Friends of the Forest

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Friends of the Forest

Friends of the Forest is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit offering nature-inspired wellness programs for women seeking deeper connection, healing, and inner peace.
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Rooted in the rhythms of the Earth, we create spaces for rest, renewal, and soulful belonging. Friends of the Forest is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that helps reconnect women with the Sacred and more-than-human world. We provide engaging, sensory immersion experiences in nature to help women cultivate a healing reconnection with our natural world by incorporating creativity, connection with nature, mindfulness, personal development, and equine wisdom. Rewild your sense of wonder for the more-than-human world, and rediscover how Mother Nature provides sacred guidance through life's circular and seasonal journey. We welcome you to connect with nature, live with the seasons, tune into your body’s needs, and explore a little earth magick with us.

01/26/2026

I am Onyx,
the stone shaped from shadow and patience.

I did not come into the world in a burst of fire like my volcanic kin.
I was formed slowly—
layer by layer,
dark over pale,
night over dawn—
as if the earth were teaching itself how to hold contrast.

In my bands are the memories of long ages:
the hesitation between breaths,
the moment when fear softens into clarity,
the quiet strength that builds in silence rather than spectacle.

The ancients knew me well.

They carried me into battle,
into debate,
into dreams.
They believed I gathered courage in my dark layers the way a tree gathers rings—
steadily, without hurry, without noise.
When their minds trembled or their hearts faltered,
they wrapped their fingers around me and felt the steadiness I hold.

I have been called a stone of warriors.
But the truth is this:

I am not here to make you fierce.
I am here to help you remain whole.

In Greece, they whispered that I was born from the fingernail of a goddess cut by Cupid’s mischievous arrow—
and from that divine fragment came a stone that could not be broken.
A strange tale,
but humans often sense truth through stories:
what is cast aside can become powerful,
and what is small can become enduring.

I have been used to anchor temples,
to ward off nightmares,
to cool tempers,
to steady hands.
In the Middle East, I was worn as a shield against envy and ill fortune.
In Rome, I was carved into amulets for discipline and focus.
Across continents and centuries, people reached for me when the world grew loud.

I listened.
I learned the shape of fear, the curve of determination, the weight of grief.
I learned that humans often need help holding their own boundaries.

This is my work.

In your time, they place me at the root chakra—
the seat of survival,
belonging,
and the deep hum of safety.
They say I ground what is scattered,
soothe what is storming,
and create the subtle barrier that allows you to remain yourself
in a world that is always pressing in.

But if you asked me what I truly do,
I would tell you simply:

I help you remember your edges.
I help you return to your center.
I help you stand.

Not as a shield,
not as a sword,
but as a quiet presence that steadies the bones.

I am Onyx.
I am the dark that protects the flame.
The stillness that listens beneath the noise.
The night that teaches the dawn how to rise.

01/26/2026

I think the world—and our community—needs more stories.

Imaginative ones. Small glimmers of magic that remind us it still exists.

I could talk about nature, rituals, the turning of the year, the sabbats, and reconnecting with nature—but I’ve moved that deep, delicious work into our Patreon space, where it can be held and unfold with care and time.

You can find our offerings on the website if you’re so inclined.

But here?

I’m choosing something different.
Right now, every wellness account, every nature-based space, is saying the same things—with good intentions, from the heart. Still, I see it starting to blur into noise.

So I’m using this space unexpectedly.
For story.
For myth.
For remembering.
Not to teach.
Not to convince.
Just to leave breadcrumbs of wonder for those who feel them.
If you’re here, you’re welcome at the fire.

01/25/2026

the songbird feeding table- i fill it with greens and branches so the little ones can forage and hide… this morning madam rearranged and decided it was a perfect roosting spot.

fact- vultures overnight and roost together in tight flock for warmth so in winter they often have droppings o n their feathers from the birds roosting above them. But these meticulous birds will preen each other for hours.

01/25/2026

There is a story whispered only in the quiet between stars — a story from before the sky had patterns, before constellations learned their names, before light knew how to shine.

In the earliest days of the universe, when everything was still breath and possibility, the Light Bringers moved through the great darkness. They shaped the first sparks of radiance, guiding them like lanterns across the void. But even they felt the emptiness stretching endlessly, unfinished and longing.

