A garden is a
wonderful way of having the abundance of nature in our everyday
world. A garden artist describes how gardens are sacred places for
her:
Gardens, as sacred
places, are often sanctified as much by the process of nurturing
and creating them as they are in the "products" they give us over
days, seasons, and years. Simply stepping into a garden may
instantly transport us into another realm.
Gardens invite us to
participate in rituals that tie us to all people of all time. They
allow us to symbolically include loved ones, both living and dead,
in our sanctuary through plants and gift treasures we weave into
our garden tapestry. Our garden may tie us more deeply to our own
personal ancestry if we follow family- honoured planting calendars,
or planting an heirloom peony from our mother's
garden.
Our garden can
afford us the rich opportunity to employ all of our senses,
including the intuitive. Our gardens draw us again and again to
pray or dance, play or meditate, to float on a fragrance and
nourish our bodies. It's possible to merge with our plants, our
setting, our task, or our ceremony to such a heightened degree that
we recognize ourselves fully as a divine aspect of
Nature.
Secret gardens dig
deep into the psyche. From childhood we carry images of
enchanted space, like Sleeping Beauty's castle, ringed by a wall of
thorns until the young prince breaks the spell. Discovering a
lost paradise is another powerful myth that has its roots in
religious symbolism. We are all searching for Eden.
Literature too offers models that make us long for secret spaces of
our own. In The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett's
classic tale of Edwardian England, the orphan Mary re-awakens a
lost, locked garden, hidden behind high walls. Equally
magical is the crumbling chateau discovered by the hero of
Alain-Furnier's Le Grand Meaulnes, inhabited by children and
invaded by bushes run wild. Stories like these continue to
resonate throughout adult life in dreams of a place apart- a secret
paradise that refreshes the spirits as well as the senses, a place
to which you alone hold the key.
http://www.arthistory.sbc.edu/sacredplaces/sacredgeo.html
