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© WindStar Wildlife Institute
Creating a
Sanctuary Garden
Therapeutic gardening is not a new concept,
but it is becoming more widely accepted,
and there is a new understanding
that where you garden can be as important
as what you do there.
Sanctuary garden, retreat,
soul garden, refuge: whatever
you choose to call them, these
private areas provide a chance
to meditate, relax, and
decompress, away from the
sights and sounds of the
everyday world.
Not only are they becoming
more popular; some today would
even call them necessary.
Human beings have
traditionally maintained a close
relationship with the soil. The
creation myths of most
societies and religions
encompass a belief that
humankind came originally from
the earth.
According to the ancient
Greeks, Prometheus shaped
man from mud. In Hebrew,
“Adam" means “born of the
earth." Many native Americans
portrayed man as coming from
deep inside Mother Earth.
Gardening, whether for
physical or spiritual
sustenance, is a pastime as old
as history itself. Many religious
traditions used a garden
setting to represent both the
beginning and end of life.
According to Chuck and
Barbara Crandall, authors of
Creating Privacy in the Garden,
“Our passion for private garden
retreats is as old as civilization
itself, stretching back across
the millennia to the earliest
vestiges of Pharaonic Egypt."
Depending on your source, the
English word “paradise" comes
from the Persian word for
“beautiful fenced-in garden" or
from the Greek word
paradeisos, meaning “enclosed
park."
Murals from ancient Egypt
depict walled gardens, and
medieval religious groups are
known to have grown their food
