Land Healer: How Farming Can Save Britain’s Countryside

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Fiennes, 52, is boyish-looking with short spiky white hair. As you may have guessed, he is the younger brother of actor Ralph, the twin of fellow actor Joseph, and a distant cousin of explorer Ranulph. But this Fiennes chose a very different path: tearaway teenage clubber turned gamekeeper and now a truly rare beast: a conservationist who commands the respect of farmers and ecologists alike. Following the farming year and the natural cycle of the seasons, Land Healer chronicles a life of conservation lived at the edges, and is a manifesto for rethinking our relationship with the natural world before it's too late. This book is written by the Head of Conservation on the beautiful Holkham Estate in North Norfolk. That estate is probably best known now for two things and historically for one other. Today most visitors either head for the Neo-Palladian style Hall and its extensive parklands (with lake and deer park) or even more so for the Holkham beach with its quite stunning vistas of miles of Golden sand. Historically it is known as the home of Coke of Norfolk – agricultural reformer (partly controversially as a supporter and beneficiary of enclosure) and innovator (in areas such as the growing of grass crops and the selective breeding of sheep).

I feel the impetus for talking about these things now more than ever because of what is happening in the broader world. I’m continuing to reflect on what the 21st century brings for all of us practicing nature-based spirituality. Many of you can probably easily witness the impetus for doing land healing work in your immediate areas: a forest or tree friend being cut, spraying, pollution in the skies or waterways, the loss of species that you used to see, and so on. In this post, I’ll start with a plea, if you will, for why I think that nearly everyone practicing any kind of earth-based, druid, or nature spirituality should consider taking up land healing practices as a core spiritual practice. After that, throughout this year, I’ll be sharing posts filling in some of the gaps from my previous writing and offering deeper practices. Next week’s post will offer my revised and expanded framework for land healing practices, which include everything from physical land regeneration techniques to energetic work, witnessing work, apology, land guardianship, shifting your own practices to reduce your footprint on the earth, and self-care. The Impetus for Land Healing Practices as Spiritual PracticeIt is 7am and we are driving around Holkham, North Norfolk, a 25,000-acre estate owned by the Earl of Leicester, that comprises a huge national nature reserve and thousands of acres of commercial farmland, as well as woodland, parkland, a beach and miles of salt marshes. This book is beautifully written, from the coke in London clubs to the Cokes in Holkham Hall, and from the bodies of dead Pheasants after a shoot to the observations of living wildlife in the fields and hedgerows, marshes and on the coast. With mud on his boots and hope in his heart, Fiennes tells a powerful and uplifting story of food, farming and living with nature.' Matthew Parris

Doors open at 6.00pm for a 6.15pm start as Jake discusses his debut book with FarmED Founder, Ian Wilkinson. The discussions surrounding how farming methods can have a positive impact on our countryside, will conclude with an audience Q&A and a book signing. Many years ago, the old Norfolk boys would dig foot-drains to take the water off the land," said Mr Fiennes. From a thirty-year career in conservation, game-keeping and land management, his advice and expertise is being sought by an increasing number of key players in the conservationist and agricultural fields – including the Ministry of Agriculture, the NFU, the Prince of Wales, the National Trust, the RSPB and Natural England, among others.We’ve got all these targets – net zero [by 2050] and 30% of land to be protected for nature by 2030, and then we’ve got 70% of England’s land area in agriculture. So the low-hanging fruit is what happens here. Why not create veins of nature through the landscape, connect the landscape through hotspots like the Norfolk coast, and produce healthy, sustainable food that benefits nature?” Fiennes is an advocate of “land sharing” whereby productive farmland is managed so it can be home for wild species, as it once was – for instance, by allowing wider, wilder hedgerows. Now we need your help to weave the elements of the film together and tell this complex story in a compelling way. Our post-production process will take 6-8 months and involves: He asked Ralph to do his audiobook,’ Sophie tells me, laughing, ‘and Ralph said something like, “F—k off, do it yourself.”’ Inner and Outer Tools for the 21st Century. One of the core reasons to take up the path of land healing as a spiritual practice is simply that it is good work to do, offering you the opportunity to ‘do something’ and engage in positive change where, right now, the bulk of humanity is going off in a less productive direction. Land healing as a framework that I’m expressing here encompasses not only physical regeneration but also energetic work and self-care. Thus, it offers a number of tools that work together to help you bring balance and harmony to the land–and to your own inner spiritual life. And I think, given where this world is unfortunately heading, we are all going to need them to bring balance, harmony, and wisdom to our own practices and the world around us.