druid

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Lammas/Lughnasadh Update!

It’s the 1st August: Lammas, Lughnasadh. The first harvest festival, it comes as a welcome respite for me. I’ve been away in Canada visiting family, and the 35 to 38C temperatures were horrendous. To come back to the UK and step outside Heathrow airport to feel the cool, rainy air on my skin was pure bliss, despite the jet fumes and cigarette smoke that floated on it.

Now home in Suffolk, I can look out over my garden and see that the grass that had burned in the hot summer sunshine is now coming back to green. We’ve had rain since I’ve been away, and the drought has abated. But still the crops were being taken in even as I drove to the airport, the fields of wheat being cut on the 6th July, for they had grown to their stunted height and already dried out in the blazing sun. Now the scent of onions is in the air, as the first root vegetable crops are being taken in. Everything is a month ahead of schedule because of the lack of rain this winter, spring, and early summer.

What this harvest will bring for local farmers I can’t really say, but I’m pretty certain the yield will be much less than usual, or rather, we are reaching a new normal. If climate change continues, what is grown in this region of East Anglia will most likely need to change. The plants in my garden survived, thanks to vigorous watering, even as the water butts ran out at the end of May. We have saved as much water as we could, whenever we could, to give back to the parched land. My neighbour and I have been taking turns watering the deer, as on one side of the heath where there is a large herd they are fenced in and the little ones aren’t able to jump over to reach water. To see the ground on the heath cracked and dry already in May was heartbreaking.

But we carry on, because there is nothing else we can do. The sunshine has kept our batteries for the home topped up nicely over the summer via our solar panels, and all our electricity as well as water heating has been taken care of with ease. We’ve sold a bunch of electricity back to the grid, and made a decent profit. At one point we were even paid to take energy from the grid to top up our batteries, as for a few days with the wind there was a surplus of energy in the grid, and in the wee hours of the morning we were being paid to take electricity from the energy providers, as they do not have enough storage. What a strange world we are living in!

The harvest continues in the land around me, and I ponder my own harvest, both materialistically and spiritually. It’s been a wonderful year for me with the release of my new fiction series, Witches of the New Forest. The books have been a great success, and at the moment are providing me with an actual living wage; the first time my writing has ever done so! The dream of a 13-year old girl in her bedroom, pounding away at a manual typewriter in the hope of becoming a fantasy fiction author have been realised.

Spiritually, things have been incredibly busy, and so I’ve had to adapt my routines, daily prayers, and offerings. There was a bit of disconnection this summer, as everything in my life seemed to ramp up, but now things have settled and I am finding a new home in my own practice, dedicated to the goddess, Freya, and working with the spirits of this land where I live.

As such, today I will take some time out to do some baking: to offer it back to the land, the gods, the spirits. Even as the thunderclouds roll in from the north, I will honour the gifts of sunshine and rain, of earth and sky, of nourishment and sustenance. For this is what Lammas is all about: giving back. For many Pagans, they might feel a bit adrift during this festival, not entirely sure what it’s all about, especially if one is living in an urban environment. The wheat and barley harvest seems so very far away, as do other harvests. But the food that we eat still reaches our tables (hopefully) and to this cycle of growing, reaping, and transformation we pay homage at this time of year with a celebration of the first harvests. It was important to our ancestors, and even if we are not ourselves out in the fields cutting down the golden stalks under the sun, we can still honour where it is that we came from, and what had great meaning to those who have gone before.

Being thankful for what we have received is a large part of all the harvest festivals. Early this morning, before sunrise, I gave thanks to Freya in her aspect of Gefn, The Giver, for all the bounty that I have received. In the giving of thanks, we come to truly know and feel gratitude, and in feeling gratitude, we understand the nature of blessings, and of being blessed. We no longer take so many things for granted and instead, see the gifts that lie all around us, if we only open our eyes to see them.

In deep relationship, we weave our way through our lives, becoming part of the tapestry of life that flows in and out of time, one thread upon the other, bringing beauty, inspiration, and love.

