Tending the Earth Mending the Spirit: The Healing Gifts of Gardening
Gardening is one of the most popular hobbies in the U.S. today, and a large majority of gardeners claim they look to their gardens for spiritual and emotional sustenance. With these essays, Goldman and Mahler add to the growing literature on the spirituality of gardening. Because Goldman's current garden is an apartment balcony, she is especially in tune with the needs of urban gardeners to remain connected with the earth even if they don't own a great deal of it. Goldman is a highly regarded radio producer, and much of the material in the book derives from her interviews with gardeners around the country who, no matter how large or small their gardens, share a similar spiritual awareness. Gardens are healing, they reveal, whether what needs healing is the grief of a loved one's death or the overzealous striving of the contemporary professional. Engaging and full of pithy aphorisms, this is a book of both charm and wisdom.Patricia Monaghan