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The Healing Power of the Earth

© Traute Klein, biogardener

The healing powers of the earth are free for the taking to all creatures. We can learn how to use them by watching animals and little children, and some of us have learned them from our ancestors.

Patriotism Week

Today, July 1, is Canada Day when we celebrate the 135th birthday of our nationhood. One July 4, Americans celebrate their own independence in their 226th birthday celebration. In honor of these two events, I am publishing this article to celebrate the debt which we owe to the people who lived on this continent since long before the founding of our two nations. I have learned much from their healing methods and have written about them in many articles. Some of them are linked below.

Earth reveals herself to her children.

Did you ever watch animals wallow in mud? Elephants do it, rhinos do it, dogs do it, and, believe it or not, even cats do it. An animal with an infection will take a mud bath until that infection is cured. I have heard of wounded wild animals lying in a mud bath for days while the wet clay draws all the infection out of the wound. Many people foolishly believe that dogs simply love to get mucked up. Are you tempted to scold your dog for getting dirty? Don't. He knows something that you don't. He knows the healing power of the earth. How about the toddler who practically immerses himself in mud. Is he following the simple desire to get dirty or does he sense something that is lost to us adults? The aboriginal people of Manitoba either knew about this powerful remedy instinctively, or else they learned it by watching animals, but they knew the healing power of wet clay and its ability to draw out poisons. I have found wet clay to be the only 100% effective remedy for the feared poison ivy.

Return to the Earth

The first time I held clay in my hands and formed it into a simple vase, I was hooked. Making pottery became my favorite form of expression. As a child I did not have a chance to feel the smoothness of wet clay, because I grew up close to the shores of the Baltic Sea where the soil is sandy. Living in the Canadian Prairies, I am now able to make up for that lack. Gardening gives me pleasure similar to that of making pottery. I have always loved to walk barefoot on any soil or even on the pure sand of beaches, but burrying myself elbow-deep in garden soil provides deep therapy for body and soul. Maybe this is the pleasure of feeling one again with the earth, because the body senses that it belongs to the earth from which it was created and to which it will again return.

The copyright of the article The Healing Power of the Earth in Natural Health is owned by Traute Klein, biogardener. Permission to republish The Healing Power of the Earth in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.