May your Lammas and harvest be plentiful, and may you know the joy and blessings of gratitude. As a beautiful friend just messaged me on WhatsApp, As the grain turns golden in the fields, may the moments of your life turn into golden memories.

Visiting Mont Tremblant

I did manage to visit an old friend, Mont Trembant National Park, while I was back in Quebec, Canada, where we had a three-day respite from the heat throughout the month of July. Some of these photos are taken on the trails just outside the park, and some within.

It does my heart good to return to this sacred land, and the mountain that was once known as Manitonga Soutana, the mountain of the spirits, which designates the highest summit in the region and an important place of passage where ceremonies were held. According to legend, the Algonquians (Anishinabe) believed that the Spirit made the mountain tremble when people disturbed nature. It might also refer to the water coursing down the slopes of the mountain which caused this impression of trembling for the people lying on the ground. The name Mont Tremblant reflects this legend.

A six-hour hike took us to the top of Nez d’Indian (Indian’s nose – this mountain desperately needs to be renamed or given its original Indigenous toponym. There is also Chutes Diables (Devil’s Falls, again, let’s rename this, please!)

To see more short videos from my stay in Quebec, head on over to my YouTube channel HERE!

As I mentioned previously, my fiction series, Witches of the New Forest, is doing really well, and I had just finished writing the manuscript for Book 4 before heading out to Quebec. We are now in full editing mode, and we are on schedule for a 31st October release date! This will be Ryder’s story, whose adventures will certainly match those of her sister in the first three books!

In other news, I’ve had to cancel my appearance at this year’s Witchfest, as upon my return to the UK I received the dates for some surgery that I need (it’s not anything bad, just something that needs to be done before things deteriorate further). I will be in and out of appointments until the end of December, and so I’ve had to wipe my calendar of most things for the rest of this year. I hope that the new venue for Witchfest is a success, and I can’t wait to attend next year!

That’s it for the moment! I wish you all a blessed Lammas/Lughnasadh!

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New look!

It’s been a busy week so far, and we are only Wednesday! But I’ve been working late into the evenings, getting my new fiction book series, Witches of the New Forest, up to date and ready for the third book, The Witch’s Compass, which is coming out in the late spring.

So, what have I been doing? Well, after much consideration, I decided to change the cover of Hedge Witch. This is so that the other books in the series can follow a theme: forest scenes. As the series is set in England’s New Forest region, it only makes sense to have all the covers correlate not only to that theme, but also to each other.

And so, here is the new book cover!

The colours work well with the second book, almost being a reverse of the greys, blues and orange/peachy tones. I’m pleased with it, but then, I designed it, so there you go!

Hedge Witch has been doing well in the book rankings, last week coming in the top 100 of three different categories: Women’s Fantasy Fiction, Magic Romance ebooks, and Paranormal Witches and Wizards Romance. But this book, and all the others in the series, are so much more than romance novels (though I do love a good love story). They tell the tale of coming into one’s own power, the different boundaries that exist both within ourselves and our society, and also contain a large portion of modern Witchcraft and Druidry thrown in for good measure!

It’s been getting really great reviews as well, for which I am super pleased. It’s so wonderful that this book and the second, The Veil Between the Worlds, is really resonating with folks. I’m two thirds of the way through writing the third book, which will round off Hunter’s trilogy, and then we can begin exploring Ryder, her sister’s story, in the fourth book.

Come and join me in the New Forest!

End of Year Blog for 2024
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End of Year Blog for 2024

It’s coming to the end of the year, and I am about to take such much-needed time off. Throughout the year, I take two holidays: one summer, and one winter holiday. I use this time to go back home and see my family in Canada, which as the years progress gets even more important. They say you don’t know what you’ve got until its gone, but I disagree. I am so very thankful and happy for my friends and family, and I will spend every single chance I can get with them, no matter what.

This time of year is always reflective for me. The autumn season begins the turning inwards of my thoughts, and as the nights draw in, the leaves fall and the winds of change come in bringing the storms. My energy moves from projecting out into the world, to pulling inwards. It’s a cycle of extrovert and introvert, though I must admit that I am a functioning introvert all of the time. When the leaves have all fallen, and the winter rains and dark days lie ahead, I think of home, of family and friends, of warmth and companionship even as I dream of long walks, snowshoe hikes, and cross-country skiing out in the silent wilderness of the boreal forest.

