Crossing Hedgerows Circle Meet Up
How can we take small steps together in community to shift our lives towards healing on all levels? Integrating spirituality and ecology to heal our lives and create deep friendships will be the purpose of this group. 🌀Facilitated by Jean Cavanaugh, in each session we will dive into a topic, sample food using our farm fresh ingredients, and experience the healing of earth, water, air, and fire on the land of Crossing Hedgerows. 🌀There will be a variety ...
Looking Back
Hi Everyone! I apologize for the delay in posting. I have been working on a project needed by EGLE for getting our permits to do the permaculture landscaping for the pond and gathering areas that we've been working on these last several years. After going through an engineering company for our first meeting with EGLE earlier this spring, Dan and I were given a quote by the engineer for $11,000 to do a "forensic wetland analysis" to ...
Interbeing
Sunrise - July 1st, 2023: A distinctive purple glow over the stone circleAs we head into July, I want to thank you all for your continued support of Crossing Hedgerows Sanctuary. Though we haven't been having as many events this year, the land continues to heal and is teaming with ever more life. Sometimes the bird song is almost deafening around here, and the varieties of insects, and animals passing through are too many to list. Yet ...
Into the Woods
Today I took a short video so you can see what the woods are looking like right now. At the end you can hear a plane flying low overhead, as the Sanctuary is not too far from Detroit Metro airport. https://youtu.be/y7gwtDCswo4 Our world is constantly becoming more and more developed even in areas that are zoned for agriculture. Farm fields across the road from the Sanctuary are currently being partitioned off and sold for ...
Member Photo Share
Hello everyone! These are some photos that one of our members wanted to share with us. She took them at the Sanctuary during our May Walk and Bonfire. Thank you Marie for sharing your interaction with the land spirits! 🦋 mushrooms on a log trees and wild geraniums trillium and lily of the valley flowers trillium jack in the pulpit I ...
Native Plant Spotlight : Blue Flag Iris
A new native plant that has appeared at the Sanctuary this year is the Blue Flag Iris. It grows in wet areas, often along the edges of water. So unsurprisingly it has begun growing along the edge of the creek bed, not far from the beautiful buttonbush, another amazing plant which I will highlight in a later post.Blue Flag Iris provides nectar for native pollinators, and is also forage for muskrats. It likewise attracts hummingbirds, which we already ...
Enchanted Forest and Stone Circle Photos 🌺🪨
Last week's gathering was a magical time coming together with old friends and new. We didn't have a chance to take pictures during the event, but wanted to share a few of the photos that Brennah has taken this spring in the woods, as well as photos that I took of the stones that were collected and placed into the stone circle as offerings. Trilliums with mossy log Wild Geraniums (also known ...
Event: Walk and Bonfire 🌺🌿
Sunday, May 21st at 3pmEntering the sanctuary woods right now is like stepping into a fairyland. The forest floor is carpeted with purple and white spring ephemerals. Timing a walk to catch this at the optimal time is hard to do very far in advance, so we wanted to put out the call just at the right time (which is now!) before they all disappear. We invite you to join us for a guided walk by Jean and ...
Maypole Dance Video
As noted in the last post, we had a bit of a hiccup at the beginning of the Maypole Dance, which we did manage to work out. We hope you enjoy this little snippet of gaiety! https://youtube.com/shorts/B1FF7jU4F7M?feature=share
Beltane Celebration Pictures 🌷
By Jean Cavanaugh, President, Crossing Hedgerows Sanctuary Photos by Douglas S. Pierce, Board Member of Crossing Hedgerows Sanctuary Doug, the photographer We had a wonderful Beltane celebration again this year, with the Maypole once again being a big highlight. There is always so much laughter and fun as we dance! A comment from one of the young adults in the group was something along the lines of... "I would've thought it was ...
Productive Work Day!
For our work day last week, we did some clean-up in an area of the woods where the previous owners seemed to have had a dump. Though the Cavanaughs have been pulling trash out of that area continuously since moving to the property, it has been a huge project. And it mainly needs to be done in the early spring, after the snow melts, but before everything gets covered by the understory plant growth. So it was ...
Native Plant Spotlight: Prickly Ash
While we were pulling out some trash (old tires and such, left by the previous residents) from the woods on our work day this week, there was a particular plant whose thorns wanted to grab at us as we passed by it. This is one of the reasons why we have trails, because these shrubs can make it nearly impossible to pass through certain areas. However, they are another of our beloved native plants that grow in ...
Cedar Smoke Bundles
During the recent ice storm we lost a large limb from one of our white cedar trees. We would like to offer to any of our members here on Patreon, at any level, the opportunity to take some of the cedar greenery for making smoke bundles. Simply get in touch to arrange a time to pick up your cedar greenery. We have plenty to go around so that everyone can have a big bunch. (The branches and ...
Walking With The Forest Spirits
By Sarenth Óðinsson, Board Member of Crossing Hedgerows The world is alive. This is especially easy to know at Crossing Hedgerows. You can feel life pulsing beneath your feet, even in the midst of Winter. There is life. Perennial food crops and flowers around the farm are coming back to life, with shoots beginning to pop up, and fruit blossoms preparing to open. The greenhouse is thriving with green interspersed with the decay of the last hops ...
Springtime Brings the Water
I thought you all might like to see a picture of how wet it gets in the spring around here. This was as close as I could get to the creek yesterday. Some of the recent days previous to yesterday, I couldn't even get within sight of the creek. But did you know that there are some native plants and animals that require a habitat of regular flooding in order to survive? We have identified ...
The Sounds of Dawn
Spring is in the air as the sanctuary prepares for the sun to rise. I also love how the veins of the stones in the circle are somehow glowing in the dim light. https://youtube.com/shorts/zF9Bx1as3Ac Blessed Be, Jean
Tiny Felt Leaves
"What beauty is in the world that I never noticed before?" -Rick Rubin Following is another cross post from the Patreon page of Brennah Cavanaugh Photography. Last spring I was fascinated by these tiny just-emerged oak leaves I found on the many oak saplings along the north edge of the woods. To me they looked like tiny felt crafts. They were actually tiny enough to be tricky to photograph. Bright red, fuzzy leaves don’t seem to ...