A Healing Garden

Time spent in a garden, sitting and meditating amongst the fauna and flora will ease a sense of peace into your mind. Doctors and scientists have linked the health benefits of time outside with a reduction in stress. But who needs a scientist to prove that immersion in a green space will feed your soul and ignite your senses. You can feel the calm creeping into your mind as you begin to switch off from life and its stresses.  So leave your phone indoors, take a breath of fresh air and let the world outside envelop you –even 5 minutes resting on a bench and listening to the natural world around you can restore your calm.

The physical work of gardening itself is a magical antidote to the stresses and strains that inhabit our life.  Whether getting over a traumatic experience, recovering from loss, or just needing to get outside; hands in the soil, pruning a shrub or cutting back unwanted branches – the perceived chores of gardening - will actually refresh your mind and soul as well as leaving you with the slow warm glow of physical exertion. Recently, during a very stressful time in my life, cutting back the over grown garden in our new home proved a very restorative and therapeutic activity. The physical effort and the intense focus of the work allowed my head to clear and my mind to flow again. Sue Stuart-Smith details the therapeutic powers of gardening in her book ‘The Well Gardened Mind’.  The ability of gardening to restore and calm, nourish and heal is explored, based on her clinical practices as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist and her own gardening experiences.

As garden designers we treasure the relationship we have with Martin and Celia who allow us to return to their garden several times a year to work and fine tune the planting. We weed and assess, review and plan but also allow the garden to fill our souls and replenish our minds. Its been a hard winter for us both this year and we are anticipating how the Sitting Spiritually garden will work its magic, a place to sit and think, and at the same time a place to garden and toil – both with their own therapeutic benefits. 

So whether you're visiting the Sitting Spiritually garden or taking time out to enjot your own, explore the planting and let the natural world seep into your soul.  And remember that those garden chores that you are saving for later will also do your mind just as much good.

With many thanks to Sarah Jarman & Anna Murphy

Jarmanmurphy Garden Design

sarah jarman +44 7872 972259
anna murphy +44 7812 086104 

info@jarmanmurphy.co.uk

If you would like to contribute a blog, please contact Siobhan at siobhan@sittingspiritually.co.uk

(Originally published 3rd of May 2019)