It’s a time when I take stock of my achievements for the year. This year has been exceptional, in that I have completed three books! The first is the follow-up to The Path of the Hedge Witch, my non-fiction work for Llewellyn. The Old Ways: A Hedge Witch’s Guide to Living a Magickal Life will be available next year in the UK, on the 8 March 2025 for Kindle and 8 April for the paperback. (Don’t ask me why the paperback takes a month longer, I have no idea. I’m guessing shipments from the US to UK Amazon stores are involved?)

The second and third books finished this year begin my new fiction series, Witches of the New Forest. The first two books, Hedge Witch and The Veil Between the Worlds, form two thirds of the trilogy set around the main character, Hunter Williams, as she begins on her path of Hedge Witchcraft. With Druids, otherworldly characters, a magickal community and more, it’s a really fun environment to spend my days in, and I love it. Returning to fiction feels like coming home. (Other books in the series are planned, from different characters’ perspectives.)

I’ve always been a writer. From the age of twelve or thirteen, I’ve been writing stories. Ever since I finished reading Lord of the Rings, I knew that I wanted to write books set in a beautiful fantasy world where myth and magick meet.

Having been so productive this year has, however, caused a little burnout. I’m tired. I need some time away from my computer and my desk, away from social media, away from anything digital. I long to spend hours in the woods where I grew up, smelling the snow and the cedars, watching the chickadees and the wild turkeys coming into garden. I want to reconnect not only with the natural world, but also with my own sense of self. What I am craving most, is peace.

Which is funny, considering how crazy the first few weeks are going to be back home, shopping for presents, organising and attending the family parties, New Year’s celebrations and more. But it’s home, and it’s where I decompress, busy though it might appear. My heart just instantly relaxes, my body gives a sigh of relief and my lungs are filled with the crisp, cold air. There’s even an extra hour of daylight, not to mention days where the sun actually shines!

But peace is something that I’ve always sought after in my life. Little spaces of sanctuary. I have always created these spaces no matter where I was in the world, because I needed that in order to function on any sort of level. My homes have never been just houses, flats or apartments. They’ve been havens from the world outside, where I can let down my own walls and just be.

It’s a strange thing to think about, this need for peace. I look outside the window as I type, and I see collared doves in the beech tree. Are they at peace in this moment? They certainly don’t have to worry about promoting their work, keeping an eye on their sales, updating their social media or paying the bills. But they do have to survive in a difficult climate. Do they worry? About different things? Or are they at peace with what life had dealt them, and they’re just getting on with it?

I’ve studied a lot of Zen Buddhism in my time. That’s all about ways to find peace, by giving up searching for peace. There are so many paths to peace in this world. Maybe you could leave a comment on this post, sharing your path to peace? I’d love to hear about it.

Giving up the need for peace, as most Zen Buddhists would say, brings about peace. It’s the need that is the driving force in our own dissatisfaction. When we realise that we can have peace anywhere, at any time, simply by letting go of our need for peace, it can be like a ton of bricks has fallen from our shoulders. It’s so simple. And yet, so difficult to maintain. It can makes sense for five to ten seconds, before something else demands our attention. And our need for peace returns with a vengeance.

With so many external factors creating our personal circumstances, it can be very hard to see how we can let go of that need for peace in our lives, because people bring problems. Life is hard. We have no control over anything. For many Buddhists, simple acceptance of the circumstances is what brings peace. I’m not quite there yet all the time, but I can understand the mechanics behind the concept and try to remember it as much as I can throughout my day.

During the winter holidays, peace is such a central theme. Scenes of snowy landscapes evoke a feeling of peace and stillness on holiday cards. Snow is wonderful. It muffles sound, and covers all the sharp edges of the world, leaving behind sparkly magic in both sunlight and moonlight. Like a weighted blanket for the world, it holds us, frozen in a moment of time, to offer us peace.

