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The Garden Sanctuary: Creating Outdoor Space to Soothe the Soul
Provides advice for creating a beautiful and tranquil garden setting that utilizes aromatherapy, sound, and color to achieve harmony with nature.
128 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2000
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July 21, 2014
Home and garden books have always been my weakness, and I particularly enjoy reading and leafing through The Garden Sanctuary because it has a different approach to gardens and gardening than I’m used to in this genre. Viewing the garden as a sanctuary, a sacred place where minds and hearts should come to rest, author Keith Mitchell tries to show his readers how to create such a spiritual place in their own backyards.
Divided into seven chapters, the garden sanctuary is established through notes on how to move with the seasons (the famous Wheel of the Year), how to make your garden appeal to all five senses, a chapter on plants with healing properties, photosets of a number of inspiring gardens, a look into a number of ‘ancient traditions’, and archetypical symbols.
First of all, the photos are indeed beautiful and inspiring, and show in how many different ways gardens can be a spiritual sanctuary. It’s not just spiritual talk either – there’s some solid garden designs ideas scattered throughout the text, and lots of accurate information on plants and how to properly care for them. Next to that, there’s suggestions for how to meditate in your own garden, and how to experience it as a real sanctuary.
Probably the only real downside to the book, at least to me, is that Mitchell borrows from a lot of different places and traditions concerning his spiritual information. That doesn’t always have to be a problem, but it becomes one when cultural appropriation slips in, sources are never cited, and everything that seems cool in a spiritual sense is just meshed together. Native Americans are all grouped together for the creation of a medicine wheel in the garden sanctuary, chakras are mentioned alongside feng shui, associations with compass/wind directions that feel vaguely Wiccan-like (correct me if I’m wrong) are put next to colour theory… and the list goes on.
All that said, the pictures were still lovely and it’s still an inspiring garden book. It definitely made me happy to see such a book take a different approach and perspective for once. I just couldn’t help but be a little annoyed by the whole let's-put-everything-we-like-that's-spiritual-together which seems so rampant in spiritual/New Age books since… well, ever, I suppose!
Recommended to garden lovers looking for a more spiritual outlook on the garden in general.
Divided into seven chapters, the garden sanctuary is established through notes on how to move with the seasons (the famous Wheel of the Year), how to make your garden appeal to all five senses, a chapter on plants with healing properties, photosets of a number of inspiring gardens, a look into a number of ‘ancient traditions’, and archetypical symbols.
First of all, the photos are indeed beautiful and inspiring, and show in how many different ways gardens can be a spiritual sanctuary. It’s not just spiritual talk either – there’s some solid garden designs ideas scattered throughout the text, and lots of accurate information on plants and how to properly care for them. Next to that, there’s suggestions for how to meditate in your own garden, and how to experience it as a real sanctuary.
Probably the only real downside to the book, at least to me, is that Mitchell borrows from a lot of different places and traditions concerning his spiritual information. That doesn’t always have to be a problem, but it becomes one when cultural appropriation slips in, sources are never cited, and everything that seems cool in a spiritual sense is just meshed together. Native Americans are all grouped together for the creation of a medicine wheel in the garden sanctuary, chakras are mentioned alongside feng shui, associations with compass/wind directions that feel vaguely Wiccan-like (correct me if I’m wrong) are put next to colour theory… and the list goes on.
All that said, the pictures were still lovely and it’s still an inspiring garden book. It definitely made me happy to see such a book take a different approach and perspective for once. I just couldn’t help but be a little annoyed by the whole let's-put-everything-we-like-that's-spiritual-together which seems so rampant in spiritual/New Age books since… well, ever, I suppose!
Recommended to garden lovers looking for a more spiritual outlook on the garden in general.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review