A Wheel of Deepening Land Healing through Sacred Gardens and Refugia, Part II: Radiating Rituals and Sending Energy Outward

When I first started writing about the idea of refugia over a decade ago, the idea where we would intentionally create nature sanctuaries, pockets of life where the land could flourish, grow, and be protected from everything that is going on outside.  We would intentionally create and protect places where nature was not under assault by chemical warfare or extraction, but instead create places of deep healing, love, and connection.  For the last ten years, here at the Druid’s Garden homestead, we have worked to create such a sacred space–a little sanctuary of five acres sitting on a broader landscape that is truely at war with the living earth.  Maybe it isn’t that bad where you live, but here where I live, I am on the front lines of the extraction zone, and it often feels that way–being surrounded by fossil fuel extractive activities like fracking, mining, mountaintop removal, deforestation, and more.  But I think many of us are feeling this more broadly.  As I write this, there is a war being waged against the ecosystem and nature here in the US, being perpetuated and supported both by big corporations seeking yet more extractive profits and by the government itself.  It has many faces–the deregulation of environmental policies; opening up previously protected wilderness areas to fossil fuel extraction; defunding and crippling agencies that ensure clean air, water, and monitor pollution; working to sell large portions of public lands to the highest bidder; the dismantling of the Forest Service who seeks to protect our national parks and forest; tax breaks for polluters with a loss of grant and public funds for those who would seek to protect the land– among so many other things.  It is hard to evn write the sentences that describe what is happening here, and I know many who hold nature in reverence are distraught over these occurrences.   And there are so many people–good people everywhere–fighting as hard as they can for nature right now.  We all fight as we can, do what we can, and keep the hope alive.   But it certainly feels dire out there.  It sounds like a very good time to work some magic on behalf of the land–and in this case, magic of the land, for the land, and with the land.

In my last post, I offered a seasonal overview of how you can establish refugia and sacred gardens as a land healing technique. The phases were focused on the four directions, starting in the east as the sun rises:

East: Sacred Gardens and Refugia Establishing and Growth: This practice includes the first few seasons of establishing a refugia or sacred garden, which would include observation and interaction, design, planting, more observation, and the physical work of creating a robust and healthy habitat for life.  I’ve written about this practice extensively in two of my books in different ways: Sacred Actions has information on gardening and lawn restoration; Land Healing has a chapter dedicated to refugia and wild tending.

South: Deepening Relationships with Sacred Gardens:  As you are starting to develop your refugia and sacred gardens, you will also be deepening your relationship with the land around you, with plants, animals, insects, trees, mushrooms, birds, and all life, and the land you are tending.  As you move from establishing to tending, you will notice your practices shift from planting to harvesting, and you will likely experience a lot of abundance!  But the other thing that happens as you do this physical work is that you will become more deeply embedded as a part of the ecosystem.  You are another animal on the land, and your actions are in balance with the broader ecosystem.

West: Deepening Relationships with Spirits of Nature, Genuis Loci, and Ancestors of the Land:  As you lay the foundations in the East and South, you move into work in the West–honoring and interacting with the spirits of the land.  I place this work in the west because, as you are working on your refugia garden, you will eventually draw the notice not only of the nature spirits in your immediate vicinity, but perhaps some of the greater spirits — the Genius Loci–of the land.  Many people also find that this is a time to work with the ancestors of the land, and depending on who you are, that might be easy work or very difficult work.   There is about both the work of South and West in my newest book EcoSpirituality for the 21st Century! 

North: A Nexus of Healing Energy, Radiating Outward Blessings:  Once you have done all of the foundational work and the deep work of these different directions, we arrive in the north.  You are embedded on your landscape as a force of good, as someone that the nature spirits know, and trust.  You have cultivated a healthy ecosystem that protects and nourishes life, creating a refuge where life can thrive and be resepected. Just as your refugia is likely producing abundant seeds, fruit, or other plants–so too can the metaphysical fruit of this land be spread outward as a sign of hope and healing. And thus,  now we come to today’s topic, and the concluding post in this series–creating a nexus of healing energy that you then radiate outward to the broader lands around you.  I only briefly touched on this in my last post, as it is a more advanced practice and requires more space.

