Earth Acupuncture: Healing the Living Landscape

Applying the principles of Chinese medicine and Native American shamanism to answer the call of the Earth and heal its polluted landscapes

• Explains how to build a healing relationship with the natural world by making offerings of thanks and listening to the Earth’s responses

• Details methods of diagnosis and several types of Earth acupuncture treatment, including building stone circles, planting crystals, and working with wooden and copper-rod needles

• Shares the author’s journey of healing a river with these methods

After experiencing a powerful vision of the nuclear power plant near her home and its toxic effects on the Hudson River, acupuncturist Gail Rex was inspired to help heal the river and surrounding lands but was unsure how to begin. Soon after, at a workshop with Cherokee-wisdom teacher Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo, she discovered the answer: she could treat the landscape just as she treated her patients--by taking its pulses and treating the points of stagnant energy and pollution with acupuncture.

Tracing her journey from initial vision and pulse taking to building a stone circle to open a major energy meridian of the Hudson, the author reveals how our rivers, valleys, and forests are capable of illness and healing just like a living being. She explains simple practices for attuning with the living landscape and responding appropriately to the messages and images received from the Earth’s intelligence. By making offerings of thanks and asking the land’s permission before every interaction, Gail Rex demonstrates the power of right relationship in action.

Drawing upon the principles of Chinese medicine and her work with Native American shamanic traditions, Rex shows how the landscape itself reveals both its imbalances and the opportunities for treatment. Using a broad range of diagnostic tools--including direct observation, principles of feng shui, listening to pulses, and working with maps--she demonstrates ways of identifying the master points of the surrounding landscape. She then explores different methods of Earth acupuncture treatment, including building stone circles, planting crystals, and working with wooden and copper-rod needles to treat these specific points and restore energy balance.

Offering not only a proactive method for healing the environment, Rex also reveals how to communicate with the rivers, mountains, trees, and rocks that surround us, allowing each of us to develop an authentic spiritual relationship with the living body of the Earth.