Mystical Gardens
By Cynthia Coe
As I prepare to write a multigenerational version of The Abundant Life Garden Project, I’ve been reading a couple of books on the relationship between nature and spirituality. Intuitively, I knew there was some relationship. Friends who have visited my farm tell me, “it’s a very spiritual place,” and I feel most at peace just watching the wind blow the trees on Black Oak Ridge, the red-tailed hawks soaring overhead.
Not surprisingly, I’ve learned that mystics of centuries past were also very much connected to nature and gardens. Hildegard of Bingen kept an herb garden and wrote of the importance of health and nature to spirituality. Meister Eckhart likewise wrote of the energy of nature as analogous to the divine spirit of the human soul. Mystics of other religions – including Judaism, Islam, and Native American spiritual leaders – placed great emphasis on herbs, gardens, and nature.
Those who blend spirituality with nature seem to come from two camps – those who extol the “wilderness experience” as a means of getting in close contact with God, and those who look to cultivated gardens as a means of getting in touch with God. Both make sense to me, and it seems that both have scriptural basis. Jesus had a true “wilderness experience” in the desert and often went off by himself to pray. Jesus’ parables are largely garden based. Recently, while reading an old Laura Ingalls Wilder book with my seven year old son, I was able to understand the role and
skill of the sower of seeds in a way that I never had understood it before. I needed to understand the “how to” of farming and gardening before I could truly “get” the parables involving the sowing of seeds.
Personally, I fall into the “wilderness” camp of nature based spirituality. I love walking in the woods, driving through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park when I have occasion to go to North Carolina, and I love contemplating the dark mystery of the woods across the meadow from my house. Others in my family delight in tending a small kitchen garden on our property, and a neighbor down the road just gave us a huge bag of cucumbers, squash, and hot peppers. Like many spiritual gifts, these vegetables just appeared on the branch of a dogwood tree for us to simply pick up – a nice “thank you” from the very skilled farmer down the road for our own gift of water privileges from the creek running through our farm – a wild gift of nature itself.
To be continued….
Recommended Resources:
John Lionberger, Renewal in the Wilderness
(Woodstock, VT: Skylight Paths, 2007).
Michael J. Caduto, Everyday Herbs in Spiritual Life
(Woodstock, VT: Skylight Paths, 2007).
For those of you planning an Abundant Life Garden Project program, this
book has some great craft ideas using plants, along with plans for herb gardens
and even an herb labyrinth.
Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy (New York,
HarperCollins, first published 1933).
This is an excellent way for children (and others) to learn about the
real life details and hard work necessary to grow food, from a child’s
perspective.
The Abundant Life Garden Project, http://www.er-d.org/children.
Cindy Coe 