“A garden is an artistic expression tapped into the fundament of the creative process: living things. Throughout the world, people re-create in their surroundings their ideas of perfection and natural beauty. The garden is filled with the mystery, the myth of creation. It is a place of peace, solace, healing, and inspiration.” – Martin Hakubai Mosko from Landscape as Spirit: Creating a Contemplative Garden
One of our customers, Judith, created this tranquil contemplation spot in New Hampshire. The design, which includes a place to sit, a water feature, and a few key focal points, may bring to mind a mandala.
Chapter One of Landscape as Spirit encourages us to view our garden as a mandala. Mandalas are spiritual symbols that use colors, shapes, and the elements to represent the entire universe. According to Landscape as Spirit, “The Native Americans and the Tibetans use sand to make a mandala. A gardener uses rock, water, plants, paths, and light. A garden mandala is magic itself, bringing blessings to and infusing all who enter it with its spirit. The well-made garden becomes a trigger for a contemplative state.”
H.H. the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhist monks construct a sand mandala and then return it to the water.
Each piece of the garden – rock, water, plants – can be used to add to the sacredness of the space. A rock can be a symbol of the unchanging, and of structure. Water expresses clarity and reflectivity. “To look through the surface of water to the layers below is to approximate the experience of looking deeply into the mind, past the surface chatter of ordinary consciousness.”– Martin Hakubai Mosko