Among them was the youngest of the Light Bringers, a gentle being who carried the glow of creativity in her palms. She wandered through the darkness, tracing invisible patterns with her fingertips, dreaming of places where new light might someday gather.

One night, though there were no nights yet, only stretches of timeless dark — she paused. A single grain of cosmic dust drifted before her, no larger than a seed. She cupped it in her hands and felt something stir within it: the quiet yearning to become more.

She breathed upon it.

Her breath carried warmth, memory, and the promise of becoming. And the dust replied, calling other grains toward it, gathering, swirling, awakening. More dust arrived. More pieces of forgotten light.They spiraled around her hands, shaping a luminous cloud that pulsed like a soft heartbeat.

The other Light Bringers watched in awe. “What is she creating?” they asked.

“A place for new light to begin,” she answered.

They named her creation Nebula, which meant the cradle of possibilities.

As Nebula grew, she shimmered with colors the universe had never seen — rose-gold, indigo, silver-blue, drifting like silk across the darkness. Inside her currents, sparks began to form, small at first, then brighter, gathering strength.

These sparks were the first stars, children of dust and breath, carried within the Nebula like seeds waiting for spring.

The Light Bringers realized what she had done: she had given the universe a womb.

Where once there had been only emptiness, there was now a place where light could be born, where stars could take shape, where worlds could someday form and dream.

And the young Light Bringer, who had breathed life into dust, stayed near her creation for a long time. She shaped the currents, guided the glow, wove silence into stability and warmth into movement. Nebula grew vast, magnificent — a celestial forest of swirling light, nurturing stars the way an ancient tree nurtures seeds hidden beneath her roots.

Some say every nebula in the sky is connected to that first one, threads of cosmic memory stretching across the universe, reminding us that creation can come from a single breath, a tiny spark, a fragment of dust that dared to become more.

And when you look up on a clear night and see a soft haze of starlight drifting through the dark, you are seeing the echo of that first cosmic cradle, a reminder that all beginnings are born of wonder.

Art/Unnamed (1986), also titled Portrait of the Inner Journey for Audrey Protiva, is a captivating work by Leonor Fini, an Argentine-Italian Surrealist painter.

01/24/2026

Freya is all set for the incoming storm. ❄️🌨️ Here’s hoping the storm slides through quickly, quietly, and without drama, and that everyone (two-legged and four-legged) comes out the other side just fine.

Stay safe, stay warm, and may the power stay on and the fences stay standing.

01/24/2026

Obsidian is not a stone at all,
but a moment of fire made solid.

It is born in the instant a volcano exhales,
when molten earth, wild and formless,
meets a rush of cold that stills it so quickly
its inner chaos becomes glass.

Because of this, the old mountain-folk said obsidian remembers everything:
the roar of magma,
the trembling of the ground,
the bright, impossible moment when heat becomes shadow.

They believed each piece carried the heartbeat of the mountain that birthed it.

In the earliest times, shamans sought obsidian not for beauty but for clarity.
They held it to the sun and watched the light sharpen across its surface,
a blade of night.
When polished into mirrors, it reflected not faces but truths,
things hidden, avoided, or forgotten.
Those who feared their own depths refused to look.
Those who were ready for transformation looked long.

There are stories from Mesoamerica of mirrors carved from obsidian so dark and perfect that kings used them not for vanity but for visions:
the paths of enemies,
the futures of empires,
the whispers of gods who spoke only through shadowed glass.

Another tale says that obsidian was created when a goddess, betrayed by those she loved fell upon the mountain and shattered her heart into molten fragments. Where her tears struck the cooled stone, pieces of black glass bloomed like dark flowers. These shards became known as the Goddess’s Eyes, believed to help mortals see truth through pain, and strength through fear.

But obsidian is not only a stone of seeing.
It is a stone of cutting away.

Ancient hands shaped it into knives so sharp they could split a single hair.
These blades were tools of both healing and sacrifice,
opening what was infected,
releasing what was stagnant,
severing the cords that bound the living to what had already died.

Over centuries, those who worked with obsidian discovered another power: it did not absorb darkness, it revealed it.
Not as something to fear, but as something to acknowledge and move through.

Modern mystics say obsidian grounds fiercely.
It brings the mind back into the body,
the spirit back into the present.
They say it pulls buried truths to the surface with the inevitability of cooled lava rising from the deep.