Other simple things can bring us peace. The lighting of a candle, the recitation of a heartfelt prayer of thanks, the cooking of a meal, snuggling into a warm bed. Many things we often overlook can bring us peace. It is true: mindfulness does bring peace.

In a world full of lies, deception, insane politics, war and other atrocities, it can seem impossible to find peace. If you live in a country where people with guns are roaming the streets, if you live in dread of air raids or drones dropping bombs on your home, if you don’t have enough food for your cat, let alone yourself, finding peace is not only difficult, but damn-near impossible. When we are just fighting to survive, we are not at peace.

But I am guessing that the majority of you who are reading this blog do not live in these sorts of circumstances. We live in a mainly moral society, where the rule-breakers often get punished for breaking the social contracts and the laws that we have created through a democratic process of electing those to speak for us. In these worlds, we face other issues. We have the time to reflect on morals, on ethics, on philosophical ideas of all kinds. We can even create strange, perverse worlds where we find ourselves in moral competition with each other. “You’re not angry enough about this,” or “by not speaking up about it, you have failed society,” and other concepts often pop up on the socials, where everyone is judging everyone else, and everyone is found lacking.

It’s no wonder we can’t find peace.

Morality isn’t a competition.

But I digress.

For me, it’s in the small moments and in the small things where I find my peace. Having a moment to watch the sun set in the winter skies, with the golds and peaches highlighting the blues, pinks and purples. Stroking a purring cat curled up on a sunbeam on the bed. Eating a meal with my family. Sitting at my altar, honouring the deities, the spirits of place, and more. The big accomplishments are nice, and they are rewarding in different ways. But the culmination of all the small things is what really brings me peace. It’s not in what I do, but almost in what I don’t do. When I stop ‘doing’ and simply ‘be’, that’s where peace is found. It’s that liminal space, where there is no ‘I’ or ‘You’, but only ‘Us, Together’.

And so, I end this ‘end of year blog’ with an Irish blessing that’s often in my thoughts at this time of year.

Deep Peace to You

Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.

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Today is the Day!

It’s Finally Here!

The Veil Between the Worlds, Book 2 of my new fiction series, Witches of the New Forest, is now available! Kindle and paperback editions are now up on Amazon all around the world. 

Pre-orders have been sent to Kindles, paperbacks are now availabe to buy, and the story continues deep in the heart of the New Forest! 

If you enjoy:
*Mystery
*Romance
*Contemporary Witches and Witchcraft
*Druids and Druidry
*Paranormal adventures
then this is the series for you!


Link to buy in the UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DP27JDWB/

Link to buy in the US: https://www.amazon.com/Veil-Between-Worlds…/dp/B0D39L2TJT/

Link to buy in Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/Veil-Between-Worlds…/dp/B0DP27JDWB/

Available around the world, just go to your country’s Amazon site and search The Veil Between the Worlds, or Witches of the New Forest.

I hope you enjoy it! These books are written from the heart, and it is so good to be writing fiction again. Come and join me in the magickal world of the New Forest 🙂 
 

I will be at Crystal Encounters in Rendlesham, Suffolk, England on 7 December, 2024 for book signing! 

Happy Holidays!
(Don’t forget, books make great gifts)

With love from the Suffolk Coast,
Joanna van der Hoeven

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Two more days…

On Sunday, Dec 1 the second book in my new fiction series, Witches of the New Forest, will be released! The Veil Between the Worlds was written straight after I finished Hedge Witch, and then they both were edited one after the other. That’s why there’s only around a month in between release dates! Also, as there was a cliffhanger at the end of the first book, I wanted to release the second as soon as possible. So, here we are! I hope you enjoy them 🙂

You can pre-order the Kindle version now!

Click HERE to buy in the US

Click HERE to buy in the UK

Click HERE to buy in Canada

Paperback not available for pre-order, but coming out on the same day, 1 December!

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Wow, That Was Fast!!!

Hot on the heels of the first book, Hedge Witch in my new fiction series, Witches of the New Forest, is this new second book, The Veil Between the Worlds. How did it come about so fast? I’ll tell you!