Caveat: This post offers advanced land healing work. It is not for people who are starting out–this practice I share today is for advanced practitioners who have spent time doing the work of the other three directions.  Likely, this is work over many years. Read the post, sit with the land, and decide if/when you and your land are ready.

The Core Ritual Mechanics:  Microcosm and the Macrocosm

One of the most powerful forms of magic we have is tied to the way that patterns can replicate from the one to the many, from the microcosm to the macrocosm, and to within and without.  There are many ancient understandings of these concepts, and they are well known in modern druidry and paganism.  The basic idea here is simple: what happens on a small scale (in the microcosm) also happens on a larger scale (the macrocosm), and so by working on our own small areas for healing and blessing, we can intentionally radiate that out to the broader ecosystem.  Many ancient peoples all over the world have used this magic, which we can see in many dances, harvest rituals, and rituals for blessing the land for abundance. I use this broader magical pattern quite frequently for land healing because it works exceedingly well–especially in areas with widescale damage or concerns. In fact,  I’ve shared some perspectives over the years about how to use this magical cosmology for abundance and healing rituals, including wassail rituals.  We are going to take the same principle as the wassail, but rather than applying it to a single apple tree and an orchard, we are using the healed, vibrant refugia as the center point of the ritual.

In our case, when you have a healed, abundant, and energetically balanced land, you can shift some of that energy you have been building outward to your broader ecosystem through ritual and ceremony.  As part of this work, you can also observe what flows through your land (natural flows like wind, water, seeds, insects) and ask for their help in carrying some of that energy outward.  You and the land are, essentially, giving away the abundance, just like you would if you had too many zucchini in your garden and you put some outside on a table for your neighbors.

What I will say–and I’ve witnessed this in a lot of places with people who do a good deal of phyical tending but not metaphysical work–when you have a refugia, your healing energy and vibrance is going to filter out naturally into that broader world–just like seeds on the wind, insects, or bees coming out of your refugia and going into the broader ecosystem.  The difference here is that you will be doing some deeply intentional work over a period of time to focus those efforts.

The ritual work and practices are very simple and straightforward. They can be packaged up however you like (within your own tradition) with whatever pieces that you want.  The preparation for this ritual, however, takes quite a bit of time, and it is to that question that we turn ourselves next.

Foundations and Preparation

In order to do this

Co-creation:  This magic is the magic of co-creation and collaboration with your refugia garden.  In order to be successful, you need to think of yourself as one part of a collaborative team of beings that are doing this work.  Before you begin any part of this work, you will want to check in with the spirits of your land and the genius loci.  If you don’t know how to do this, you are not yet ready to proceed and should not do this work.  I have plenty of posts on this blog that detail how to build a deep relationship with nature so you can communicate with the spirits of nature, and it is also detailed in the 3rd chapter of my Land Healing book on deep listening.

Whatever you bring to the work, you bring broadly.  In order to help facilitate this work, you need to be in a place of balance and health.  In this age, perhaps that means something different than it used to be, and many of us have different baselines for mental health than we did a few years ago.  But, you know yourself–you know when you are in a place of stability and balance, and when you are not.  If you go into this work with anxiety, anger, fear, frustration or any other negative emotion, that’s what you are going to send forward, and that’s going to cause more harm than good.

Whatever the land brings to the work,  the land brings broadly.  Just as you need to be of sound mind and body, so too does your land need to be in a place of balance.  Do not do this work if your land is stressed, in drought, in danger of wildfires, or experiencing any other major disruptions.  It is also important to realize that right now, all ecosystems are stressed, disabled, and struggling–because humanity’s insanity is significantly impacting nature everywhere.  With that said, at this point, you know the land.  You should have a good idea of when you can do this work and when your land is at the best that the land can be.  Right now, in 2026, I primarily do this work in the spring, after the leaves begin to bud.  This is because we are not in a drought in the spring months—despite living in a “temperate rainforest” ecosystem, we have been experiencing increasingly worsening droughts every summer.  I do not do this work if the land is in an active drought in the summer months. In years where we have abundant rain, I also do this work in the summer and fall months.

