Druids In Cars, Going To Festivals

Episode 125 - Back on the Road - Trillium!

This is the episode that would have kicked off Season 7 if we'd released it in 2024. We recorded this one in February of 2024, when we were blessing houses at our annual Anagantios rite. We discuss what we love about Trillium as a festival as we prep for the festival season. If we sound excited, it's because we definitely were, and that excitement was well-founded!

We talk a lot about what it's like around the fire, what we hope it will be like when we arrive and help with the work of running this festival. We even talk about what Rev. Avende might do for a workshop... so you should send us ideas about both the podcast and maybe what workshops we should do. Even though this was recorded earlier, do it :)

Find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org/podcast, and consider supporting us at threecranes.org/donate.

Episode 124 - New Year, New Roads

Are we back? We're definitely back. After a couple of years of changing experiences, Rev. Avende and Rev. Dangler are making a run at a new season. This episode, recorded in January 2026, was recorded after a few of the ones you'll hear after this one, because this is our real "Back in the Saddle" episode.

Rev. Dangler has been writing, and dealing with health stuff over the last year, and has picked up the #TendingTheFlameOfHope work in our current times. Rev. Avende is almost a year into their first term as Archdruid of Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship (ADF) and a variety of new career opportunities. We'll talk more about those as we go (and there are some previously recorded episodes to touch on those aspects, too), but we want to invite our listeners to send in requests and ideas for future episodes, especially those of you who might have been waiting to hear about things we haven't gotten to yet, or questions you might have about previous episodes.

Find Rev. Avende's book about raising children, Kindling Sparks, and Rev. Dangler's books about Divination, High Days, and Lunar Magic (and probably others) at The Magical Druid.

Find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org/podcast, and consider supporting us at threecranes.org/donate.

Episode 123 - Moving On, Retirement, and Other Life Changes in Paganism

While headed home from a Dedicant Oath rite, we started talking about what it was like to move on from our current roles in modern Paganism, whether those moves were due to life changes, vocational changes, or just coming to a place where it was time to move on.

Mike Bierschenk joins Revs. Avende and Dangler on this discussion again, and we our conversation goes a bit everywhere, but it was a good chat.

Find us on Facebook, connect with us at Threecranes.org, and learn more about Druidry at adf.org.

Episode 122 - When Deities are Jerks

Today, on the way out to a Dedicant Oath Rite, Rev. Avende and Rev. Dangler travel with Mike Bierschenk on the way out to State College, and chat on a topic we've been meaning to get to for a while: what does it mean for us when our deities are jerks? Myths and legends are full of some really awful things that the spirits do to each other, to humans, and even to animals and plants. How do we navigate those waters?

Content Note: You've read the stories about deities and how they interact with others. This episode doesn't stray too deeply into specifics, so we aren't sure a trigger warning is necessary, but we are talking about deities behaving poorly, so be aware.

Our audio is a little odd on this episode as we figure out how to mic up three different people in the car, but we're hopeful it comes through well. Sorry if it's a little unbalanced or quiet, but we should have that fixed next episode; it was a good conversation, but we only have one source, unfortunately.

Find us on Facebook, check us out at Threecranes.org, and learn more about Druidry at adf.org.

Episode 121 - 3CG Ancestor Box Traditions

Happy Samhain, friends!

One of the great traditions we have as a Grove is that we keep an Ancestor Box. This is a simple box that has been with us for 20 years now, receiving new ancestors and bringing them into our shared community of ancestral family, and becoming a part of who we are. Today, because we were driving home from the Cantlos Druid Moon rite where we opened the box, we reflected a bit on how we interact with it, what's changed in two decades, and the ways we've found to keep the "stuff" in the box connected to their stories.

Check us out on Facebook, read more about us at threecranes.org, and find out more about Druidry at ADF.org.

Episode 120 - Harvest Nights 2023 Festival Review

On our way out to a Druid Moon rite, we took a moment to chat about a festival Rev. Avende had been to recently: Harvest Nights! Long one of our favorite festivals, Rev. Avende had made the trip without Rev. Dangler this year, and so you can listen along as he hears all about what he missed.

Find us on Facebook, check us out at Threecranes.org, and learn more about Druidry at ADF.org.

Episode 119 - The Role of the Bard

Today, Rev. Avende and our Grove Bard, Mike Bierschenk, travel out to Harvest Nights and bring you along in the car with them, as they discuss the role of the Bard in Three Cranes Grove, ADF, and in ritual in general. Both have served in the role for our Grove, and both have brought their own magical touch to the work.

Find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org, and learn more about Druidry at adf.org.

Episode 118 - How We Do Magic For Others

We continue our conversation from our previous episode with how we do magic for others: how we decide what sort of magical work to do, who to do it for or with, and how we divide out our magic by audience and type of work. We also talk about magical work for hire, and the boundaries we set around that.

Find us on Facebook, check out our Grove at ThreeCranes.Org, and learn more about Druidry at adf.org.

Episode 117- Sympathy and Contagion; Magic as Access

After Summerland, we're back! Today, we talk about sympathy and contagion in magic: the idea that things that are alike can provide access to each other, either through being alike or containing the essence (Greek: ousia) of a thing. We chat about them as subsets of attraction, referring to the Laws of Magic outlined in Real Magic.

We talk a little bit about joss money (AKA "hell notes" or "hell money") as an example, but the majority of this discussion grows out of the need for Rev. Avende to provide access to religious and magical support in their new role as a prison chaplain: how can we provide services to incarcerated individuals, particularly in light of the restrictions that are imposed on them.

Rev. Dangler floats his notion of "magic as access" here, probably for the first time publicly, so what you're hearing in the last half of this episode is really an initial oral argument for that definition, and we expect there's more to come on that as it develops.

A couple of things get mentioned in this episode, including a collaborative whiteboard image of Epona that we painted in the pandemic, and the Flame of Hope experience in an airport, which we've previously mentioned.

Find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org, and learn more about Druidry at adf.org.

Episode 116 - Dublin Irish Festival Druid Sunday Service Prep and Recap

Today, we're off to Summerland, and we hope you will be too! We're looking forward to more new content with new friends there!

Last week, we recorded an episode on the way to the Dublin Irish Festival for our annual Sunday Druid Service, and recorded a bit with Mike Bierschenk afterwards to review the service and our experience. If you want to watch the service, you can do so here: 2023 Druid Sunday Service.

We also talk a bit about things new and old in the ritual, as well as unexpected last minute changes. Mike used a new cosmos creation script as well, which you can find on his blog.

We're also making a switch for better accessibility on this episode: we're moving to mono instead of stereo sound, which should aid both people with hearing differences between their ears, and people who just like to listen to a podcast with one earpod in. Either way, we hope this is helpful to a lot of folks, and it'll be our standard going forward. Do let us know if anything weird happens on your end!

As always, find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org, and learn more about Druidry at ADF.org!