Land Healing: Physical, Metaphysical, and Ritual Practices for Healing the Earth

Druids Garden blogger O’Driscoll (Sacred Actions) presents a creative guide to healing the Earth from pollution, habitat loss, and other man-made harms. Taking a holistic approach that mixes “physical, metaphysical, and personal healing,” the author recommends making herbal offerings to promote abundance; performing a “tree blessing ceremony” to dispel negative energy; and composting to remedy nutrient deficiencies in the soil. Elsewhere, “self-healing” practices range from the expected (meditating, journaling) to the innovative (herbal baths and vision boards for what a “healed world” might look like). Though a chapter on replanting the landscape for ecological diversity gets short shrift, O’Driscoll provides a balanced mix of spiritual and pragmatic tools to mitigate environmental harm and rebuild a connection to the land amid what she characterizes as an unprecedented “division” between humans and nature fueled by “exploitative” Western attitudes. It’s an ideal resource for spiritually inclined environmentalists. (Mar.)