The Hagstone Podcast

Greetings all, Excited to bring you a glimpse of the first episode of a Patreon exclusive series I’ll be doing with, friend of the pod, Chad Andro of Radical Elphame. We wanted to find a way to expand on some of the conversations we’ve been having behind the scenes and share them with the kind folks who make an offering to the digital tip jar on our respective Patreon and Substack pages. All futur...

What does it mean to reclaim your cultural heritage in service to struggle? And what do you owe the people whose land you live on when you don’t know your own songs? This month Chaise sits down with Ben Reid-Howells — Scottish-Canadian community organizer, co-founder of Deep Roots Alba. Ben’s story begins in so-called Canada, growing up with immigrant parents and a longing to answer to the questio...

Todd Elliott farms 30 acres on a ridgetop in Owen County, Kentucky, and his magical practice grows directly from that land. His book The Cunning Farmer: Agrarian Magic, Mythology and Folklore (Inner Traditions International) is the ground this conversation rises from, but the roots go much deeper. Chaise and Todd begin in the practice of utiseta, the Old Norse art of sitting out on the land at nig...

In this month’s episode of The Hagstone , Chaise Levy sits down with Dutch-based oral storyteller Simon Hodges, known as Lindenbauer, to wander the marshlands between land and fairy, cultivation and wildness, memory and responsibility. Beginning in the drowned farmlands of the Biesbosch, a tidal landscape shaped by flood, war, and beaver teeth, the conversation opens into a deeper inquiry. What ha...

In this month’s episode of The Hagstone , Chaise Levy sits down with Scott Richardson-Read to trace the living force of story shapes nations, roots itself in land, and moves through communities as something more than metaphor. Beginning with the claim that “all we ever really have is story,” the conversation travels from Scottish political identity to digital worlds, from local hillsides to role-p...

In this months episode of The Hagstone , Chaise Levy sits down with Chad Andro of Radical Elphame to explore what Chad calls fairy apologetics, a reexamination of fairy lore that pushes back against fear-based, extractive, and overly dualistic approaches to the Otherworld. Drawing from folklore, Romantic poetry, animist philosophy, entheogenic experience, and personal practice, the conversation ch...

Happy Winter Solstice Northern Spirit House community. Today we are sharing a conversation between Chaise Levy, John Wolfstone , and Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen on From the Dragon Heart, which took place just before Yule in 2023. We are so thankful for John hosting and sharing the original episode, and to Rune for his deep generosity of both knowledge and spirit. As we deepen into this dark season we ar...

This week on the Hagstone Podcast Chaise is joined again by Nay Noordmans of the House of Gnomi. This time we dive into the magical history of Datura, and it nexus of lore across this wild green earth. In the conversation we dive deep into the well of Datura’s spirit, and find there a clarion call to find reconciliation with the stories of extraction that continue to unfold. In that spirit we invi...

This week on the Hagstone Podcast Chaise and Andreas are joined by Carl Nordblom. Carl is the author of the wonderful book Historiola: the Power of Narrative Charms published in 2021 by Hadean Press . If you haven’t read this book we highly suggest finding yourself a copy. This is a deep conversation weaving threads of storytelling, charming, folk-magic and mantra into a tapestry that reflects the...

This week on the Hagstone Podcast Chaise sits down with Rebecca Beyer of the Blood and Spicebush School of Old Craft. The conversation ranges through topics of land connectedness, connecting with ancestral traditions, and the particular power that the traditions of Appalachia have for showing a way of braiding cultures and lifeways. It is an amazing conversation, and we are so thankful to share it...

This week on the Hagstone Podcast Chaise sits down to chat with Rose Aurora for a lively conversation on Fairy and Elf lore, magical storytelling, and the fundamental power of Truth. Rose is a sorceress, seer, and trollkvinna. Born into a lineage of Celtic fairy seership & witchcraft, Rose has been interacting with spirits and practicing magic since a very young age. She has also apprenticed under...

This week on the Hagstone Podcast Chaise and Andreas sit down to chat with Johannes Gårdbäck to discuss trolldom and some of the amazing work he has brewing at Urhall. Johannes B. Gårdbäck is the author of “Trolldom – Spells and Methods of the Norse Folkmagic Tradition”, (Y.I.P.P.I.E, 2014). He is an internationally recognized teacher with more than 30 years of experience as a professional folk he...

