Aligning with the 7Rs to Heal the World: Eco-Spirituality in the 21st Century

This week, my new book EcoSpirituality for the 21st Century is hitting shelves in North America on October 28th (and it will be available internationally on January 28th, 2026!)  I shared about the book, frameworks, and overview on the Eco-Spirituality for the 21st Century Page already, so if you haven’t checked it out, start there!  Today, to celebrate, I wanted to do two things: 1) share some of the artwork from the book and 2) share some of the philosophy behind the book and some hope for the future in these dark times.

First, a few things about the book:

To order the book in North America, you can order from Bookshop (which supports local bookstores) or any of the big chains. Here’s a link to Bookshop.

My co-author, Nate Summers, and I will be doing a free webinar and workshop on the themes in the book on November 11th at 8:30pm EST.  If you want to join, here’s a registration link!

Here’s a podcast Nate and I recently did to celebrate the book: Podcast on the Book – from Towards a Better Life.

Visual Maps from the Eco-Spirituality Book!

Once we finished the book text, I worked with my co-author Nate to conceptualize visual maps for each of the chapters that offered major themes for the book.  Once we worked out the idea for the graphic, Nate came up with sigils, which I worked into each of the maps.  Then created the maps. I like these maps a lot, and I’ve never created anything quite like them before. I love how they can tell both a visual story and also give the core of the themes discussed in each chapter.  The final map I liked so much that I decided to do a color version (and I now wish I had done color versions of all of them–I might do that in the future!).  So, in visual form, here are the major themes of the book. A picture is worth 1000 words!

Why Embracing the 7Rs Matters

The other thing I wanted to do today, in honor of the release of the book, was to provide some hope and perspective. It is really easy to fall into despair, fear, and pain right now with all of the things going on in the world.  I’m in the US, where things feel very bleak, and it is awful to see so many people suffering.  It is hard to watch the wholesale pillaging of our public lands and decisions being made that will speed up the collapse of ecosystems.  It is hard to watch the first climate tipping points come into being decades before predicted.  The whole thing is so terribly overwhelming. Right now, we are facing an ecological and social crisis of unprecedented proportions. As this crisis unfolds, many–and I mean many– are recently returning to nature as a way forward.  While the world is coming apart, I also think we are all coming together.  And every one of us is needed.

For example, a record number of people are recognizing that they want to connect more deeply with nature and make other fundamental shifts in their lives aligned with nature spirituality.  Ancient Order of Druids in America (of which I serve as the Grand Archdruid) has had membership increase by over 50% since 2020–and these numbers are similar for other druid and nature-based orders. More people–particularly young people–are getting outside, reconnecting with nature, and wanting to build a meaningful nature-based spirituality than ever before.  This is really exciting and is showing a fundamental shift in people’s priorities. Another thing that is happening that is new is that individuals from other communities–bushcraft, herbalism, permaculture, reskilling, and related areas–are seeking to build deeper nature spirituality practices.  They want a nature spirituality that deeply connects them with meaningful practices that create a brighter vision for the future, that lets them get dirty and be present in nature, and that allows them frameworks for their own ceremonial creation. And these shifts are hardly unique to the druid tradition.  I live in a very conservative area where people are slow to change.  When I moved back home in 2015, it was hard to get people even to come to plant walks, or get people interested in ecological topics, herbalism, permaculture, things I teach.  I remember feeling very frustrated and alone because nobody really was interested in the things I had hoped to teach and get going.  My new permaculture group failed spectacularly, with very few people interested.  My plant walks would attract a handful of people.  And then the pandemic happened–and suddenly my plant walks went from having 5-8 people to having 50 or 70 people show up.  My sister and I started the Pennsylvania School of Herbalism because there was so much demand for herbalism classes, and people wanted much more from the classes we were both offering.   I’m sure you have your own stories–as the collapse happens, it is spurring people to action.  People are waking up, looking around, and working to rebuild and reclaim what was lost.

