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Gardening As a Sacred Act

© Connie Krochmal

People garden for different reasons. Some just enjoy being outdoors. Others see it as a serene place that can help fulfill our spiritual needs.

During medieval times monastery gardens served many functions. They provided vegetables, fruits, and herbs-both culinary and medicinal. They were also places of contemplation. Japanese temple gardens play a similar role.

You can learn more about this from "Japanese Gardens" by Gunter Nitschke, published by Taschen. This extraordinary book provides a detailed, engrossing history of Japanese gardens with separate chapters for each historical era. The author focuses on the culture's attitude towards nature and garden design. There are plans for many of the gardens. It is beautifully illustrated with color photos as well as historical black and whites.

"Gardens of Gravel and Sand" by Leonard Koren from Stone Bridge Press focuses on one single aspect of Japanese gardens. The gorgeously rendered black and white photos were taken in Kyoto, Japan in 1999. Some show Buddhist monks raking the sand and gravel. According to the author, these materials were used at Shinto shrines "as a ritualistically purifying ground cover." This one-of-a-kind volume is essential for anyone wishing to truly understand Japanese gardens.

Also from Stone Bridge Press comes "The Art of Setting Stones & Other Writings From the Japanese Garden" by Marc Peter Keane. The author, a landscape architect, lives in Kyoto where he designs gardens for temples, homes, and businesses. These essays focus on particular aspects of Japanese gardens and how they relate to Japanese culture and Buddhism, including the esthetics and the attitude toward nature. The book reads like a memoir in which the author uses his personal experiences to reveal the meaning and beauty of Japanese gardens.

Most of the Shaker settlements no longer exist. But Shaker values are still respected very much today. They were good gardeners, and applied the rule of simplicity to that as well as to everything else in their lives. Barron's has released a delightful new title on Shaker gardening, called "The Shaker Book of the Garden" by Lorraine Harrison. It features a facsimile of the original Shaker's publication, "Gardener's Manual," originally published in 1843. Harrison inspires gardeners to look beyond the obvious in everyday life as they go about their garden chores. In this touching book, she gives environmentally conscious advice on gardening, cooking, and food preservation tips based on Shaker values and doctrine.

As Harrison points out, eating can become a sacred act under the right circumstances. In "If the Buddha Came To Dinner-How to Nourish Your Body to Awaken Your Spirit" by Hale Sofia Schatz from Hyperion the author provides simple ideas that could radically change how and what we eat. She offers easy to follow guidelines for a healthy, satisfying diet that can provide energy and nourish our spirits. The last third of this remarkable book features sample menus and recipes for the inner spirit.