Healing Grounds

Today, a new generation of farmers are working to heal both the land and agriculture's legacy of racism. In Healing Grounds, Liz Carlisle tells the stories of Indigenous, Black, Latinx, and Asian American farmers who are reviving their ancestors' methods of growing food--techniques long suppressed by the industrial food system. This, Carlisle shows, is the true regenerative agriculture: a holistic approach that values diversity in both plants and people. It has the power to combat climate change, but only if we reckon with agriculture's history of oppression. Through rich storytelling, Carlisle lays bare that painful history, while lifting up the voices of farmers who are working to restore our soil, our climate, and our humanity.

A powerful movement is happening in farming today—farmers are reconnecting with their roots to fight climate change. For one woman, that’s meant learning her tribe’s history to help bring back the buffalo. For another, it’s meant preserving forest purchased by her great-great-uncle, among the first wave of African Americans to buy land. Others are rejecting monoculture to grow corn, beans, and squash the way farmers in Mexico have done for centuries. Still others are rotating crops for the native cuisines of those who fled the “American wars” in Southeast Asia. In Healing Grounds, Liz Carlisle tells the stories of Indigenous, Black, Latinx, and Asian American farmers who are reviving their ancestors’ methods of growing food—techniques long suppressed by the industrial food system. These farmers are restoring native prairies, nurturing beneficial fungi, and enriching soil health. While feeding their communities and revitalizing cultural ties to land, they are steadily stitching ecosystems back together and repairing the natural carbon cycle. This, Carlisle shows, is the true regenerative agriculture – not merely a set of technical tricks for storing CO2 in the ground, but a holistic approach that values diversity in both plants and people. Cultivating this kind of regenerative farming will require reckoning with our nation’s agricultural history—a history marked by discrimination and displacement. And it will ultimately require dismantling power structures that have blocked many farmers of color from owning land or building wealth. The task is great, but so is its promise. By coming together to restore these farmlands, we can not only heal our planet, we can heal our communities and ourselves.

Align with the cycles of nature in order to save our planet, beginning with the soul of our soil. We know the environment is in trouble—and we’re seeing direct effects on human heath as a result. Only after we restore our natural connection with the earth can we help to heal it and ourselves. This is the premise of Grounded, at once a clarion call and revolutionary guide from author Dr. Erin McMorrow. With Grounded, McMorrow teaches us how to transform ourselves, our socioeconomic systems, and the environment that sustains us by aligning with the natural cycles of the earth. McMorrow explores both the ecological and spiritual basis of our existing climate crises—including what’s happening with our soil and carbon cycles—sharing a critical framework for understanding how we’ve gotten into our current state. She then shows how reconnecting with the divine feminine is the key to turning the tide, offering insights and practices for doing this sacred work. It’s estimated that we have fewer than 60 harvests left in our world’s soil and that our oceans will be 70 percent more acidic in just 30 years. These aren’t doomsday prophecies—this is our realistic future if we don’t take action now. “Being grounded involves rooting within ourselves to expand in the world,” explains McMorrow. “It means getting centered and navigating from a place of power, clarity, creativity, and balance.” Grounded gives us the wisdom and tools to initiate a transformation to save our lives and our planet.

Toronto has long been a place that people of colour move to in order to join queer of colour communities. Yet the city’s rich history of activism by queer and trans people who are Black, Indigenous, or of colour (QTBIPOC) remains largely unwritten and unarchived. While QTBIPOC have a long and visible presence in the city, they always appear as newcomers in queer urban maps and archives in which white queers appear as the only historical subjects imaginable. The first collection of its kind to feature the art, activism, and writings of QTBIPOC in Toronto, Marvellous Grounds tells the stories that have shaped Toronto’s landscape but are frequently forgotten or erased. Responding to an unmistakable desire in QTBIPOC communities for history and lineage, this rich volume allows us to imagine new ancestors and new futures.

After escaping the Los Angeles corporate world in 1993, Trish Tuley picked up a camera and walked thousands of miles, capturing her communions with the American wilderness on film. Eight years later, a chance meeting with poet Myra Dutton revealed a kindred spirit, an individual who had also hiked many miles and shared her passion to serve nature through art. Healing Ground is their collection of 10 years of visual and literary meditations on the natural world.

The first book to present medical evidence that mineral springs can prevent and cure disease--and to tell you which spas are most effective • Lists more than 200 of the best hot springs and mineral springs in the world and the health conditions best treated at each, with a special emphasis on springs in the U.S. and Canada • Reviews additional healing techniques that best complement bathing in and drinking medicinal waters--such as acupuncture, homeopathy, fasting programs, and fitness training • Includes photos of everything from famous spas to little-known hot springs The Fountain of Youth does exist! Author Nathaniel Altman shows that "taking the waters" is a powerful healing tool that rejuvenates the body and prevents a host of illnesses. Until now, it's been the best-kept secret for promoting and maintaining health and vitality. The use of natural mineral spring water for the prevention and cure of disease dates back 5000 years to the Bronze Age. Hot springs reached their heyday in the United States in the latter part of the 19th century and were well attended until the early 1940s. Balneotherapy--using natural mineral spring water for the prevention and cure of disease--continued to thrive elsewhere in the world and is making a big comeback in the United States. It is an accepted form of mainstream medicine in Europe and Japan, where an abundance of medical evidence shows that in addition to relieving stress, certain mineral waters can help the body heal itself from heart, liver, and kidney problems, skin diseases, asthma, digestive disorders, arthritis, and a host of other health problems.

This book explores the values inherent in grief, the multiple ways grief courses through our lives, the necessity of community and ritual to adequately release our sorrows and how to work with the obstacles we face that inhibit the free expression of our grief. Through story, poetry and insightful reflections, Francis offers a meditation on the healing power of grief.