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Jan's an external processor, and Michael had a question come up in his brain while listening to an episode of Enchanted: The History of Magic and Witchcraft, specifically the episode on the Oracle of Delphi, "The Opulent Shrine." Springing the question of, "What is it like to speak for a spirit?" on Jan, we launch into a discussion of the process, the feelings, and the general experience of seership for someone who speaks for the folk. We touch on the ethics of the experience, how we suss out spirits, and how we deal with the skeptic inside to understand how to speak to folks. We also talk a bit about what makes the experience feel "complete" and "real" from the outside. You can also check out our previous episode about the Oracular Spectacular. Find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org/podcast, and consider supporting us at threecranes.org/donate.

Back in Season 6, in Episode 121, we talked about one of Three Cranes Grove, ADF's, main traditions, the Ancestor Box. Today, we're talking about another 3CG tradition, the Grove Healing Blanket. We start off by discussing how we view ritual traditions, and a bit about how we build them... intentionally and not, and then talk a bit about the general characteristics of our quilt, how it was designed, and how the quilt(s) were created. We also talk about how the blanket is recharged each year, and mention the video we did of the working in 2018, which you can watch on YouTube. You can find the Penzeys Hug Blankets Rev. Avende mentions on the Penzeys website. Find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org/podcast, and consider supporting us at threecranes.org/donate.

Rev. Avende had a chance to discuss with Rev. C. Oleg Wildridge in the car when he came into town to visit Columbus back in late February. We start out with a discussion of Svetovit and Perun and Veles; we move into a discussion of Svarog and the (potentially) non-binary or genderfluid nature of Łado or Łada; this gives us a chance to look to other notions of genderfluidity in other pantheons as well, and how that relates to both the mythology, but also to us. Rev. Wildridge was ordained at last year's Summerland, so they also discuss what sorts of shifts and experiences he's had since becoming a Priest, and what it's been like to enter into that role, which leads to a discussion of how both our hosts interact with the deities they work with, and then back around to a description of the Slavic godden. The book mentioned at the end, Sources of Slavic Pre-Christian Religion by Juan Antonio Álvarez-Pedrosa is available on Amazon (though it's a bit pricy; check your local library, too). Find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org/podcast, and consider supporting us at threecranes.org/donate.

Rev. Avende has finished their chaplain training, and has been working as a chaplain professionally recently. As we work as a community toward creating paths that allow us to live our faith experiences, Rev. Avende is forging a new path for all of us. We talk a bit about the place a Pagan might find in the work of chaplaincy, our unique gifts as polytheists, and the challenges and experiences we have in the process of building this path for others. Rev. Avende dives into the process it was to turn ADF into the first Druidic endorsing tradition for the Association of Professional Chaplains (APC). Until now, there has never been a path built for Druids who wanted to enter professional chaplaincy; those working Druid chaplains out there have always had to use an endorsing organization that either served many spiritual paths, or even involved another religion, in order to obtain their credentials and endorsements. In addition, Rev. Avende has also submitted the equivalencies for the Masters of Divinity requirements, which brings us much closer to creating transferrable credits for an MDiv program. Find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org/podcast, and consider supporting us at threecranes.org/donate.

Suggested by David from Brooklyn at ConVocation 2026, we talk a bit about what protection magic looks like for us as modern Druids. Jan discusses the creation of a Kathiskos (you can see Rev. Avende's slideshow from their workshop on how to make a Kathiskos). Rev. Dangler talks a bit about his Ada Spirit drawing to Cloacina, the Roman goddess of the sewers, which you can see below (and see more Ada Spirits at The Magical Druid). We also discuss sigilization, and recommend Laura Tempest Zakroff's Sigil Witchery book. Witch bottles come up, as do our various Druid Moon rites and the protection work that we do at them. This is the second of three episodes Revs. Avende and Dangler recorded via Zoom in separate cars, and while the quality is a little bit better than the first attempt, it's still a bit robotic. But, we had a good conversation and we're pleased to share it with you. Find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org/podcast, and consider supporting us at threecranes.org/donate.

We're trying something new this time (and the following two episodes), to get us into the car at the same time, though we were in different cars for this drive; while Rev. Dangler was returning to Columbus from ConVocation 2026, and Rev. Avende was returning from blessing houses during the Anagantios rite our Grove does. Zoom cuts out a lot of the background noise, which is mostly fine, but also changes the way we sound on the podcast... so we'll probably have more experiments to do to decide whether we like this as a solution or not. You'll also hear a couple of dropped and failed connections on this episode, which is the worst-sounding of these three episodes. We discuss the following theorists / sources in this episode: Thomas A. Tweed's first chapter of Religion: A Very Short Introduction Niniann Smart (find an overview of his Seven Dimensions of Religion on this page: Definitions of Religion) (we learned in doing background research for this episode that Smart used he/him pronouns after the episode was recorded; our apologies for the accidental misgendering of this late scholar). Fenggang Yang's second chapter of Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's Title VII, Section 12 regarding Religious Discrimination Isaac Bonewits' Advanced Bonewits Cult Danger Evaluation Frame (ABCDEF) can be found on Neopagan.Net. We also discuss the oddities of colonialism and state definitions of religion, and some of the conversations that go on in academia around those topics. Rev. Dangler's vaccine article can be read on his Patreon.  Find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org/podcast, and consider supporting us at threecranes.org/donate.