But if obsidian could speak,
if the black glass could shape a voice from its volcanic memory,
it might say:

“I am made of endings that became beginnings.
I am fire that learned stillness.
I am shadow that learned to shine.
Hold me only if you are willing to see clearly.
I do not wound
I reveal.
I do not protect you from darkness
I teach you how to walk through it unafraid.”

A reminder that what is deepest,
darkest, and most untamed in you
is not your weakness
it is your root.

01/23/2026

Dark stones are the companions of deep winter.

Obsidian, onyx, smoky quartz, and jet carry the energy of the season when seeds lie hidden beneath frozen earth and animals move half-dreaming through the dark months. These stones were once kept by hearths to protect homes during the long nights, absorbing fear, worry, and old energy that no longer served.

They remind us that rest is not emptiness.
Rest is preparation.
Rest is the seed beneath the world.

A gentle ritual for January:
place a dark stone on your belly as you lie down to sleep.
Let its weight anchor you.
Let your breath settle around it.
Let it teach you the quiet power of not-doing.

This is the time of year when restoration goes unseen,
but never unfelt.

01/22/2026

Imbolc is approaching, and this year I’m inviting you to experience it differently.

This isn’t the usual list of candles, Brigid crosses, or surface-level seasonal facts. Instead, we’re stepping into a deep, imaginative journey — into early light, hidden stirrings, and the gentle awakenings that live beneath winter’s quiet skin.

Here’s what’s unfolding for Imbolc on our Patreon community:

Mythic Stories & Seasonal Tales
Original, immersive stories of first light, seeds whispering beneath snow, and the subtle spirits that move through winter.
Tales that ask you to see the world as alive and sentient — where even the smallest beginnings are sacred.

Rituals & Embodied Practices
Soft, nature-rooted rituals to honor the returning light and the first stirrings of life.
Practices to help you notice shifts, hold intentions, and move in rhythm with the season — all without needing a specific spiritual framework.

Creative Prompts & Reflections
Journaling invitations, story fragments, and micro-writing prompts inspired by Imbolc.
Space to explore your imagination and intuition as the wheel turns.

Noticing the Natural World
Meditative prompts for observing early signs of life: shifting winds, river patterns, animal tracks, tender buds, and the slow lengthening of the day.
Guided ways to attune to the subtle magic unfolding all around you.

Interactive Community Practices
Small, meaningful challenges: gather “sparks” from nature, create a ritual bowl, notice the first light of the morning.
Opportunities to share reflections, creations, and stories — deepening our experience together.

This Imbolc series is about slowing down, listening closely, and opening to what is becoming. It’s not about perfection or obligations. It’s about presence, imagination, and a tender intimacy with the natural world — a way to feel the quiet pulse of winter turning toward spring.

Tonight, we began our journey with the magical story of the seed: “The First Light Beneath the Snow.” A lyrical tale of seeds stirring in the dark, of quiet awakenings, and the subtle magic moving beneath winter’s surface.

You can join us as a Wildflower Essence Member on our Wildflower Women Patreon space. Patreon.com/wildflowerwomen

Artist: Elaine Bayley

01/22/2026

Long ago, when the world was younger and the waters were wild and untamed, the moon wandered closer to the earth.
She had no name then, only a pale, steady light, and she noticed the oceans, restless and endless, stirring beneath her gaze.

The ocean was vast and dark, alive with movement, yet lonely. Its waves whispered to themselves in patterns no one could follow.
The moon leaned toward it, tracing the curves of its currents with her silver glow.
The ocean felt her presence and shivered—an instinct older than time itself.

From that first meeting, a bond formed. The moon began to rise and fall in rhythm with the water, leaning closer when it surged, receding when it pulled away. The ocean learned her movements, shaping itself in arcs and swells, finding a quiet joy in her reflection.
And she, in turn, felt her own light refracted in its vast embrace, shimmering in ways she had never known.

Over countless nights, their dance grew more intricate.
The moon’s gentle pull guided the tides, coaxing waves into crescendos and retreats.

The ocean responded in turn, curving into bays, spilling silver across the shores, stretching and folding, always following her subtle, luminous lead.

Even when storms came, even when the winds tore across the seas, the rhythm remained—a secret conversation older than humans, older than mountains, older than the first stars.

Sometimes the ocean longed to sweep her down, to hold her close in its depths, but the moon could not leave the heavens.

