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Art of Sacred Gardening

One of the gardeners who has co-created the astonishingly lovely gardens at Hollyhock has crafted a similarly beautiful book. Claudia Raaen’s magnificent flower and nature photography is stunningly interwoven with wise and heartful poems, prayers, ideas, and garden practices. This luscious book will inspire your springly gardening soul! It’s called The Art of Sacred Gardening: Creating Beauty and Abundance in Harmony with Nature

“This book unfurls the petals of my heart, offering the fruits of my practice… This book offers you the gift of nine open gateways leading you into your Sacred Garden. It provides essential inspiration, support and nourishment for you to co-create a Sacred Garden of your own. Imagine a beautiful Sacred Garden sanctuary nourishing your body and soothing your soul. Your wellspring of joy and fulfillment will blossom and flourish here. Blessed be.”

Long on luscious closeup photographs trembling with sunlit dewdrops, expressing the exquisite beauties and intelligences of flowering nature, this gift of a book is at heart about blossoming yourself as much as it is about creating a garden. Highly inspirational, it will expand and deepen your “sense” of what gardening is all about, and what it offers us humans in terms of both nourishment and co-creativity with Life.

“Listen for your intuitive knowing. Be open to new ways of seeing and communication. If anything interesting crosses your path or shows up, pay attention. Nature has a sign language. Let it be revealed to you.”

With specific activities to explore—sensitizing, opening, and getting-your-hands-dirty—the book is organized in nine “Gates”: Seeding Your Intent, Your Inner Attitude Conditions the Soil, Ask and Receive Before You Sow the Seed, Declaring Sacred Space Within and With-out, Gathering Your Sacred Ingredients, Designing with Nature, Nurturing Your Garden with Beauty, The Balance of Nature, and Celebration, Ceremony & Rest.

“You can dream up a Sacred Garden that is just right for you. It could be a small container garden spilling out with colour and fragrance, a bountiful backyard garden, a kitchen herb garden, a wild medicine garden, a self-sustaining family domain or a beautiful bed of flowers.

If making a garden is not an option for you at this time, let the contents of this book provide nourishment for your heart to blossom and fertile ground for your imagination to take root.”
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