Taking off of our last episode, Rev. Avende dives into the last statement and we discuss the anxieties around our spirit relationships, setting boundaries, and how our biases around people and spirits impact our relationships on each plane of experience. One of the things that comes out of this discussion is the change in ADF's Dedicant Path work between when Rev. Dangler joined and Rev. Avende joined, particularly focusing on the patronage requirement in the old work that we no longer do. Find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org/podcast, and consider supporting us at threecranes.org/donate.

Rev. Avende has a new stole (well, new since our last season, so like, two years old). Jan explains the process of making it, where the idea came from, and discusses with Rev. Dangler the process of what that means in relationship to our spirit allies. You can see what the various stoles we mention look like below (or on the episode page, if your podcast app doesn't support photos in the description). Find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org/podcast, and consider supporting us at threecranes.org/donate.

Rev. Avende and Mike Bierschenk were traveling home from Trillium 2024, and started discussing that tried-and-true experiential lore: Unverified Personal Gnosis, or "UPG" for short.  Mike's general point is that we should re-evaluate how we think about religious knowledge that individuals discover on their own. If we are going to suggest that talking to deities and spirits is normal, how do we deal with the information we receive when it comes to us? We talk about the pitfalls associated with those experiences, and how we manage to work through that in our communities. This is the last episode from our previous hiatus (we think), so going forward, we're hoping to have some slightly more timely content to share :) Find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org/podcast, and consider supporting us at threecranes.org/donate.

How do we take the ancient lore in context of our modern lives? This week again, Rev. Avende and Mike Bierschenk travel home from Trillium 2024 (after a mid-drive coffee pick-me-up), and they talk about squaring their practice with the lore that's out there, leaving things behind, and moving forward from those experiences. Where else will you find a consideration of questionable necromancy, tempered by considerations of how we may be useful to our descendants? About halfway through, the discussion turns to a meditation on places where ancestral knowledge is missing, and what we can do in our experience to honor that tradition, and make it our own. Find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org/podcast, and consider supporting us at threecranes.org/donate.

Traveling home from Trillium 2024, Rev. Avende and Mike Bierschenk discuss how the omen reading went at the main rite. Inspired by the Spirits, they tried a new omen process, which has since become a new casting cloth in the two years since (you can see a picture of it, as well as the original omen inscribed in the sand, in the linear notes on our Podbean page, if you are reading this description on a service that doesn't transmit images). There's a great discussion about the different sorts of divination we've seen and the hope we have to see more inventive divination methods in the future. We even managed to locate the original audio from the omen in this Trillium rite, so you'll find that spliced in at the end of the episode, before the outro music kicks in. (Spoiler alert: this omen will be referenced in the next episode as well.) Find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org/podcast, and consider supporting us at threecranes.org/donate.

Today, we talk about one of the administrative tasks required of us as priest: the reporting aspect of maintaining our credentials is a time-intensive process that brings up a lot of feelings for us, yet it reveals a lot about our work. It rolls back around to the idea of journaling as a practice, which is a different way of looking at these reports than we often experience. We talk a bit about unexpected lessons around divination journaling as part of this as well. You can find Rev. Dangler's "pretty" report on his Patreon (where you can get the answers to the reporting questions he couldn't answer in the podcast), and Rev. Avende's "legible" report on their website. You can also find the Three Cranes Grove, ADF, newsletters in our Newsletter Archive to see those omens we've recorded, and check out Rev. Avende's list of "Things No One Told You About Being a Priest." Find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org/podcast, and consider supporting us at threecranes.org/donate.

Today, Jacque and Rev. Dangler discuss their relationships with Nehalennia, a Belgic goddess who is known from a series of votive altars, and a modern working temple at Colijnsplaat, which you can visit! The other one mentioned is in Archaeon, an archaeological park in The Netherlands. You can also see a picture of the elephant on the ceiling of the church at Lucerne. We mention the Crane Breviary and Guide Book, which you can find on Lulu or at The Magical Druid, and the Nehelennia Oracle by Bela Síol, which goes in and out of print; the best link we have today to this deck is the author's Facebook page. You can read our friend Molly's review of the Nehelennia Oracle Deck for some additional context and pictures. Find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org/podcast, and consider supporting us at threecranes.org/donate.

Recorded in May 2025, right after Wellspring, we have a returning guest, Jacque, who is along for the ride to talk about "Druidry at a Distance." Jacque introduces us to the Virtual Fire Protogrove, which meets virtually via Zoom a couple of times a month to be social and do ritual. This Grove is a way to find conneciton and work together even though they may not be physically close to each other. We talk about different ways of communicating in ritual and over distance, including in our in-person rituals. We talk a bit about ASL in ritual, and the process of taking photos for Rev. Avende's Installation rite, along with many other experiences that either create or bridge distances in our lives. Find us on Facebook, check us out at threecranes.org/podcast, and consider supporting us at threecranes.org/donate.

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.