LAND CLEARING

After two decades of working with the energetic bodies of humans, more and more I am being called to tend the body of the earth. Not surprisingly, many of the modalities that are used to clear or nourish our human bodies, such as flower or stone medicine, sound healing, or acupuncture, also work well on the body of the earth.

Whether the land where you live needs to be cleared, harmonized, or resourced in some way, I open channels of communication and help initiate on-going relationships of reciprocity. Land alchemy can be used when you are making a fresh start building a new home or garden, it can be used to clear old histories of trauma or harm from the land, it can be used when you just want to be humaning better, creating a respectful two-way dialogue with the land where you live.

HOME CLEARING

Home is our most precious nesting place. It’s meant to be a space of beauty, safety, and rest. The bones of our homes, just like the bones of our bodies, are the keepers of memory, history, and experience. These bones gather the emotions, thought patterns, and energetic debris of the humans (and animals) that they shelter. 

Your home is a moving, breathing, animate being. The wood, metals, or stones that your home is made of hold the lineages of the landscapes they come from. In their bodies are their families’ old stories and ancestral knowings. 

It is unfortunate that in modern home building practice, homes are constructed without intent, slapped together with materials we believe to be dead, creating spaces that have a denuded, flat, or spiritless quality. We have forgotten to expect our homes to be bright and life-force-filled, a center point of sacredness in our lives.

Land Alchemy can be used when:

• you want to be in co-creative relationship with the land where you are but you are unsure where to begin

   

• you are moving into a new home (or building a new home) and want to harmonize or clear both the structure and the land

   

• you are wanting to perform a ritualistic blessing or the land needs a new purpose or intent

   

• you are having trouble selling a property or house

   

• farming, growing food, gardening, or working with animals

   

• the land where you are has a known history of trauma, violence, or human disturbance

   

• there are repetitive problems in the home or land (like flooding, sick trees, lack of growth, etc)

   

• a home has been uncared for or in convalescence from an ill or dying owner

   

• you just have a gut feeling that something is not right with the home or land where you live

   

EARTH ALTARS

Since our very beginnings, human cultures around the world have been recording their curiosities, telling their stories, and expressing their everyday experiences of beauty through ritualized earth art. “From Stonehenge in England to the Giant Serpent Mound in Ohio to the Nazca Lines in Peru to the Chauvet Caves in France and the totem poles of the Pacific Northwest Native Amercians, the Earth has always served as a collaborator to express the myth, prayer, and memory of the people.” (Day Schildkret) 

There are many contemporary humans who are still passing down these traditions, in Asia, South America, and beyond, where a daily practice of creating small altars, mandalas or despachos is a part of everyday life. Even casual sand or snow castles, jack-o-lanterns, or mountain cairns are forms of earth art in the Western world. Creating earth altars is a tangible, uncomplicated practice that connects us to the pace of the earth and moves us into a space of attention and connectivity. 

Whether you are building a permanent installation or a seasonal mandala meant to blow away with the wind, the possibilities for creating land altars are endless. Land altars provide a place to:

• leave offerings

• complete simple rituals

•  express your love and creativity

• tend the elements and witness the seasonal changes

• communicate on-goingly with the spirits of the land

Depending on the individual circumstances and needs of your site, creating a land altar may be a supportive and healing element.