from Victoria McClure: Monastic Gardens, Mick Hales (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2000)
Happy New Year! I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday season with family and friends. I am writing this a week before Christmas because of an early deadline. Consequently, I am in the midst of many holiday preparations and would give a great deal for a little peace and quiet. This is why I picked the book I did for January. I imagine all of you would be crying out for some balm for our souls. Mick Hales provides this in his book Monastic Gardens (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2000).
The book is enchanting. It is a beautiful melding of glorious photographs with sensitive, enlightening text. Hales visited a number of monasteries and abbeys in the United States, England, Wales, and France, photographed their gardens (some for the first time), and visited with abbots, abbesses, monks and nuns.
What emerges is an intimate look at spirituality and its connection to the earth itself. While Hales’ observations and musings are lovely, my favorite parts are the quotations from the religious themselves.
The book is divided into eight chapters which cover the different types of gardens one might find in a monastic setting. These include “The Sacristan’s Cutting Garden,” “The Physic or Herb Garden,” “Orchards and Vineyards,” and “Burial in the Garden.” Each chapter has a wide variety of beautiful color photographs, many of them full page, and enlightening text. I think what I found most attractive about this book was the sense of calm that pervaded the entire work. This is a book to dip into, not devour. I found myself going back to it at moments when I just needed ten or fifteen minutes to catch my breath in the middle of grading final exams and getting ready for the holidays. It reminded me that there was a calmer world filled with the scent of flowers, dirt, herbs, and other growing things. And, behind the high, rather imposing walls of monasteries and abbeys, there were gardens, some simple, others complex, tended by people who might be separate from the day to day, but who are very much in touch with the world.
I hope all of you can find some moments of calm and reflection as we move into a new year. My very best wishes to all of you.
