Gardening as a Sacred Art: Towards the Redemption of our Relationship with Nature by Jeremy Naydler

“It is certainly a tension that runs through the history of gardening. The tension is between the extent to which we feel that the garden belongs to nature, and the extent to which we feel it belongs to us and is an expression of our own creative genius (or lack of it). Just because a garden exists within a polarity, which has on the one side nature and on the other the human ego, historically the attitude of gardeners toward their gardens has inclined either toward laissez faire stewardship, or (when taken to its extreme) toward the exercise of total domination.” This beautifully illustrated book presents a history of our relationship with nature, beginning with the civilizations of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia―when gardens served as “the dwelling place of the gods.” Tracing this history through subsequent epochs, the author shows how human awareness of the divine presence in nature was gradually eclipsed. As nature came to be viewed primarily as a physical resource to be controlled and exploited by us, this was reflected in the ordered, rational designs imposed on such gardens as Versailles. Today, gardening has come to be seen less as an instrument of control and more as an art in its own right that enhances nature’s inherent beauty. Jeremy Naydler suggests that the future of gardening lies in its being regarded not as just an art but more as a sacred art that once again honors and works with the spiritual dimension intrinsic to nature. Read more