The first two books in this series were actually written one right after the other. As the story crosses over both books, I didn’t want to leave a huge gap in between them, as there is a bit of a cliffhanger ending in the first book! So, when I finished writing the first one, I immediately began the second. Once the second book was finished, then I started editing the first. When the editing was done, I then released it, and began editing for the second. So, September/October was spent editing Hedge Witch, and October/November was spend editing The Veil Between the Worlds. 

The third book in the series, The Witch’s Compass, will be out late spring/early summer of 2025. This will the the third part of Hunter’s trilogy, before we move on to her sister, Ryder’s story. That’s going to be fun to write! Ryder is a great character, as is Hunter, but so, so very different. 

The Veil Between the Worlds is availabe for pre-order on the Kindle version only. The paperback is not available for pre-order, but will be released at the same time as the Kindle version comes out, which is 1 December 2024. 

I am having so much fun writing these books. Writing fiction is such a joy, and is what I have always wanted to do. Ever since I was twelve years old, I’ve had stories running through my head that I just had to write. It started with handwriting in unused school notebooks, and then moved onto an old manual, clackety typewriter before our family got an old second-hand electronic typewriter, which was much better for my hands than the other, older one! I wish I still had that little, blue typewriter that I began my writing career with nearly forty years ago.

It was only decades later that I released my first book, and from there went to writing non-fiction books on subjects that were so very dear to my heart:  Druidry and Witchcraft, with some Zen Buddhism thrown in for good measure. I am so very proud of the work that I have accomplished over the years, and I still have another book coming out in the non-fiction category: The Old Ways, A Hedge Witch’s Guide to Living a Magickal Life (published through Llewellyn). This one will be released on 8 April 2025, but is available for pre-order now. 

All of my work is written from the heart. Whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, I only write what I am passionate about, what I love. I feel that is the best way to write, and I am so blessed to be able to do this kind of work. Through the support of those who have followed me throughout the years, my readers, followers on social media, and my Patreon community I have been able to continue writing, and creating other content such as videos, music and more. Truly, I am blessed. 

Authors today need support. The market is changing so quickly, with so many new challenges to face. Technology is racing away, with very little thought as to the repercussions on human beings, their lifestyle, their livelihoods and their creativity. If you have favourite authors, please support them any way you can. Buying their books is, of course, the best way, but did you know that leaving reviews on Amazon will help a book be seen to more people? Even if it is just a star rating that you have the time for, it all makes such a difference. Written reviews also help the author to see what people liked and didn’t like about the work, and can inspire them in their own creativity and help them to progress in their career. Leaving reviews on other platforms such as Goodreads helps to get the word out as well. And don’t forget to share social media posts from your favourite authors, as word of mouth is still one of the best ways you can help!

I hope that you enjoy my new fiction series. And don’t forget, books make excellent holiday gifts! 

Many blessings to you,

Joanna

P.S. The links I’ve included in this post are for Amazon UK. If you live in a different country, you will have to visit that Amazon page in order to be able to get to the pre-order or ordering section for that book. Thank you!

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Second Video in Land, Sea, & Sky series now up!

I’ve been so busy with the release of my new fiction series, Witches of the New Forest, and the first book, Hedge Witch. The second book, The Veil Between the Worlds is also written, and is currently in the final editing stage, so I’m hopeful for an early December release! All this being said, I haven’t had the time to make the second instalment in the Land Sea and Sky video series for my YouTube channel, until today! So, here you go, and I hope you like it!

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Today is the Day!!!

A new chapter of my life has begun, with the release of the first book in my new fiction series, Witches of the New Forest. Hedge Witch is Book 1, and forms a trilogy before we move on to other characters, and their stories, throughout the rest of the series. I am so excited, and I hope you all enjoy this new series. And Book Two, The Veil Between the Worlds, is on track for a December release!

Paperback and Kindle editions are available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Hedge-Witch-Witches-Forest-Book/dp/B0DLLFZDKM/

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It’s out tomorrow!