Magical Gardens: Cultivating Soil & Spirit

by Patricia Monaghan

Overview

Nurture your love of the earth with a garden rooted in your spirituality. In this updated 15th anniversary edition of the beloved classic, Patricia Monaghan offers fresh advice and guidance for creating a magical garden that will nourish your soul. Bursting with ideas and inspiration, this guidebook shows you how to plan, grow, and tend an enchanting garden that is sown with your unique spirituality.

Along with gardening advice for every climate and season, Magical Gardens weaves together myth and ritual to help you bring added power and meaning to your garden space. Discover the best plants for your site—being mindful of sun exposure, soil type, and climate zone—and learn about composting, controlling pests and weeds, gardening organically, and caring for plants at all growth stages. Perform meditations based on the year's gardening cycle, and celebrate each season and every milestone in your life with rituals, prayers, and ceremonies.

This book features more than a dozen themed designs for sacred perennial gardens that you can re-create in your own backyard or out on your patio. Easy-to-follow designs will show you how to create a garden in honor of:

• Angels
• Aphrodite
• Cats
• Dragons
• Fairies
• Kwan-Yin
• The Sun
• And more

Praise:
"From preparing the soil to preparing the mind, Patricia Monaghan has written an informative, magical, and visionary book."—Connections

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780738732299
Publisher:	Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.
Publication date:	05/08/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	13 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

One of the leaders of the contemporary earth spirituality movement, Patricia Monaghan (1946 - 2012) had spent more than 20 years researching and writing about alternative visions of the earth. Raised in Alaska, where much of her family still lives, she considered herself blessed to have learned the ecology of the taiga, the subarctic forest, in her youth. She was a writer and reporter on science and energy-related issues before turning her attention to the impact of mythic structures on our everyday lives.

The worldwide vision of the earth as feminine—as a goddess, called Gaia by the Greeks—led her to recognize the connection between ecological damage and the oppression of the feminine in Western society. Much of her work since that time had explored the question of the role of feminine power in our world, in an inclusive and multicultural way.

An avid traveler, Patricia had researched earth spirituality and goddess worship on three continents, and traveled widely in Europe, especially in Ireland. She held dual US/Irish citizenship and edited two anthologies of contemporary Irish-American writing.

Patricia was member of the resident faculty at DePaul University's School for New Learning in Chicago, where she taught science and literature She passed from this world in November 2012 and is survived by her husband, Dr Michael McDermott.

Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword by John Dromgoole

Preface to this Edition

 

The Book of Gardens

 

Introduction: Before There Were Gardens

 

Chapter One: Myth, Mulch, and Marigolds

Myth: Stories That Nourish and Bloom

Mulch: Actions That Nurture the Earth

Marigolds: Knowledge That Heals and Sustains

Dark Woods and Primrose Paths

 

Chapter Two: Meditations, Dreams, and Rituals

Simple Rituals of Mindfulness  

Winter: Dreaming the Garden

Spring: Consecrating the Garden  

Summer: Working the Garden

Fall: Clearing the Garden

 

Chapter Three: Care of the Soil

Sabulana, a Gardening Heroine  

Time, Space, and Dirt  

A Soil-ful Meditation

Prayer into Action  

A Simple Prayer to the Earth

 

Chapter Four: A Course in Marigolds

Garden Parties and Public Rituals

Ritual and Ceremony in the Garden

The Garden’s Year

Celebrating the Gardening Self

 

Chapter Five: Gardens from Myth and Legend

An Angel Garden  

Aphrodite’s Bower  

A Grove for Artemis and an Artemisia Glade  

Bast’s Cat Garden  

The Royal Circle, a Camelot Garden  

A Grass Garden for Ceres  

Two Dragon Gardens

A Fairy Garden

Kuan-Yin’s Garden Of Mercy

Two Sun Gardens

A Sorcerer’s Secret Garden  

The Unicorn Meadow

A Witch’s Garden

 

Chapter Six: In Gaia’s Name

 

Appendix 1: Plant Suppliers

Appendix 2: Garden Ornament Suppliers

Appendix 3: Bibliography and Sources

Appendix 4: Garden Inspirations

 

Index

Editorial Reviews

"From preparing the soil to preparing the mind, Patricia Monaghan has written an informative, magical, and visionary book."—Connections

From the Publisher