And sometimes the moon wished to sink into the folds of the water, to merge with its endless motion, but she must rise again.
So they learned to love at a distance, through rhythm, through reflection, through the tides themselves.

Each rise, each fall, each shimmer across the water is a message: I am here. I remember you. I am yours, in motion, in patience, in eternity.

And for those who pause at the edge of the sea under her light, it is possible to feel their conversation—to sense the pull of devotion, the swell of longing, the quiet intimacy of a love that moves the world.

The moon leans low, the ocean rises in response, and their endless dance continues, shaping the world in silver and shadow, in movement and reflection, in quiet, luminous devotion.

~Kathleen

01/21/2026

They say blue calcite was shaped in the hush between tides—
not from water itself,
but from the first breath the ocean gives
when it draws back and reveals its hidden floor.

In those ancient moments, the sea would leave behind more than shells or driftwood.
It left its quiet.
Its dreaming.
Its memory of depth.

And where that memory lingered,
it condensed—slowly, patiently—
into soft blue stone.

Some of the old water-walkers, the ones who lived with shorelines as their only map, believed that blue calcite began as the sigh of a wave that refused to return to the sea.
A wave that wanted to stay, to rest, to learn the stillness of land.
So it became crystal—
a piece of ocean translated into mineral.

The fishermen’s daughters told a gentler story:
that blue calcite was formed from the tears of sea-spirits who wept not out of sorrow,
but from the overwhelming beauty of moonlight touching water.
Their tears, they said, crystallized where they fell,
capturing forever the moment when light and tide merged.

Whatever its beginning, one thing was agreed upon:
blue calcite carried the voice of the water.

Not the crashing voice,
not the tempest or the roar,
but the voice beneath all that—
the low, rhythmic hum that slows the heartbeat
and untangles the mind.

In coastal temples now lost to time, healers placed blue calcite on the chest of those whose dreams had become tangled or heavy. They believed the stone could coax breath into softness, drawing anxiety out the way a tide draws the foam from the shore. Others kept it near their beds to soften nightmares or ease the tightness of grief—because blue calcite did not banish sorrow, but held it gently until it loosened.

There is a tale of a sailor who survived a weeks-long storm only by clutching a palm-sized piece of the stone. When questioned, he said the crystal sang to him—
not in words,
not in melody,
but in a way that kept his mind from drowning long before his body could.
“To hold it,” he said, “was to remember that calm exists somewhere, even if not here.”

Today mystics say blue calcite carries a shimmering kind of tranquility,
the kind that cannot be faked—
the kind that comes from deep, unseen places.
They say it opens the throat and the mind at once,
loosening truth, clearing fear, letting intuition swell like a rising tide.

But if you asked the stone itself,
blue calcite might whisper:

“I am made of softening.
Of breath unheld.
Of thoughts settling like silt in clear water.”

“I am the rest you keep promising yourself.
I am the gentleness you forget you deserve.”

Hold me in your palm
and I will show you the shape of calm—
quiet, tidal, luminous.

A reminder that even the fiercest seas
know how to return to stillness.

01/21/2026

The Healing Forest: A 4-Week Women’s Journey of Inner Renewal

As winter lingers and the world rests beneath frost and snow, we are invited into the sacred stillness of the season—a time for reflection, restoration, and gentle transformation.

Join us for a four-week online journey to reconnect with nature—and with yourself—through forest bathing and forest magic. Designed for women, this series honors the slower rhythms of winter and invites you to step gently into your own seasonal unfolding.

Tuesdays, February 4–25, 2026 | 6:00–7:30 PM ET
Live via Zoom | Rooted in Nature, Guided by the Season

Each week includes:

Guided live sessions with meditation, storytelling, and nature-based practices

Forest invitations to explore in your own time and space

Downloadable resources: journal prompts, rituals, and practices to carry forward

Though we meet online, the heart of this journey happens offline—in your local forest, park, garden, or even beside a single tree.

Our summer series sold out, and I'm thrilled to offer it again this winter. Step into the quiet magic of the season, meet the wisdom of the trees, and cultivate presence, insight, and renewal in a supportive circle of women.

Spaces are limited. Reserve your spot today.
Visit: https://bit.ly/4r7q8Jp

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Essex, CT
06426

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+18609041933

Website

http://friendsoftheforestct.org/

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