Coming Next July: The Silver Branch and the Otherworld

my third book will come out on my next birthday

I am pleased to announce that my third book, The Silver Branch and the Otherworld, will be released on July 16, 2024 — my next birthday! It is available for preorder at https://www.innertraditions.com/books/the-silver-branch-and-the-otherworld?fbclid=IwAR3Z6-YVrB596hhw8gvto0euE1lTA9WHtt8NdklEVsUI_OADqCZFPvewg58

The Silver Branch and the Otherworld explores herbalism, plant magic, and ancestral relationships through an animist lens. If books were whiskeys, The Silver Branch would be a whiskey from the same still and the same batch as my first book, The Forest Reminds Us Who We Are — but The Silver Branch is the part of the batch that spent several more years aging in an Oak barrel. And the barrel was made of bog Oak, so more of the Otherworld seeped in.

From my publisher’s website:

To our ancestors, the wild world around them was filled with meaning, guidance, and insight. They recognized the symbols hidden in Nature that represent invitations to connect with our wild kin, such as the Silver Branch of Irish legend. They understood that plants and fungi are living teachers who can become our allies in healing and magic. They knew that there is deep healing available when one lives in direct connection with the living world.

Braiding together insights from herbalism, ecology, neurobiology, psychology, Irish history, and magical tradition, Seán Pádraig O’Donoghue shows how we, too, can tap into the flow of communication from the wild world and our ancestral traditions to transform our lives, culture, and worlds. Introducing the seven principles of animist herbalism, he revitalizes the ancient Irish understanding of the “three cauldrons” of the body and shows how this framework can be applied to the practice of modern herbalism. He examines the importance of physical and spiritual nourishment, including the role of seasonal ritual in setting the rhythms of our lives. He shares ancient Irish stories, with precautions and protocols regarding the ethics of engaging the Otherworld and working with plant medicines, especially psychedelics.

O’Donogue introduces thirteen of his closest plant and fungi allies, discussing what it means to develop a relationship with a plant and how to work with their medicines for healing and magic. He also provides simple practices for rooting in nature, navigating the wheel of the year, and deepening your connections with wild plants, as well as trees, water, and the ancestors.

Revealing the depths of healing and magic available through wild plants, O’Donoghue helps us to reconnect body and spirit with the living world around us.

(My second book, Courting the Wild Queen, is available at https://abeautifulresistance.org/shop-1/courting-the-wild-queen-by-sen-pdraig-odonoghue . My first book, The Forest Reminds Us Are is now out of print, a development that saddened me when it came, but opened the way for The Silver Branch to emerge.)