Timing matters.  Every ecosystem has times of growth, abundance, and fallow.  I live in a temperate ecosystem with four seasons (Western Pennsylvania, USA). I have found that this work is not good to do in the dark half of the year, particularly when the leaves are off the trees–trying to do this then is like waking up someone when they are in the middle of a long and deep sleep.  So I do this work spanning the light half of the year once the trees are fully in leaf and flower (so typically Beltane to Fall Equinox).  You should work out your own timing.

Protection For the Land and You

One of the challenges of land healing in the 21st century is that a lot of the destruction that is taking place has become a feeding ground for malicious spirits. Everything has a spirit, and even the extractive and polluted activities themselves have spirit. And they are hungry.  Thus, anytime you are going to draw overt attention to yourself, you will need to construct and lay very careful protections for yourself and your work. This means that before you want to radiate any healing energy outward in an overt way, you need to make sure your defenses are good, or you could attract some malevolent spirits.  These things are more common than you might think–when I visit any sites of destruction, they are almost always lurking around. There are different sizes, shapes, and ranges, and you need to be aware of them.  With great effort, they can sometimes be removed, but that’s outside the scope of this article.  For today–they are around and you need to beware.

First and foremost, protect yourself daily. I have written a guide to both metaphysical street smarts and a discussion of protective work for working in damaged places.  You should have some way — that you yourself do–to protect yourself daily.  If you aren’t doing protective work at least 4-5 times a week, don’t do anything else in this guide until you do.  There’s really no way around this and committing to this is pretty much the same as committing to brushing your teeth, locking your car, and checking your door locks at night.

Second, you need spiritual allies for yourself and the land.  This may be spirits/guardians/guides/gods/nature spirits/animal spirits that have chosen to work with you and that you’ve established long-term relationships with.  They often will show up to help protect, empower, and work with you.

Third, you need good protection for your refugia.  Since where the refugia is is also where I live, in my case, I do daily protective work for myself and for the land each day (in the form of my version of AODA’s Sphere of Protection, one of the most versatile and useful rituals you can learn). For the land, many people also choose to put in permanent wards.  This can be many things (and if you want more details, ask in the comments).  In the past, I’ve used protective stones at the quarters, I’ve found anchor trees in the four directions to hold space, and so on.   Now, what I think a lot of people do is assume they need to lock their land down super energetically tight.  I caution against this approach, particularly as you grow and deepen your practice and gain experience.  It is ok to lock things down at certain times or when you are just starting out, but building an energetic fortress is actually counter to how nature works and is not reflective of nature’s wisdom. Remember that the idea of property boundaries and the idea that land can be owned at all is a very colonialist and capitalist idea.  When you look at the ecosystem, animal species have territories and ranges, but they are often very overlapping.  People can easily and readily come in and out of spaces regardless of human ownership (for example, your cat knows this well, and goes wherever she pleases, regardless if she stays on the invisible property boundary). I suggest regular warding with the goal of not locking everything down like a prison, but rather, keeping out anything that has ill intent: the intent to harm or hurt you, your loved ones, or the land.  If you set your wards with that intention, you keep out the bad but allow the good to flow in and out–and that’s important for this work.

Fourth, you need support from the broader spirits of the land, the Genius Loci, who often include the ancestors of the land.  If you haven’t yet introduced yourself, it is a good time to do so.  You may have to seek them out–consider places of natural power in your broader ecosystem and go there to seek them, or invite them to your refugia.  Explain to them what you’d like to do and see if they A) think this is a good idea; B) have any advice and C) are willing to work with you.  If they are, then you can also see if they are willing to offer you and the land protections.  Oftentimes, this involves some kind of formal agreements with the Genus Loci–and they won’t deal with just anyone.  The best way of working with these greater land spirits is to demonstrate yourself and your intentions through actions over a period of years.  Most humans are bad for nature or ignorant of nature–but these spirits will start to pay attention to someone who treats the land with sovereignty, respect, and reverence, and who gives back more than they take.  And once you start working with them, you may find that they will want to make an agreement with you.  This may include offerings, ongoing support, ceremonies, or things that may not make sense to you as a human (such as finding and moving stones from one location to the next).  Work with them, build the foundation, and realize this takes time.  Spirits who represent broader ecosystems work with the same cycles of abundance and fallow that is present on the land, and they take time.  Be patient, be respectful, and listen.

