The Spiral Dance Begins

A Beltane Invitation into the Living Book of Forage & Gather

There’s a moment in the turning of the year when everything holds its breath—when the soil softens, the green shoots rise, and the world begins to bloom again.

That moment is now.

It’s Beltane—the ancient fire festival that marks the midway point between spring equinox and summer solstice. A time of blossoming and boldness. A time for lighting candles, for dancing barefoot on the damp earth, for remembering what it means to live close to the land. And so, on this sacred day of beginnings, I’m starting something that has been quietly spiraling within me for years:

Today, I begin to write Forage & Gather, my next book—right here, with you. It will unfold in rhythm with the seasons, chapter by chapter, rooted in the same cycles that govern the garden, the moon, the body, and the breath. This is not a book I will write and then deliver. This is a book we’ll walk together, as it grows.

Why Forage & Gather?

Some of you may remember Stirring the Senses, the book I wrote in 2014. It was a celebration of beauty, family, food, and the sacred rituals woven into everyday life. And while that still lives in me, I’ve changed. Life has deepened me. I’ve become a grandmother. I raise chickens. I plant and preserve, listen more than I speak, and try to live with both feet in the soil.

I’ve also spent the last decade gently folding in the wisdom of functional medicine—learning how what we eat, how we rest, and how we care for our nervous systems shapes everything. You’ll find that knowledge here too, woven in with reverence and simplicity, never clinical—like thyme into broth.

Forage & Gather is not a rewrite. It’s a return. A remembering.

It carries the same heart—but now it walks barefoot.

What You’ll Find in Forage & Gather

This book will be written in spiral time, not linear time.

One chapter at a time. One season at a time.

Each piece will hold the essence of a moment: a tea ritual, a blessing, a memory, a recipe, a thread of healing.

My intention is to share a new chapter every other week, in rhythm with the turning year—but I’ll also listen to the pace of life. Some chapters may arrive a little early, some a little late. That’s how nature moves, after all.

• Free subscribers will receive a beautiful excerpt from each chapter—something tender and thoughtful to sip slowly.

• Forage & Gather members (my paid circle) will receive every full chapter, including:
  

  • Herbal tea and tonic recipes

  • Seasonal rituals and practices

  • Blessings, journaling prompts, and reflections

  • Occasional printables or audio companions

It’s my way of honoring the rhythm of both writing and receiving—and of offering something nourishing to the circle that makes this work possible.

The Dance of the Vine

The Spiral Dance is ancient. Sometimes it’s called the grapevine dance. Sometimes the weaver’s dance. You’ll find echoes of it in the circle dances of old Europe, in Native American ceremonial movement, in women’s rituals across time. It’s a dance of connection—one hand reaching back to the past, the other forward to what’s next.

It’s not linear. It’s not hurried.

It moves in and out, in rhythm, in return.

And how fitting that this spiral dance begins just as my own grapevines are unfurling outside the kitchen window. Their leaves are tender and small, tinged pink and soft green—not yet the broad fullness they’ll become. But they are reaching. Twisting. Stretching toward the light.

And beneath them, the Lily of the valley is blooming—tiny white bells on arching green stems, their scent so soft it stops me in my tracks. It’s one of my favorite gifts of Beltane. A reminder that even the quietest beauty carries its own kind of power.

Just like this book.

Just like us.

A Blessing for the Beginning

May you spiral open like the grapevine—tender, curious, and full of quiet knowing.

May your roots hold deep, even as your leaves reach for the sun.

May you remember that stories, like seasons, return again and again—each time richer, riper, and more whole.

And may you always find yourself home, in the dance, in the gathering, in the foraging of your own beautiful life.

And yes, I still believe in magic.

Blessed Be,

Beth

Beltane, May 1st, 2025