The Earth Prescription: Discover the Healing Power of Nature with Grounding Practices for Every Season

by Laura Koniver MD, Echan Deravy (Foreword by), Stephen Kroschel (Afterword)

Overview

Get in touch with the earth! This hands-on guide will help you deepen your innate bond with nature and feel more centered, focused, creative, and vibrantly alive.

A life lived indoors is not a life lived. And yet many of us spend the majority of our days indoors, trapped in our own heads, addicted to our screens and online connections, and feeling more and more disconnected to our own bodies—and the planet—than ever before. Intuitively, we know that even a five-minute walk outdoors can calm us and awaken our senses, but we tell ourselves we don’t have time, or we can’t seem to make the time.

In The Earth Prescription, holistic physician Laura Koniver, MD, offers the ideal antidote to the toxicity of a life isolated from nature—grounding, or directly touching the earth to heal your body and rejuvenate your sense of total well-being. Think about how good it feels to get outside and walk along the grass. This simple activity connects you to the earth, allowing you to reap its restorative powers—which include reducing depression, lowering blood pressure, curbing stress, and increasing happiness.

With this practical and uplifting guide, you’ll learn how to incorporate the practice of grounding anytime, anywhere, and find tips for including kids or your favorite pooch. Also included is an “earth journal” to log your experiences and positive results, as well as a troubleshooting guide to help ensure that you stay grounded in every season—despite the weather! This book will give you everything you need to enjoy the healing energy of nature—you simply have to get outside and get grounded.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684034895
Publisher:	New Harbinger Publications
Publication date:	05/01/2020
Pages:	232
Sales rank:	320,609
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Laura Koniver, MD, received her medical doctorate degree from Jefferson Medical College in 2000 at the age of twenty-six, and has been passionately supporting her patients’ natural healing ever since. She is an artist, author, holistic physician, and internationally recognized grounding advocate. Koniver’s healing artwork has been featured in many news and media outlets, and she’s published her own children’s book on grounding, From the Ground Up. She writes a regular health column in the national organic lifestyle magazine, MaryJanesFarm; is featured as an expert protagonist in several motion pictures, including The Grounded, Heal for Free, The Earthing Movie, and Down to Earth; and runs the popular health care blog, www.intuition-physician.com, where she reviews medical literature in a holistic and intuitive way.

Foreword writer Echan Deravy is a writer, cotranslator of Earthing, documentary filmmaker, and an edutainer specializing in new paradigm research. He is founder of the grounding movement in Japan, and is currently launching a Barefoot Park program to provide public greenspaces for safe grounding practices.

Afterword writer Stephen Kroschel is a naturalist and independent filmmaker whose groundbreaking animal work has been featured by Walt Disney Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Lionsgate, Universal Studios, the BBC, National Geographic, and more. He produced the grounding documentaries, The Grounded and Heal For Free, as well as contributed to more than 200 documentaries about nature and natural healing. He owns and operates the Kroschel Wildlife Park, where he cares for orphaned wildlife indigenous to Alaska and Northern Canada.