Identifying Needs and Flows

Now that you are ready to begin, you will want to do two things (likely, you already have most of this knowledge, but it doesn’t hurt to cycle around to it again): identifying needs of the broader land and flows.

When I am out in my broader landscape, I pay attention to what the land is most lacking.  In my case, here in the middle of the extraction zone, what the land is most hungry for is A) being seen as a land with spirit; B) care and C) hope.  There is no care in how people treat the ecosystem and life here–it is really shocking.  It is a cultural phenomenon, even when you see how people mistreat farm animals, and have brazen actions surrounding cutting or clearing land.  They see the land as completely devoid of life and soul.  There is a hunger where I live with the broader spirits of the land for care-filled interactions.  As I began this work, I identified these three core needs as a focus of my own magical work.

The second thing you will want to do is identify the flows from your land.  What is coming onto the land and what is going out?  For our homestead, we get steady winds, usually from the west.  We also have a spring–which flows into a pond and then into a small creek–which later flows into more places.  One key thing that has emerged in the last year is that our spring and creek flow into the watershed that is currently flowing right past where they are building the fracked gas powerplant and–where they are now proposing over 20 stream crossings for a new large natural gas pipeline.  The spring sits in the very center of one of our forest refugia places–where we have lovingly planted woodland medicinal species and native species like ginseng, trillium, black cohosh, blue cohosh, bloodroot, ramps, elder, and more.  It is bordered by a beautiful grove of bitternut hickory trees–strong guardians of the land (I have another post brewing about this space and how we have been working to clear it–by hand–of multiflora rose and replant).  So here, our refugia an origin point that flows the whole way into the Mississippi watershed in a place that is well tended–and going past one of the worst extractive activities in our region.

You will want to assess where the flow is going and what the needs are.

Creating Radiance

Now that you have all the foundation in place.  You have a mature, abundant refugia or sacred garden, you and your land are in good health, your own mental health is in a good place, you have established protections and wards for yourself and for the land, you have engaged in co-creative conversations with the spirits of place about needs and scope of the work, and you are working with the greater Genius Loci.   You have also identified needs in the broader ecosystem and flows to and from your refugia.  A huge part of the ritual is what you have done above.  By putting all of these pieces in place, the last part is in some ways, the easiest–now you just get to work the magic.

Now we will create radiance.  Just like the sun coming over the horizon on a dark landscape, or lighting a candle in the darkness, this ritual is a powerful land healing practice that radiates blessing and healing from a healed, protected place to the broader ecosystem under duress.  It reminds the broader land that there are people who care, people who heal, and gives a bit of hope and healing.  You can use this ritual anytime, but it is also particularly useful if there is some kind of ongoing damage or an extreme event that causes disruption.  Where I live there is always ongoing damage so I do it pretty regularly.

Creating Radiance: A simple way of doing this ritual is the wassail technique.  Open up a sacred grove within your refugia and use your usual techniques to raise energy there–as you raise energy there, pay attention to how the land raises energy with you.  Shape that energy within that space, aligning to the needs of the broader ecosystem.  Then, when you are ready, place your hands on the earth and feel that energy radiating out–out past the wards of your property, out into the broader ecosystem, just like the sun in the sky or a candle in the dark room. Feel that healing, wonderful energy permeating dark places and giving the broader ecosystem some nourishment.  You can do this in a lot of ways, but here is an example: When I want to do the radiance ritual to orient towards care for the earth, I first spend some time in care on the land.  I tend the land as I would any day in the refugia, with care, kindness, and love.  I make offerings, I tend plants, I scatter seeds, and I do so while holding the care in my heart.  As I bring this care to the refugia, the land responds in care, and we raise the energy of care together.  Then, I open a sacred grove, setting my intentions fully on care as I raise energy–then the spirits of the land entwine their own care with mine, and we continue to raise that for a bit.  When it feels enough, we radiate out that care to the broader landscape.  When I am out beyond the refugia, I continue to show care.  You can do this with anything–I have found the ritual to be much more effective when you root the metaphysical work in physical work first.

