FENG SHUI GARDENS
Gardens present a great opportunity to be in the moment and experience life through our senses. We can feel the breeze on our face, the earth beneath our feet and touch various plants with our hands. We can listen to the birds, insects and wind in the trees. Nature provides us with an amazing array of colours shapes and shadows to look at. Our garden can provide and incredible variety of smells. If we grow edible plants we can taste nature. All this help bring us out of our heads and back into experiencing life as it happens.
The garden experience can reduce stress, get us out of negative patterns of thinking, bring our senses to life, improve health and generally revive our spirits.
A feng shui garden is one that is created to help us engage with nature, using all our senses. To make it easy to engage, surprise, juxtaposition, contrast, movement, variety, mystery and aging are all combined to create a powerful sensorial experience.
For example a winding path that takes the traveller through a variety of experiences would make for an interesting feng shui feature. This curving path might pass trees, a water feature, interesting statue, large stone or driftwood, a variety of flowers, herbs, an open area of grass or gravel, a vegetable patch and wild area.
The path itself might twist and turn whilst changing its form. Some parts could be paved, gravel, wood, mulch, grass or made from various stones. The path might have a bridge, steps, gradient or change width to make the experience more interesting.
One of the wonderful features of a garden is that it is a work of art that keeps changing through the seasons and evolving from one year to the next. Your garden has the potential to be full of surprises, unexpected revelations, interesting observations and beauty.
Ultimate the path can be a metaphor for our journey through life and a path that holds our interest and encourages us to engage in life can represent a life that helps us live our life to the full and enjoy our own evolution, development and growth. For more read about wabi sabi.
Copyright Simon Brown London 2010
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