This month, we’re diving into land magic—how we connect with the places we live, walk, and dream with. And I wanted to begin by sharing something close to my heart: my own journey into relationship with land, and some simple, powerful ways you can start exploring your own.
My love for land began early. I grew up in Harrow on the Hill, a place whose name hints at its deeper roots: “Harrow” meaning a burial mound, a sacred site. I didn’t know it at the time, but even as a child I was soaking up the spirit of place—my mum walked me across the fields most evenings, I remember the wind in the trees, long summers, muddy ditches. Later, when I was a teenager doing my A-levels, I found myself drawn into researching the place more formally. I did whole projects on Harrow’s architecture and history—tracing old maps, drawing old houses, studying how the town had grown.
That blend of feeling and research—walking and wondering, digging and discovering—is what I now think of as land magic. And it’s something you can begin today, wherever you live.
Here are some of the ways I connect with land, grounded in personal experience but offered as practical techniques you can explore:
✧ 1. Learn the Story Behind Place Names
What does your town or street name mean? Is it named after a natural feature, a person, a long-lost language? I now live in Biggleswade—“Wade” refers to a river crossing, and “Biggle” (originally Betel) was a person. My current street means ‘south farmstead’ and I’ve also lived in ‘Plum Place’, ‘Stream crossing’ and ‘village of Lea’ (a river).
Try this: Look up the etymology of your town or village. You might be surprised at what’s hidden in the name.
✧ 2. Get to Know Your Soil
Different soil types feel different—energetically and practically. In Harrow, I grew up on thick London clay: dense, wet, grounding. Here, I’m on sandy soil: light, quick-draining, good for growing, but less anchoring somehow for me. I even live near a town called Sandy!
Try this: Look up the soil type in your area. How does it feel to walk barefoot on it? What grows easily? What do you notice about how it makes you feel? You might start to notice how the land changes when you travel. I feel right at home in Yorkshire which, it turns out, has plenty of clay.
✧ 3. Notice the Shape of the Land
I’ve always felt at home on hills. Flat land—like the Fenlands—makes me feel untethered, like I might float away. The shape of the land holds us in ways we don’t always consciously register. Harrow-on-the-Hill was the first place I connected to strongly, permanently, as sacred land. I found my way there, discovered I was pagan before I knew the word. Hills speak to me.
Try this: What kind of terrain do you feel most at home in—hills, valleys, flat plains, coasts? Reflect on why.
✧ 4. Become a Plant Sleuth
I’m nosy. I admit it. I walk around town peering into other people’s gardens to see what grows well, then try planting it myself. This is one of the most joyful ways to connect with the living ecosystem of your land. It is also one of the ways to re-connect with nature as something we are part of, not something we can dominate and control.
Try this: Make a note of plants, trees, and flowers that grow abundantly near you. What thrives naturally? What seems out of place?
✧ 5. Explore Old Maps
Biggleswade is much older than it looks. A lot of the town was rebuilt after a fire, and it’s expanding rapidly now—so fast that what used to be fields at the end of my road are now new-builds. I found a site that lets you scroll back through time with old maps, and I was hooked.
Try this: Look up historical maps of your area (try Old Maps Online or DEFRA’s ‘Magic’ if you are in the UK). What has changed? What has stayed the same?
✧ 6. Track the Water
Waterways—hidden rivers, ancient springs, modern ditches—are everywhere if you look. My mum has been walking London’s hidden rivers for over a decade, mapping their traces through the modern city. And I grew up with an underground stream beneath our house, rising and falling with the seasons.
Try this: Look for old or current watercourses on maps. Walk them if you can. Notice how they shape the land.
✧ 7. Walk the Land with Curiosity
Sometimes, the best way to connect with land is to walk it. Ask questions. Follow your intuition. Be aware of footpaths and private property—but allow yourself to explore.
Try this: Take a short walk in your area and let yourself follow what draws your attention. Where does the land feel alive to you?
Whether you’ve lived somewhere for decades or just arrived, there’s always more to learn about the land beneath your feet. And if you don’t feel rooted yet, that’s okay. Learning about where you are—its names, its textures, its stories—can help those roots begin to grow. Or it can help you recognize the kind of land your spirit is searching for.
This is the heart of land magic: relationship, awareness, and the deep remembering that you are part of the land, and it is part of you.
✧ 8. Let yourself be in relationship
Are there spirits in the hills? Living in the water? Painting the land white with frost and basking in the blessing of the Sun? Yes there are. Are there ancestors waiting for you to remember their story-bones? Calling you to light a candle at your heath, star-gaze, walk the old roads. 1,000 times yes.
You might be lucky and live near a water-source or hill where old Sages thought to write it down as an act of remembering so it could be passed on to you. BUT, that is rare AND whose to say the spirit wants you to call it by the name they knew it by? One day, when you have spent time, given your love, perhaps completed your 15th litter pick in that particular location or sat beneath the shelter of your favourite tree and offered it a song. Then the spirit of the land will speak to you, in its own way, in its own time.
My old hill does not speak to me in the way she used to. I visit rarely, and when I do I’m busy meeting family or child-wrangling. Every now and then, I walk her in the early morning light, or sit out as the stars blossom. Then she speaks to me, reminds me that she is still there. It is the active relationship I maintain with her that creates a channel for her voice.
footnotes from the sage
In the old ways, land was not just a backdrop—it was a living presence, a keeper of memory and meaning. Our ancestors named places not for convenience, but for power, presence, and story. When you trace the roots of your land’s name or walk a hidden watercourse, you’re doing more than gathering facts—you’re remembering.
You’re awakening the bond between spirit and soil, rekindling the ancient dialogue between human and earth. This is the path of the Sage: to notice, to remember, and to bring meaning back into relationship with place.
I love looking in peoples gardens to see what’s growing! Nice to find someone else who does this too 🥰