Table of Contents

Foreword ix

Introduction: Welcome to the Healing Power of the Earth 1

Part 1 Why Is Grounding So Healing? Chapter 1

Chapter 1 We Are Conductive Beings: Earth Energy Always Moves Through Us 13

Chapter 2 The Whole-Being Support We Receive from Deep Connectivity 25

Chapter 3 A Sense of Spiritual Connection to All 41

Part 2 Grounding Practices You Can Do, All Year Long

Chapter 4 Summer Fun in the Sun-with Ways to Keep Cool 51

Summer Activity 1 Walk Barefoot Daily 53

Summer Activity 2 Get Wet with Water Play 54

Summer Activity 3 Collect Treasures on a Seasonal Nature Walk 55

Summer Activity 4 Grounding Summer Vacation 57

Summer Activity 5 Summer Healing Meditation-Becoming the Sun 58

Summer Activity 6 Paint with Watercolors 61

Summer Activity 7 Arrange on Sun-Print Paper 62

Summer Activity 8 Journal Vividly with Colored Pencils or Markers 63

Summer Activity 9 Sculpt Some Environmental Art 64

Summer Activity 10 Work Out While Grounded 65

Summer Activity 11 Flow Through Outdoor Yoga 65

Summer Activity 12 Direct Energy Through Outdoor Tai Chi 65

Summer Activity 13 Walk with Mindfulness While Barefoot 66

Summer Activity 14 Pick Crops-and Eat Them Too 67

Summer Activity 15 Grounding in Early Morning Sunshine 68

Summer Activity 16 Go Heart-Spotting in Nature 69

Summer Activity 17 Send Intentions by Blowing Bubbles 69

Summer Activity 18 Grounding Summer Solstice Party 70

Chapter 5 Autumn Displays and Gathering Your Bountiful Harvest 75

Autumn Activity 1 Ground Through Concrete 77

Autumn Activity 2 Skygaze at Night 78

Autumn Activity 3 Go on a Nature Hunt 79

Autumn Activity 4 Set Up an Overnight Camp 80

Autumn Activity 5 Meditation on Becoming a Rooted Tree 84

Autumn Activity 6 Gather a Leaf Wind "Chime" 87

Autumn Activity 7 Decorate with Acorns 88

Autumn Activity 8 Offer Pinecone Bird Feeders 89

Autumn Activity 9 Pick and Choose at a Pumpkin Patch 90

Autumn Activity 10 Harvest at an Apple Orchard 90

Autumn Activity 11 Play Sidewalk Games 90

Autumn Activity 12 Release Through a Fire Pit Ceremony 94

Autumn Activity 13 Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden Ratio 96

Autumn Activity 14 Fall Equinox Gratitude Party 98

Chapter 6 Staying Grounded and Warm in Winter's Depths 105

Winter Activity 1 Grounding Outside Through Your Hands 106

Winter Activity 2 Grounding Through Animals 107

Winter Activity 3 Grounding with a Partner 107

Winter Activity 4 Grounding Indoors: Yes, You Can 108

Winter Activity 5 Going on a Nature Hunt, Grounded 111

Winter Activity 6 Sleep Reset Retreat 112

Winter Activity 7 Winter Healing Meditation: Wrapped in a Nurturing Cocoon 116

Winter Activity 8 Create a Grounding Stake 120

Winter Activity 9 Candle Making 122

Winter Activity 10 Gratitude journal 123

Winter Activity 11 Grounded Stretching 126

Winter Activity 12 Grounded Massage 128

Winter Activity 13 Grounding Through a Dog 129

Winter Activity 14 Pairing Sauna with Grounding for Added Benefits 131

Winter Activity 15 Fire Gazing 132

Winter Activity 16 Pay-It-Forward Chalk Messages 133

Winter Activity 17 One-Minute Grounded Prayer 135

Winter Activity 18 Grounded Winter Party Ideas 136

Chapter 7 Spring Blooms with Your Fresh Vibrancy 143

Spring Activity 1 Grounding Through the Soil 144

Spring Activity 2 Eating Outside, Grounded 146

Spring Activity 3 Going on a Nature Hunt, Grounded 148

Spring Activity 4 Gardening 149

Spring Activity 5 Healing Meditation: Awakening to Bloom 152

Spring Activity 6 Seed Collecting 156

Spring Activity 7 Bird Identification 159

Spring Activity 8 Insect Identification 160

Spring Activity 9 Register Your Space as a Certified Wildlife Refuge 160

Spring Activity 10 Litter Pickup 162

Spring Activity 11 Rain Dance 162

Spring Activity 12 Berry Picking 164

Spring Activity 13 Fall in Love with the Earth 165

Spring Activity 14 Labyrinth 166

Spring Activity 15 Fly Prayer Flags in the Wind 167

Spring Activity 16 Exploring Possibilities 168

Spring Activity 17 Spring Grounding Party Ideas 171

Part 3 Ways to Further Explore and Integrate

Chapter 8 Answers to Your Biggest Questions About Grounding 177

Chapter 9 A Vision of a Fully Grounded Humanity 193

Afterword 201

Acknowledgments 203

Resources 205

Notes 207

Interviews

Koniver resides in Charlotte, NC.
 

