Jesse Hardin

The Healing Terrain: Coming Home to Nature's Medicine Jesse Hardin

Publisher Marketing: "The Healing Terrain exhorts the reader to discover his or her own place as the first step in healing ourselves, whether becoming a healer or becoming a complete person, and then provides the tools to do this. It is like a long love poem to the natural world - be prepared to fall in love." -Judy Goldhaft (Planet Drum Foundation) The Healing Terrain is a deeply felt invitation to connect to the land more than you might have ever before, with tools and tips for its accomplishment. Its authors explore topics of: Sense of place and finding true home, the geology of place, the medicine of water, wildcrafting, gardening, bioregional herbalism, invasive species, and learning to become more native ourselves, purchasing and rewilding a piece of land, and re-wilding both our beings and our daily lives. Jesse Wolf Hardin is joined by his partner Kiva Rose, famed herbalist David Hoffmann (author of Medical Herbalism), Phyllis Light, Robin Rose Bennett and more. Their writings and hundreds of illustrations provide inspiration to heal and instigation to enliven, changing ourselves and our world for the better. From Hardin's Introduction: "The living land is not only the foundation for, but also the essential source of our individual healing, of the repairing of our physical bodies, our emotional beings and spirits... just as the land is the source of and an ongoing aid to the development of our abilities and means to help heal other people, ailing communities and impacted places. The land provides the fertile soils for our gardens and farms, and thus the nutrient filled foods and medicinal plants we need to be healthy." Henry David Thoreau wrote about our need for the "tonic" of the wild natural world, reminding us "There is good medicine to be found in nature." Hardin, too, makes this case... and perhaps more eloquently than has ever been made before: "Rightfully at the core of all Natural Healing is nature, from the herbs it provides to the positive healthful examples it offers. By deepening our conscious relationship with the land, we create the opportunities and conditions for increased sensual engagement and creature awareness, empowerment and self-authority, uninhibited pleasures and fun, and greater effectiveness at nearly everything we might try to do in life." Contributor Bio:  Rose, Kiva Jesse Wolf Hardin is an acclaimed author and artist, cofounder of Plant Healer Magazine and the HerbFolk Conference as well as the originator of Anima ecosophy and lifeways. His over 1,000 published articles and over a dozen books have helped stretch as well as entertain his readers on topics as diverse as healing and herbalism, deep ecology and natural history, sense of place and indigenous traditions, American history and homesteading skills, shamanism and ecospirituality. Hardin's contributions have been featured in collections as diverse as The Soul Unearthed (Tarcher/Putnam, 1996), the authoritative Encyclopedia Of Nature & Religion (Continuum, 2005), and How Shall I Live my Life? (PM Press 2008). Early books by Hardin include Full Circle (Llewellyn) and Gaia Eros (New Page Press), while more recent titles include I'm A Medicine Woman Too! (Hops Press) for budding child herbalists, Old Guns & Whispering Ghosts for Western history and rearms enthusiasts, the book of interviews entitled 21st Century Herbalists, an inspiring historical novel featuring a healer and adventurer in the Southwest The Medicine Bear, the essential grassroots guide for herbal students and practitioners The Plant Healer's Path, the full color The Enchanted Healer on subjects of nature awareness, plant spirit, shamanism and more... and the upcoming book on nature, sense-of-place and wildcrafting The Healing Terrain. Hardin shares a home and purpose with his daughter Rhiannon and partners Kiva Rose and Loba. He lives and works out of a small powered cabin seven river crossings from the nearest pavement, overlooking the river that runs through their enchanted Anima Sanctuary, a botanical and wildlife refuge he has devoted decades to protecting and restoring. In 1979 he coined the term "ReWilding," which he applies to both the restoration of threatened natural ecosystems and our embrace of our own wild, sentient, authentic, "response-able" natures. The Anima approach to healing is deeply rooted in nature and place, emphasizing the healing of not only ours and others' ailments, but of our spirits, society, and planet as well. Contributor Bio:  Hoffman, David David Hoffman is a practising barrister in the fields of chancery and commercial law. He is a co-author of the student textbook Human Rights in the UK and is a former law lecturer at Somerville College, Oxford.