The letter R has a lot of power in my mind right now.  While Nate and I wrote about 7 Rs, we can add so many to this list:

Reconnection – Reindigizinging – replenishing – rehumaning – Restoration – Rebuilding – Regeneration – Rewilding – Reenchantment – Reawakening – remembering – returning – rereaffirming – reaching – reforsting – realigning – realizing – rebirthing – revitalizing – reemerging – regreening – reweaving – replenishing – rekindling – reigniting – reinvigorating – recreating – relating – reuniting – recommitting – reattuning – rejoining – recalling – retelling – reflecting – revisioning – recognizing – reorienting – recentering

Ok, I may have made a few of this list up, but you get my meaning. I see this as a pivotal moment in time–and that pivotal moment is based on all of you.  We either wake up, embrace nature, and find new ways of living–the 7Rs in this book being a guide to some of that process–or we let is all collapse.  There really isn’t another way forward.  And I believe that we are going to do it–despite everything, despite how bad things look, I choose to maintain hope.  I’m not naieve, I’m not burying my head in the sand. I see the world for what it is right now, but I choose to focus on what we can be, on what we are already doing, and on what we can become.  Becuase the alternative to that is getting lost in this quagmire of awfulness, and that makes me less able to focus on that list of R’s that matters so much.   Sometimes the despair and fear get me down too, but I keep building my list of R’s and focus on doing a little bit towards them each day.

So, this new book is one of my contributions to this movement and this future: giving people tools, rooted in learning how to reconnect, rekindle relationships with the land and each other, and reenchant the world by looking at many principles that return us to our  ancestral roots to envision a better tomorrow. It is a guide for how to create frameworks and ways of living that promote the health of the land and meaningful, deep connection to nature, craft meaningful ceremonies, and rebuild core systems of human cultures that support connection. It synthesizes information from a range of traditions and places, including ancestral skills, herbalism, bushcraft, permaculture, organic gardening, land regeneration, and to provide a roadmap to how we get that better future.   Stay strong, stay hopeful, and embrace the green.

Closing Thoughts and What’s Next for Dana!

I hope you have a chance to get the new EcoSpirituality book, read it, and share your thoughts!  What is most helpful is if you take some time to put a review in Amazon, Good Reads, and/or post it on your own social media or website. These days, due to the algorithms in everything, it is really hard to get the word out about good projects, and social media has become a bit of a cesspit and I don’t use it much these days, so I’d appreciate you taking the time to spread the word!

In terms of what is next for me, I’ve got a few exciting projects and things in the works.  With that said, I do have some fun things in the works! EcoSpirituality in the 21st Century is going to be my last traditional book for a long while (at least a few years, maybe longer).  This is because for the last year and for the next year or more, most of my writing time is dedicated to finishing the last two books in the AODA tradition: the advanced books for our companions (The AODA Companion Guide) and Adepts (The Tome of the Adept). These guides represent an important step forward in AODA, and I’m dedicating most of my writing time towards completing them. I spent about a year revising the AODA Groups Guide and AODA Apprentice Guide (3rd edition) in collaboration with other AODA Grand Grove members, and I’m very proud of both of those works–they represent really big steps and new avenues for the tradition.  It is a good time to join AODA if you were thinking about it!

In terms of my upcoming art projects (like decks, illustrated works, etc), I want to start by saying that I used to share my in-progress projects very openly and widely (as anyone who has followed any of my tarot or oracle projects knows!)  However,Generative AI makes pretty much everything more shitty.  Thus, I have stopped sharing art projects in progress for a few reasons.  The biggest reason is that multiple creators working on projects like Tarot have had in-progress works stolen, uploaded by bad people to AI systems, and then had the project finished by AI and had their work stolen right from under them. I can’t even imagine working on a deck only to get to the 75% mark and then have someone else publish a close version of it generated by AI.  But that is happening, and I don’t want it to happen to my own sacred works.  I also just don’t like the fact that AI steals my work and uses it, violating my copyright. So rather than share a lot on social media about my ongoing projects, I’m keeping them pretty quiet.  But this means they will simply emerge fully when the time is right!

In Fall of 2026,  I will be releasing a new tarot deck (another collaborative project) that I’ve been working on quietly for about 3.5 years.  The deck, which I am illustrating, will be accompanied by a book written by Robert Pacitti of Deep Earth Astrology. The book and deck will features some very unique astrological interpretations of the traditional tarot deck using astrology, herbalism, and…gnomes! Yes, GNOMES!  The project is in its final stages of creation, and we will be releasing a crowdfunding campaign for it sometime in mid 2026.  I can’t wait for you to see it!

The other art project I’ve been making steady progress on is my Herbalism for Everyone coloring book.  You can see some pages from that in the Artwork section of the site.  I’m not sure when that will be out–I need to finish Deep Earth first, so probably in 2027?  We’ll see!

Thanks to everyone for supporting me and this work.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on the kinds of things you’d like to see–writing and art–moving forward.  Blessings to you, and keep the hope alive!