Editorial Reviews

This book is touching in its balance of deep, ancient wisdom and modern science. Laura Koniver brilliantly offers practical, tangible ways to bring the power of conductive medicine into your life to help create flow in your body, mind, and spirit. The Earth Prescription is a testament to the power of being connected.”
—Christy Garner, DC, chiropractor, epigenetic specialist, and developer of the Beyond BFRB programs for helping individuals move with body-focused repetitive behaviors

Christy Garner

I first learned from Clint Ober’s Earthing, that as bioelectrical beings we should be connected to the earth’s electromagnetic field for proper cell function. Now that most of us wear rubber-soled shoes and live, work, and sleep off the ground, we have lost sight of that beneficial connection. The Earth Prescription provides quick, often fun, seasonal activities to connect to the earth’s healing energy every day. Hint: you don’t have to take off your shoes; there are additional science-based ways to ground, both outside and indoors! Thank you, Laura Koniver, for giving me the how-tos I’d been seeking!”
—Cece Doucette, MTPW, technology safety educator and education services director for the international nonprofit, Wireless Education

Cece Doucette

The Earth Prescription is a game changer. It is precisely the medicine our planet and our bodies, minds, and spirits are longing for at this time in history.”
—Christiane Northrup, MD, New York Times bestselling author of Goddesses Never Age; The Wisdom of Menopause; and Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom

Christiane Northrup

Laura Koniver has done a great service to humanity by sharing this beautiful, scientifically referenced, and immensely practical guide on how to reconnect physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually with our home planet—Mother Earth. Its relevance is immediate and obvious. Its value— regenerative! Allow the ‘conductive medicine’ of The Earth Prescription to become your and your family’s pathway into an exciting, living, and viscerally experienced relationship with the miracle of the planetary presence, and all its healing and life-affirming properties.”
—Richard Henry Whitehurst, DipCH, DipAH, CMAHA, HMCT, psychotherapist, Earth poet, author, international speaker, and founder/director of The Overview Institute of Australia and The Planetary Human Initiative

Richard Henry Whitehurst

At last, a clearly written explanation of ‘Earthing’ and its benefits. Chock-full of simple, easy-to-understand, inexpensive methods for successful grounding, Laura Koniver has nailed it with this well-researched publication.”
—Emil DeToffol, DDS, founder of Less EMF Inc., and retired dentist with a background in engineering chemistry who has studied the impact and remedies for electromagnetic exposure for over twenty years

Emil DeToffol

The Earth Prescription is a delightful book! Laura skillfully weaves the evidence-based health benefits of grounding into enjoyable, seasonal activities that inspire you to actually try them. The joy of a loving connection to Earth, nature, and other human beings is palpable through the pages. Furthering health, connection, creativity, and community, this book will leave you feeling nourished on all levels—much like the Earth itself.”
—Tatiana Kassessinoff, PhD, ClHyp, founder and host of the podcast, London Heal

Tatiana Kassessinoff

Laura Koniver’s grounding concept was life-changing for me and my family. My first attempt at gearing up to sleep while grounded every night was a fail—I was too busy. In hindsight, I was too busy dying. I have yet to figure out why we integrate new ideas for improving our health when we’re receptive, instead of when an idea presents itself. I hope today is the day you’re ready to thrive instead of merely survive, forever grounded in Laura lore.”
—MaryJane Butters, Idaho organic farmer, plein air B and B manager, author of seven books, and creative force behind MaryJanesFarm magazine

MaryJane Butters

In The Earth Prescription, Laura Koniver inspires the reader about the importance of optimizing our connection to the Earth’s electromagnetic field while living our current, fast-paced indoor lives. Her wholehearted passion, clinical experience, and personal approach makes this concept easy to understand, enjoyable to engage, and will inspire anyone to make small shifts that can encourage grounding, healing, and balance.”
—Ann Marie Chiasson, MD, associate professor of clinical medicine at the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, and author of Energy Healing

Ann Marie Chiasson