"He who cultivates a
garden, and brings to perfection flowers and fruits cultivates
and advances at the same time his own nature."
-- Ezra Weston, Massachussetts
Horticultural Society, 1845
"For too long we have
split personal ecology from care of the green world around us.
Growing Myself is a beautifully written, honest story that demonstrates
how we can be educated by nature and eventually discover ourselves
in the growing and dying nature around us. We may find that at
root we
are a plant." -- THOMAS MOORE, author of Care of the Soul and The Re-Enchantment
of Everyday Life
"The interconnectedness of all life does not have to
be an abstract concept. We can live it. It doesn't matter whether
we garden indoors or outdoors; we can honor our world. It is
all a prayer."
-- Judith Handelsman
SOFTCOVERABOUT THE BOOK
Nominated for a 1997 BOOKS FOR A BETTER
LIFE AWARD
in the spiritual category along with Jimmy Carter's Living
Faith
and Thomas Moore's Reenchantment of Everyday Life.
Gardening has become the number one recreational hobby in America. The search for spiritual meaning in everyday life is a national trend. Judith Handelsman combines the two in her book,Growing Myself: A Spiritual Journey Through Gardening , an inspiring and touching self-improvement memoir, a look at the "how-to" of gardening through the inner life of the gardener.
Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul, calls it " a beautifully written and honest story that demonstrates how we can be educated by nature and eventually discover ourselves...For too long we have split personal ecology from care of the green world around us."
In this deeply personal book, the author recounts moving stories of her emotional and spiritual life using her experiences of communication and cooperation with plants as the vehicle. "Loving plants and having a connection with them is the very foundation of good gardening," she insists.
Growing Myself asks gardeners everywhere "to come out of the closet" about talking to their plants. "The time has come," she says, "for us to acknowledge that plants respond to our thoughts and feelings as surely as they do to watering and pruning."
The healing power of being in a garden is now being documented by medical studies. These studies show that patients in hospitals who look out on a garden take less medication and go home quicker than those who look out on a parking lot or on other buildings. Alzheimer's patients are no longer violent when placed in a garden.
The author contends that the sense of isolation, separation and loneliness we feel in our culture stems from our lack of connection to nature. Gardening is America's way of reconnecting to nature and the spiritual sustenance it provides. By taking care of plants, indoors and outdoors, we reconnect to that place of "home"within us.
