I have to admit: the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Elder is Monty Python. “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!" Perhaps not the most spiritual of references, but give me a minute to spin that here. Elder is an ogham that calls bullshit, which can often be uncomfortable. But we all need that friend who will tell us the truth, especially when we aren’t facing it ourselves. Elder can be that friend. The trick is to avoid falling into the spiral of shame

I don’t think any ogham is BAD, but Blackthorn is one that demands respect for sure. And, while I will crack a joke about nearly all omens, I’m tossing salt over my shoulder while laughing about this one. Honestly, it’s a gorgeous tree – early to blossom in spring in a profusion of white flowers that make the hedgerows buzz with happy pollinators. Blackthorn berries (or sloes) make sloe gin, jams, and jellies, and are an important food source for birds. Its tangled growth and enormous thorns mak

Hello, all – There’s a lot going on for this month’s new moon, including the Equinox (autumnal, here in the northern hemisphere) and the last eclipse of 2025.

Ivy is a plant with RANGE. And I’m not just talking about the way it climbs all over everything. Clematis? Love it. Wish I were better at cultivating it. Poison ivy? Hate it. Violently allergic.While I’m fixated on my hatred of poison ivy, I have to admit it’s a pollinator buffet. Its flowers provide nectar to pollinators like honey bees, butterflies, wasps, and beetles. The berries that follow are a great food source for warblers, vireos, woodpeckers, and many other birds, often later in the se

The world has a lot of vining plants, not all of them delightful. Lucky for us, Vine/Muin is an ogham of delight – ecstasy, even. Think of grapevines and the harvesting of their fruit, cultivated with skill over generations, bringing communities together to share the burden of work. The thing about grapevines, though, is that they are NOT a “set it and forget it” kind of crop. Timing and selection matter. Protection from pests and careful pruning matter. Terroir (that near-magical combination of

Regretting, Reckoning, MaturingAw, man. I HATE this ogham. It’s all about being embarrassed, humiliated, and shamed, and let me tell you how much this introvert doesn’t even want to be singled out pub...

Struggling, Blocking, WoundingDoom Doom Doomy-doom. That’s it. That’s the omen.I kid. Mostly. Well, a little.If our old friend Hawthorn’s stabbiness is a reminder basically to “stay in the yard,” then...

Cleansing, Sweeping, HealingRepresenting the 13th letter of the ogham alphabet, nGetal/Broom, is a tough one to explain phonetically. The sound itself doesn’t occur in English. I could give you all th...

Anchoring, Binding, PersistingGort/Ivy, the 12th letter in the ogham alphabet, represents the hard /g/ sound in the word “get.” Perhaps coincidentally, Ivy can be a hard omen. Like the ivy plant, the ...

Harvesting, Feasting, CelebratingVine is the 11th letter of the ogham alphabet and represents the /m/ sound as we say it in English today. It’s a tricksy ogham to pull meaning from.Traditionally, Vine...

Note: New Moon Divination goes up on the blog for everyone about a week after the actual New Moon. Subscribers receive theirs via email in real time. I do not edit the message to adjust for time-traveling. Hello, all – I’m so glad I waited until today to perform this ritual. The correspondences came through so strongly, which always feels like grace, and I suspect I could not have accessed that part of my brain if I’d tried to squeeze it into last night. I’m so pleased you’ll have this before th