This week on the Hagstone Podcast we are speaking with Sydney Kale. Sydney is a Ph. D. student of Wisdom Studies at Ubiquity University, focusing on plant intelligence and phenomenology. Her plant-relationship practice culminates in an exploration of co-authorship with plants in both academic and creative works. While her primary focus is plant studies, these inquiries provide a lens to explore pl...

On this week’s episode of the Hagstone Podcast Chaise is speaking with Arrowyn Craban Lauer. Arrowyn is an artist, a witch, and a mother who is based in Portland, Oregon. Arrowyn is the co-creator of Hex Magazine which ran from 2007-2014. It is a weaving conversation about the power of dreams, following your wyrd, the power of visual magical practice, and so much more. In the episode Arrowyn share...

On this week’s episode of the Hagstone Podcast Chaise is speaking with Z. Hudelot. Z is an educator, historian, researcher, and a forager working at the intersection of folklore, folk practice and scientific study. It is a fascinating and wide ranging conversation covering Z’s work with the Mycoheterotrophs (including the Ghost Pipe), gnomes, Paracelsus, mummer’s plays and so much more. If you wan...

This week on the Hagstone Podcast Chaise sat down with Nay Noordmans of House of Gnomi on Instagram to chat all things Gnomes. The conversation moves through topics of connection to place, the benefits of working from folklore to develop relationships with the ecology, and the ever present question are the Gnomes just mushrooms after all? References in the episode include: * A Book on Nymphs, Sylp...

Albert Shiell is a practicing folk magician and seiðkarl from Lewes, Sussex, England. Today he lives in Reykjavík, Iceland where he spends time in the land and working with spirits. He is the author of the two books: Icelandic Folk Magic, Witchcraft of the North and Icelandic Plant Magic: Folk Herbalism of the North . His work focuses mostly on the union of Iceland magical plants, folklore and mag...

Marcus McCoy A student of plants since he was a child, Marcus R. McCoy holds a A student of plants since he was a child, Marcus R. McCoy holds a degree in Transpersonal Anthropology with a focus on the ethnobotany of magical plants. He is the progenitor of Bioregional Animism, and has published his works on the subject of plant teacher shamanry in Reality Sandwich. Marcus has also been published i...

Audrey Nova di Mola is a Queens, New York City-born oral tradition storyteller, lifelong writer/artist, creative facilitator, and sacred space-holder; a wing-footed accompanist through the wilds of the deep heart. She is underworld-grown, grounded in the learnings of her descents and dedicated to carrying the revivifying waters of re-story-ation into our modern society. The sacred ecology of earth...

This month on the Northern Spirit House Podcast Chaise speaks with Roy Arthur Blodgett. Roy is a naturalist and writer currently living in Jerusalem Valley, within the ancestral homeland of the Lake Miwok. In the episode they speak about the braid of the love of language with the love of the land, what the duty of the poet might be in these times, and the possibilities of becoming “of a place.” Ro...

Simon Hodges has a lifelong love affair with both myth and non-duality - a combination he attempts to make sense of in his newsletter the Linden Bower. He organises storytelling locally and for disadvantaged groups, and writes for a living. His work with story focuses on the electric contact possible between ourselves and the nature to sustain inspiration in a disordered world. In our conversation...

For Episode 4 of the Northern Spirit House Podcast, Chaise sat down with Lien de Coster to speak about the practice of Utiseta. Lien is a Soul-centric Ceremonialist, Nature Connection Mentor, and Permaculturalist based on the West Coast of Sweden. Lien’s love of the landscape and story was born at the end of a cobblestone street in Flanders and has been a golden-thread leading her ever since. Thro...

In today’s episode of the Northern Spirit House Podcast Tyler and Chaise dive into their thinking and practice with Techno-Animism 8 months on from the first dialogue. They muse on the core values of empathy, and dignity and the necessity of re-evaluating our value judgements on what is and is not animate. In the second half of the conversation they take the theory into the realm of practice and s...

Laying the foundation for a second episode with Tyler Daneman, where we will discuss the use of AI in the casting of spells, generation of sigils, and experiments in channeling disembodied entities through chatbots we are re-sharing this conversation from last year on Techno-Animism. In a time that is marked with the increasing complexity of technologies, intelligent and otherwise, there are impor...

On today’s episode Chaise speaks with Erik Ohlsen. Erik is a Permaculture teacher, an author, herbalist, storyteller, and practitioner of Nordic magical traditions. He is the founder of  Permaculture Artisans and The Permaculture Skills Center . Since 2000 Erik has worked with the Reclaiming Tradition, mentored under a Swedish Galdrakarl gathering the living traditions of ancient Norse galdr and a...