The Healing Garden: A Place Of Peace

Gardening For The Soil Gardening For The Soul

Finding Solace In A Changing World

ISBN 0-9733085-0-8

By Gwen Nyhus Stewart

Chapter 13 A Place of Sanctuary – Creating Sacred Space

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In this chapter:

Ø Creating Sacred Space in Your Home

Ø Ideas and Options for Creating Sacred Space in Your Home

Ø Creating Sacred Space in Your Workplace

Ø Ideas and Options for Creating Sacred Space in Your Workplace

Ø Creating Sacred Space in Your Garden

Ø Ideas and Options for Creating Sacred Space in Your Garden

Ø Remember

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” - Buddha

Sanctuary. Sacred. When you think of these words, what picture comes into your mind? Is it a place remembered from childhood where you were able to hide from the world? Is it in a corner, sitting quietly, reading a book? Is it a walk along the beach or sitting on a rock and watching the quietness of the water? Is it watching a sunrise/sunset or lying on your back and seeing pictures in the clouds?

In the increasingly harried speed of modern day living, we seem to be hurtling out of control, more stressed out than ever, and feeling incredibly out of sync as we lose touch with what really matters to us. Instead we seem to spend all our time doing those things that do not give us the satisfaction of providing balance in our lives. We say to ourselves ‘someday I will have the time to _______________ (fill in the blanks)’ or ‘when I retire I am going to ______________ (fill in the blanks)’ or, ‘once the kids are gone I will be able to _____________ (fill in the blanks).’ We put off until some day the responsibility for making our lives feel meaningful and wonder why it all feels so futile. Some of us end up feeling resentful and wondering if it ‘will ever be my turn.’

The dictionary defines sanctuary as a place of refuge and protection. Exploration of sanctuary is to create a link to the Divine as our soul asks us to love, accept, and provide hospitality to ourselves when we are spiritually hungry. Spirituality is more than a psychological and emotional need: it is an inherent biological need as our energy, our spirit, and our personal power is all one and the same force. We need daily sanctuary as our heart and soul depends on it. When we give ourselves the gift of sacred time in a special place, we are feeding our spirit. Theodore Roszak writes, “We can now recognise that the fate of the soul is the fate of the social order; that if the spirit within us withers, so too will all the world we build about us.”

This is the beginning of the thirteenth chapter of the book The Healing Garden: A Place Of Peace by Gwen Nyhus Stewart. There's lots more information online, but if you've read

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