A Place of Refuge
I usually write about gardens which are composed of soil, plants, water, and architectural features, but we can only create paradise gardens within ourselves. The most beautiful gardens are only paradise gardens if we have internalized them and made them a part of ourselves. Working in a real garden may give us pleasure, but a paradise garden never needs tending, so it is always an inner vision - a dream.
When the outside world gets ugly, I withdraw into my own little paradise garden. A real garden can be a place of refuge, but if you don't have a garden, you can still have a paradise garden within yourself. When life wounds you, why focus on what hurts? Why not wallow in the things that you love? Read your favorite book or listen to a beautiful piece of music. You might look at a work of art that you fell in love with many years ago and try to see it the way that you first did. Watch a film that you loved as a child and try to see it with the uncritical eyes of a child. By reminding yourself of all that you have loved, you can use pain to make your inner world more beautiful. If we never felt pain, would we ever feel joy?
You may wonder what this article has to do with the subject of garden design, but our gardens tend to reflect our inner worlds. It could be said that gardeners use nature the way that an artist uses canvas and paints. We are using soil, plants, and water in attempts to create an ideal world - a world which is different from the world around us. By rediscovering the joy that you find in all forms of pleasure, you will naturally find yourself responding to the simple joys that a garden has to offer and you will want to make your garden even more beautiful. Your garden may just be composed of a few potted plants, but if it provides comfort in turmoil, excitement in dullness, security in wildness, or companionship in loneliness, it is a paradise garden.
I wrote about the concept of gardens as paradise in Gardens of Paradise - Part One and Gardens of Paradise - Part Two. I hope that people will respond to Black Tuesday by creating paradise gardens, both around themselves and within themselves. I hope that people
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