HOLISTIC HEALTH Discovering EARTH spirituality

By L. CROW
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
If holistic healing means healing the whole -- body, mind and spirit -- then we also must include our connection with the planet and its other inhabitants as part of our healing. Like a jigsaw puzzle, where each piece plays an important part in creating the whole picture, the earth spirituality movement perceives all life on the planet as having a unique and important role.
When all elements work together in harmony and balance, we experience the complete picture, and through that we are healed.
Even though Sister Barbara O'Donnell, HM, grew up in downtown Cleveland near the steel mills, her mother taught her and her siblings to be sensitive to all creation. She recalls one day as a child, her mother cupping a tulip in her hand and saying, "Isn't this beautiful? God made this for us."
Sister Barbara now directs EverGreen Ministries at Villa Maria, Pa., the community of the Sisters of the Humility of Mary.
They offer a wide variety of programs and activities to help others on their path toward healing and connection.
People may come to view the vegetable and herb gardens, find peace and serenity in the beautiful landscape, walk the nature trails, pray at the grottos and shrines, or attend many other events.
Gaining understanding
Sister Barbara says her understanding of earth spirituality came in bits and pieces. "I remember at one point plucking a blade of grass and thinking that I was just like it, one element in the vast whole universe."
But it still took her many years to realize that her calling revolved around helping others make a connection to the earth.
It wasn't until she met other sisters at a Cursillo, a short course in Christianity, that she decided to enter the community at Villa Maria. She joined the sisters in 1965 at age 21 and trained for more than two years.
She spent the next 20 years involved with education, but knew she was being called to do something else.
In 1990, she went on a four-month sabbatical in New York to participate in a program called Wellsprings, along with 30 other priests, brothers, and sisters. While there, she studied the works of three key people, Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme and Matthew Fox, who founded the University of Creation Spirituality.
Fox's group seeks to "renew theologies and practices within religion and culture that promote personal wholeness, planetary survival, and universal interdependence."
Key moment
But it was a mandala Sister Barbara experienced during Wellsprings that moved her to change her life focus from education to earth spirituality.
Mandala means "sacred circle" in Sanskrit, the ancient language of India. Mandalas are found in every culture throughout the ages. They can be geometric patterns, symbols, pictures, or figures. Sister Barbara recalls this "creation mandala": "The mandala came alive. Animals and people came together, and I knew I could no longer stay where I was. The circle was moving outward."
Her next step in this new direction was at an Episcopal retreat house, where she was asked to find a teacher in nature.
"I always loved trees," she says, "but as I walked, my feet began to get wet, since it had rained for 13 days. My inner spirit said 'Don't be afraid to get your feet wet. Find a friend, or let a friend find you.'"
She then began to sink into the mud in a pool of water, but felt an overwhelming, powerful, intimate feeling of love from God. She says, "God was calling me, and the message was, 'Come Barbara, deeper into me, into my people, my earth."
She returned to Villa Maria and began the process of working with others to revitalize the farm there and create EverGreen Ministries.
Sister Barbara speaks of EverGreen and the direction the ministry and farm are heading. "Our heritage has always been to work with the land, a connection of humus and humility. Our healing comes from what the earth can teach us. The earth is self-healing. We participate in our own healing, physical, spiritual and emotional, by cooperating with the ecosystems."
Labyrinth
Another path toward healing when you visit Villa Maria is the labyrinth carved into the field near the main building.
Labyrinths have been around for more than 4,000 years and are "magical geometric forms that define sacred space." They are a type of mandala, and are found in every major religious tradition in the world, from American Indian to Greek, and Celtic to Mayan.
In the Christian tradition, they are a threefold path toward healing: releasing, receiving, integrating.
This labyrinth is designed like the one on the floor of Chartres Cathedral in France, dating from 1221. There are guided labyrinth walks throughout the year.
XLaughing Crow is a practitioner of holistic healing. She may be reached at laughingcrow@neo.rr.com.