The Garden Awakening: Designs to nurture our land and ourselves

If we all sit up and take notice, “believe in fairies” and encourage the life energy to emerge in every piece of land we work with, we can infuse our homes, our families and ourselves with the healing, magical energy of the earth.

In order to manifest something, you need to imagine that your wish has already come to fruition, otherwise you are holding the vision for it in the future. The present is where and when the gift should arrive. Saying thank you for your desired outcome, rather than wishing for it, is the best way around this.

Gardening like this involves having an intimate relationship with nature. No college degree is necessary; in fact, for this type of garden it is probably a waste of time, as formal schooling may actually block your ability to hear the subtle voices of the land.

colourful band of warrior women were stoically standing

They were referred to as ‘sacred places’;

could sense the energy of love in those places, but it was conditional love. The land was loved, as long as it stayed contorted in the way the garden designer had decided it should look. It was not allowed to be itself.

Co-creating a garden with nature involves lots of listening. Careful observation and understanding about which plants the land is willing to support, and which ones it isn’t. This is key. The aim is to achieve harmony and balance. Working with rather than against your land is vital, your overall goal being to restore health to the land.

As above, so below. We are simply a mirror image of each other, the land and us. That connection is deep and mysterious, and only becomes apparent upon close observation and contemplation. We have objectified most of our land; used and abused it. Land is the embodiment of feminine energy, and our treatment of it reflects the way women have become o

But surely this is better than suffocating the land with concrete and herbaceous borders? That method tends to be fast and convenient, and may be more accepted by our culture and the gardening industry, but it doesn’t encourage an intimate relationship between you and the land – or any connection at all, for that matter.

Cleared land is like a mirror: it reflects the love and attention it receives from us. Children, in large part, develop their self-image through their interactions with their parents. In the same way, if land receives the message that it is valued only as long as it looks pretty, it will try to contort itself to wear those ill-fitting garments you