
Witch Season Wisdom: Samhain Rituals, Slow Living & Nettles with Crystal Woodling ⎸Enter the Portal EP# 70
Witch season is here, and herbalist Crystal Woodling is spending it slowly: tending three beehives, brewing nettle tea and keeping the old Samhain rituals for her ancestors. In this episode, I sit down with Crystal Woodling , co-founder of the School of Heaven and Earth and an herbal witch from a long line of Appalachian medicine women. Crystal and I were talking before we even hit record about feeling as a language, and that thread runs through this whole conversation. At Samhain she keeps a dumb supper , a silent meal with a place set for an ancestor, because, as she put it, "we have a long evolution of communicating through feeling and not through symbol." The three hives outside her bedroom door work the same way. The bees stay calm around people who move slowly, so "you're learning to regulate with the bees." That's what slow living means to Crystal, and it's why she's proudly anti-AI. "In doing something fast, you're always going to sacrifice something, and it's going to be presence." She's just as honest about the tradwife version of homesteading, which makes the work look easy. We sipped nettle tea the whole time, so we get into stinging nettle tea benefits and the way Crystal teaches herbs in her GAIA course. You drink the herb, sleep with it under your pillow and talk to it while it brews before you read a word about what it's for. I also tell the story of how nettles gave The Wild Ones its name. Pour yourself some nettle tea and settle in. I hope you love this one as much as I did. Episode Breakdown 04:23 — Welcome to witch season: Halloween vs Samhain and how to celebrate Samhain 07:45 — When is Samhain? Moon timing, cross-quarter days and the Pleiades 15:02 — The dumb supper: a silent meal for honoring your ancestors 18:56 — Samhain rituals: the communal fire, turnip jack-o'-lanterns and the Celtic new year 23:31 — Crystal's land sanctuary: a no-mow lawn, natural beekeeping and a future retreat center 36:20 — The tradwife movement and the reality of homesteading 42:41 — Food forests and the lazy garden that grew better 44:23 — Slow living vs AI: presence, attention and feeling reality again 53:57 — Stinging nettle tea benefits, tea as a relationship, and how nettles named The Wild Ones 68:26 — Learning herbs by relationship: Crystal's GAIA course, dreamwork and where to buy nettles Connect with Jenner Linden Follow The Wild Ones on Instagram Join The Wild Ones Community Resources Mentioned in This Episode Join Crystal's GAIA course : seven months of plant and stone medicine, with registration open until October 22. Use code WILDONES26 for 10% off. The free Dream Healing Guide on Crystal Woodling's website Crystal Woodling's first Enter the Portal episode : herbal astrology and belonging Staying Human in the Age of AI with Natalie MacNeil : the AI conversation I mention Mountain Rose Herbs, Starwest Botanicals and Frontier Co-op: Crystal's online picks for dried nettles, after a local herbalist or herb shop Subscribe & Review If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts ! Your support helps this show reach more seekers, creatives and Wild Ones who need these conversations. 🎙 Thanks for tuning in to Enter the Portal ! Keep exploring, stay curious, and embrace your wild, beautiful self.

