Voices of the Earth: The Path of Green Spirituality

by Clea Danaan

Awaken your psychic powers, talk to nature, and hear her reply. Nature intuitive Clea Danaan gives lessons in building psychic awareness and communicating with plants, trees, and nature spirits. This rewarding connection with nature offers healing, renewal, knowledge of your life purpose, and a spiritual oasis in a chaotic world.

Each chapter features meditations, journal exercises, and hands-on projects to help you strengthen your ties to the earth and deepen your spiritual practice. From gardening to herb work to water conservation, this book explores many ways to apply and incorporate nature's wisdom into daily life. Danaan's personal anecdotes also illuminate how green spirituality can be translated into a fulfilling, holistic lifestyle that supports the earth and your spirit.

Praise for Clea Danaan's Sacred Land: "An informative book filled with fascinating and useful ideas."—PanGaia 2008 Independent Publisher Book Award for "Most Likely to Save the Planet" Bronze Medal Winner

Genres: Spirituality, Nature, Nonfiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2009

About the author

My ecospiritual books grew out of a winding path, from my childhood in the Pacific Northwest and integral studies at Fairhaven College, on to massage school and Reiki training, and then graduate studies in Wisdom Traditions, somatic psychology, education, and creative writing. My dream is that all people would find their soul work, which heals people and our fellow earthlings on many levels. Visit me at CleaDanaan.com .

Reviews

[Jessica Gadziala · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, let me start by saying that I really enjoyed this. I have read far too many books in the "New Age" genre that had the author coming off as arrogant and exclusionary... and insist that if you don't have tools A, B and C and do this ritual in this exact order... that you aren't going to connect with the Universe or bring about what you are looking for.

This is not the case with Clea Danaan. She comes off as extremely humble and grounded and interested not exactly on TEACHING the reader, but sharing with the reader.

This is a great book for anyone who wants to commune more with nature, learn how to center themselves, open up to their own intuition, learn about the elements of nature and learn a bit about herbal practices.

I would recommend this to any of my green spirituality friends.

And on a personal note... one of the chapters in this helped me quite a bit when I was struggling with panic attacks that seemed to come out of nowhere. And Clea with her personal experience with intuition and energy work helped me realize that the panic attacks were coming from the energy around me that I was being too open to. And that was a valuable lesson I got from this book which has made it something I read over and over again.

[SA · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lovely book, very emotive and with some strong guided meditations and guides for spiritual practice in like with Danaan's modality. The one dark spot for me was that the book was rife with unquestioned privilege, particularly the financial privilege of access to nature and the ableism of access to nature. This was originally published in 2009, which I realize is -- stars! -- ten years ago, but '09 is well within the margin of contemporary expectations of inclusivity.

Danaan does offer a small handful of alternatives to the kind of sprawling access to nature/gardens/forests for those with limited access, but given the reliance of the author's practice of "green spirituality" on her own extensive gardens and easy access to the wilds of Colorado and the Pacific Northwest those alternatives are thinly considered.

For impoverished and/or urban pagans, there can be real financial barriers to encountering nature, whether by fees to access parks or arboretums, transportation costs to wild places or nature preserves, or the costs associated with setting up even a small windowsill planter.

For pagans with mobility or health issues, entering un-accessible natural areas -- of which I would personally count the majority of natural spaces I've gone into, both with and without the assistance of my braces and canes -- may not be remotely feasible, even if the financial barriers aren't an issue. While some spaces may be more accessible, such as interior botanical gardens or ADA-compliant parks, there is definitely no universalism in the accessibility of natural areas. For pagans with allergies or allergy-induced asthma or other breathing problems, natural areas may simply be inherently intolerable.

Even on a short consideration, I can think of several ways to broaden access to "the green", if one broadens the concept of "the green" to any aspect of nature or representation of nature. For example, Siolo Thompson's Hedgewitch Botanical Oracle offers gorgeous depictions of various plants that could provide focii for the practices described in Danaan's book. Furthermore, a short section on easy-to-care-for indoor or apartment porch plants, like ferns and succulents, or the purchasing of dried flowers/plants, could have tempered the author's unexamined privilege and provide an inexpensive, accessible alternative to the out-in-the-wilds basis of the book's practices.

If I'm pushing back at this failing of the book, it's largely because I found value and resonance with Danaan's practice and path, and being both financially limited and disabled, would like the concepts to be more accessible to a wider variety of pagans without requiring significant thoughtwork on the part of the reader to adapt the practices to their situation. "Voices of the Earth" is well worth reading nonetheless, and I immediately purchased a copy halfway through reading my library copy in acknowledgment of this.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was not connecting with her action items. Not judging, I think Ms. Danaan must be way more in tune with her natural surroundings than I am. The meditations were new to me in that they set a guided scene.

[ᛗichelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Voices of the Earth' is a great guide for those curious about green spirituality.
This book is non denominational, easy and pleasurable read.

[AnandaTashie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read half of this book fully, then mainly the exercises / activities of the last half. It was written in a kind, approachable tone, encouraging people along their path to green spirituality with simple exercises and prompts to explore and connect more deeply. A lot is geared toward beginners, but can still be useful nudges for those who aren't so new to it all.

Some reminders:

p27, "Where do you carry emotions?" "Do any memories arise as you tune in to different parts of your body?"

p 36, Conscious, subconscious, unconscious. "Whatever you prefer to do last - feel it, hear it, see it - and whichever style feels the most vulnerable but the deepest may indicate your preferred psychic style, or your unconscious learning channel." "Psychic information goes the opposite direction of conscious awareness."

p 46, "It was like a hug that brings tears to your eyes, a return to the place where you are most yourself."

p 53, Astrocartography. She mentions that the location that the line of Neptune fell in her chart, she tends to be more dreamy and psychic.

p 61, "What does home mean to you?"

[Eli]

I read the first 40 pages of this book and am returning it to the library today, so I don't feel justified in giving it an actual rating. But I read the first 40 pages and am returning it to the library, which tells you something about my feelings about it.

I wanted to love this book. But in just 40 pages, we have Danaan spending pages telling us how psychic she is, discredited psuedoscience presented as evidence of how psychic abilities work, and the insistence that 1) every member of the plant, animal, and stone realms wants to communicate with you, 2) any member of the plant, animal, or stone realm you choose to communicate with has a message just for you, and, 2a) that message is, "You're doing great! Keep up the good work!" Danaan seems far more interested in teaching her readers to be psychic so they can be super-special than in any sort of meaningful spiritual relationship with Nature. I just couldn't read 176 more pages of that.

[Spider Goddess · Rating 3 out of 5]

I rather enjoyed reading this book. The author has a sweet, simple way of writing that goes very well with the messages she is imparting. The information itself is very elementary, but I feel that is what she intended, for this book to be an introduction. If you are new to the idea of an earth-based spirituality, and want to learn how to connect more fully with the planet, in all of her splendor, this is a good book for you.

[Korinn Hawkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had some really good parts and some parts that didn't hold my interest. I felt it was well worth the read for the good parts.