Gail Reichstein Rex - Earth Acupuncture: Healing the Living Landscape

EARTH
ACUPUNCTURE

An eminently readable compilation of both Eastern and Western geomantic techniques... Earth Acupuncture is an excellent book...

SIG LONEGREN, GEOMANCER AND
AUTHOR OF SACRED SPACE HANDBOOK

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the many beings who shared their wisdom and experience with me during the time these events took placeall of those who are mentioned in this book as well as the legions who are not. I hope that the telling of our co-created story will bring benefit to all.

Thanks, also, to Jon Graham, Laura Schlivek, and everyone at Inner Traditions who helped in the creation of this book. With the tale now in print, my commitment to the river feels fulfilled.

And I am grateful beyond words to Robert, my husband, whose early and unfailing support for me in the telling of this story made it all possible. His enthusiasm and love are tremendous blessings in my life.

And to Orion, seed of the new future, who is already a friend to Moheakantuk.

Wadogh.

Foreword

For hundreds of thousands of years, traditional cultures have managed to live in long-term sustainable relationship with their landscapes. Yet what was once second nature now seems nearly out of reach: our global, mechanized culture is so entrenched that we may rightly question whether it is even possible to get thereback to a seamless relationship and balancefrom here.

It seems to me that it is entirely possible and that we have in fact lost only two key things on our long journey from there to here: a sense that time is cyclical, and an awareness of the sentient intelligence of the natural world. When we look at sustainable cultures, we see that these two elements are present in their understanding of the world. Perhaps if we could reinstate these two elements in our own culture, they would allow us the harmonious long-range future that we all desire.

First, a sustainable paradigm includes an awareness of time as having a circular natureof wax and wane, of seasons passing, but always returning around and around the wheel of life, of circumstance, and of opportunity.

We presently have a linear view of time as something that stretches out from us to an unknown and unseen future of possibilities of increase and more of everything. This unseen future creates a need for our economies to grow rather than to sustain. Unfortunately, that which grows forever unchecked without the balance of reduction is a cancer in biological terms: our linear concept of time is thus introducing a cancerous consciousness into our dealings with each other and our environment. In contrast, circular time awareness brings us back to living in a renewable relationship in so many parts of our life and activities.

The second great key is an awareness of the sentient intelligence surrounding usthe many and various intelligences of nature, including our elemental environment. Collectively, these intelligences combine to create a spirit of place. Our awareness of the spirited sentience around us then becomes the basis of communication with our natural environment, allowing it to support our endeavors and guide our minds cooperatively and cocreatively.

Across the planet and throughout the ages, there has been a deep reverence for, and a cultivated relationship with, the spirit of place. For much of human history, nature has been regarded as sentient and the body of the planet has been understood as a living beingmuch like the body of a person, with meridians of energy flowing both above- and belowground. These pathways of flowing energy, composed of electricity, magnetism, life force, and chi, form the energetic anatomy of the Earths subtle body.

Below our feet, geomagnetism follows the conductive pathways of underground water, geological faults and fissures, and seams of crystals and minerals. These pathways are known to geophysics as telluric currents.

Above us, there are condensations and harmonic standing waves in the atmospherethe so-called Schuman resonancesthat create a spiders web of electromagnetic connectivity above ground. Perceived directly by human sensitivity and observed by their effects on plants and animals and the health of individuals and communities, these pathways of flowing life energy are the dragons known in east and west, north and south.

Song lines, spirit paths, leys, routes of ancient pilgrimage: they go by many names across cultures and history but are universally regarded. These meridians are traditionally energized by human attention and activated to connect sacred sites and pathways.

Both ancient wisdom and contemporary practice show that when the manifold energies of a place are in harmonious balance, agricultural fertility is greatly enhanced. In my own work with farmers around the world, I have found that germination rates increase up to fourfold and crop yields increase between 20 and 300 percent.

Conversely, when the Earths meridians are discordant, stressed, or sluggisha condition known as geopathic stresshuman health is adversely affected. Earth acupuncture is an ancient and powerful way of harmonizing geopathic stress and connecting human consciousness with the spirit of place. It is known to have been practiced in ancient Egypt, and the needles of stone of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages are still in evidence in Europe and the British Isles. Temple pinnacles and church spires can also be accurately understood as earth needles, balancing the energies between heaven and earth to increase landscape fertility and human, plant, and animal health.

There is a great resurgence of awareness and interest in this area, traditionally known as geomancy, with many strands of knowledge coming together, from Eastern and Western traditions, and from ancient knowledge and contemporary experimentation.

In this beautifully written book, Gail Rex generously shares her own journey of discovery, increasing awareness, and healing intervention on one of North Americas primary meridians. Her account and description of her perceptions and understandings are an inspiration to all of us seeking closer connection with our living environment and offer pathways that we can follow in our own fashion to help restore the natural balance and harmony around us that we and all species may thrive and flourish.

I urge the reader to engage with her story with an open heart, an inquiring mind, an active imaginationand once engaged and inspired, to try it out at home....

PATRICK MACMANAWAY, MBCHB

Dr. Patrick MacManaway is a second-generation, international practitioner of the healing arts and of geomancy and earth acupuncture. Past president of the British Society of Dowsers, he holds a degree in medicine from Edinburgh University, is cofounder and design consultant for Circles for Peace, and is the author of several books and CDs.

INTRODUCTION

Healing the Earth with Natural Medicine

Since my first day of acupuncture school nearly twenty-five years ago, Ihave been fascinated by the way that Chinese medicine connects humanhealth with the patterns and cycles of nature. Early in my practice Iwrote a book about the five-element cycle and the precise ways it defineshow each of us mirrors the world around us. The planet and its creaturesare made of the same stuff, I wrote in Wood Becomes Water. Wesuffer from the same illnesses and will heal from the same cures. We arethat closely intertwined.

At the time, I meant that we can find ways of healing our bodiesby learning from natural cycles. Little did I know that just a few yearslater Id be turning that model on its head, using acupuncture and theprinciples of Chinese medicine to heal a river near my home. This time,instead of looking to nature for insights into healing the human body,I was applying the techniques of human medicine to illnesses of thenatural world. Healing from the same cures indeed.