I do this ritual a few times a year, at minimum, or more if I feel led.  Usually, I will get a sign that the ritual needs to be done again, and I will do it.  Work with your land and the spirits to figure out the frequency and more specific nature of what you will be doing.  This is advanced work; if you are ready for it you don’t need more than what I’ve written here.

Radiance and Flows:  Another thing I commonly do is radiance rituals for flows on the land.  So the spring I mentioned above is a big one–I do a lot of magical work around the spring.  But all of this magic is first and foremost rooted in tending the refugia physically.  For example, this year, I spent about a month removing by hand a lot of multiflora rose (very opportunistic), and paying regular blood offerings from her thorns to do so.  Now I am planting more elderberry down by the spring, both as protection and as healing for people and planet.  When I put those Elder in the ground, I did abundance ceremonies for them.  As they take root, they multiply the blessings present at their planting.  As the years go on, these Elder will become core allies in protecting the spring.

In terms of working with the flow of the spring, I regularly bless and place rocks where the spring emerges from the earth as well as in the little valley where the water runs through mossy stones and into the pond.  I always do this with AODA’s general framework for telluric water blessing, which I worked with other AODA leaders to develop (in part, rooted in this work).  In a nutshell–I open up a sacred space, invite my allies and the spirits of nature into the space, and then bless a stone, which is placed in the spring or in the spring valley to radiate a bit of healing and bless the whole way down the waterway.  This is potent magic, and one of the messages

If the wind is blowing strongly, I often will do the same thing but with a smoke cleansing stick (I make very large ones for this purpose, usually out of mugwort, as she is so powerful and abundant).  Open up sacred space, raise energy with the land, then pour that energy into the smoke stick.  Then, as we pour the energy in, I light the smoke stick, say prayers, and chant while it is burning, and send those out to the broader ecosystem.

Permanent Radiance:  The sample of the stones in the spring represents a different kind of ritual than the smoke stick or energy radiance ritual I shared above.  That represents a small but powerful constant stream of energy to the surrounding land.  When your land is ready, and in conjunction with the spirits of nature, you can create these kinds of permanent places that have the goal of radiating energy out regularly to the surrounding land.  Standing stones, shrines, and other places of power you build or plant can serve in this capacity.  I see this more like a trickle than a blast, and if you are going to put these on your refugia land, ensure that they are only moving the excess you have to move.

Conclusion

Thanks for sticking with me to the end!  I have more to write but this post is already over 4k, so I will have to save the rest for another day.  I would love to hear your thoughts on these magical techniques.  These are techniques I’ve developed in co-creative practice with the spirits of nature. Nobody taught them to me, I just developed them and refined them over long periods of time based on my primary spiritual work.  I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has developed similar techniques–are your techniques similar to my own? Different?  Thank you and blessings!

Announcements:

I am happy to share that I will be offering four wildcrafted medicine intensive classes in Western and Central Pennsylvania this summer.  These classes are taught in ways that prioritize reverence, respect, and stewardship.  If you have been wanting to learn how to grow and deepen your earth and plant knowledge, please check them out and find them on the PA School of Herbalism’s calendar ! All of my classes through the PA Herb school are offered on a sliding scale, and trades are certainly available (because who likes capitalism? I don’t!)

I also want to remind folks that the registration is open for two events I’ll be attending this summer!  The first is the Hawthorn Botanical Gathering in State College, PA at the end of June! At Hawthorn, I will be doing a medicine-making demo with Wild Cherry bark and will be around all weekend to hang out and chat.

I will also be at the Plant Cunning conference in central New York State at the end of July.  This year, I am one of the invited speakers, and will share a workshop on animism and herbalism and also offer a land healing ritual.  I hope to see you there!