"Gardening lets us participate in the process that is life, from the greening of the shoot to the dying-off of the flower. The planning and the imagining of the garden — from poring through seed catalogs to eyeing the plants in a nursery to designing the layout of beds and space — make us co-creators with nature and, in a true sense, realizers of potential. There is something 'heartening' about growing a plant from seed and seeing it flower, or eating a tomato grown on your own vine. For most of us, too, the time we spend in a garden constitutes our main life-line to the natural world."
So writes Peg Streep in this luxurious volume about ten different types of gardens honored in many of the world religions. She notes:
"Creating sacred space moves us beyond mere decorating in the outdoors. When we garden for the soul, we use the experiences in the garden to tend our inner landscapes and foster the growth of spirit. In the spiritual garden, with the miracle in mind, we consciously and deliberately restore the meaning and symbolic intent of what might otherwise be considered ordinary tasks: digging, planting, watering, tending and maintaining the outer landscape."
Streep is a connoisseur of everyday spirituality who has published several beautiful books of meditations and one on creating home altars. She brings the same practical focus and creativity to this exploration of the Tranquility Garden, the Healing Garden, the Zen Garden, the Gaia Garden, the Aromatherapy Garden, the Feng Shui Garden, the Celtic Garden, the Biblical Garden, the Saint's Garden, and the Labyrinth Garden. She offers suggestions for selecting plants and trees that will fill your garden with meaning; working with colors; using gates and pathways; plants as companions of spirit; and ways to acknowledge the cycles of time in your garden. This quotation by William Longgood conveys the breadth and depth of material in the book:
"More than anything else, a garden is a portal, a passage into another world, one of your own thoughts and your own making; it is whatever you want it to be and you are what you want to be."
