Springtime has been slow to arrive in Toronto. The cherry blossoms were late in their annual bloom and trees seemed almost reluctant to bud, but gentler temperatures and more sunny days have been a welcome respite from the gray months of winter. Despite its considerable growth in recent years, it is a city with many trees, parks, and walking trails and flowers. Our apartment complex looks out over a canopy of trees and in the distance, a cityscape of tall buildings, and we’re fortunate to live within walking distance to more than one park and walking trails that criss-cross the city. There is something revitalizing and crucial to the human spirit about springtime and its new life. It’s little surprise then that the most recent posting from author Maria Popova, of Brain Pickings, on the healing power of gardens captured my interest. She wrote:
There is something deeply humanizing in listening to the rustle of a newly leaved tree, in watching a bumblebee romance a blossom, in kneeling onto the carpet of soil to make a hole for a sapling…. —Maria Popova, Brain Pickings, June 2, 2019
Just over a week ago, my husband and I joined the throngs who were buying plants, soil and pots as soon as it was warm enough to plant. I spent an entire day filling pots with soil and planting flowers and even a tomato plant, to line our balcony for the summer. My back may have ached afterward, but I sat and stared at the plants long afterward, with quiet pleasure. A few blocks away, my daughter and her friend were preparing the soil for the small, but prolific, vegetable garden that will soon provide vegetables to all the residents of their small apartment building. “The garden is my happy place,” she has often said.
A garden, a walk in the forest or along a city walking trail–these are restorative experiences for the soul and psyche. I recall how, several years ago, one woman arrived late for a writing workshop I was leading at a San Diego cancer center. Breathless and smiling, she was wearing a wide brimmed straw hat as she entered the room. She apologized, saying, “I had to go out in the garden today,” before telling us how it had helped her suspend her worry about an upcoming treatment. Oliver Sacks, in his essay, “Why We Need Gardens,” wrote, “I take my patients to gardens whenever possible… I have seen …the restorative and healing power of nature and gardens…in many cases…more powerful than any medication (From: Everything in Its Place, (2019) quoted in Brain Pickings, June 2, 2019).
The simple act of reconnecting with the earth can be healing. Shinrin-yoku, a Japanese term meaning “taking in the forest atmosphere” or “forest bathing” encourages people to spend time walking in nature to experience its rejuvenating and restorative benefits. Shinrin-yoku has become an important part of preventive health care and healing in Japanese medicine.
Again, I think of Ann, a former member of one of the writing groups, who outlived her terminal prognosis by several years before her death in from a rare leukemia, in part, perhaps, by choosing to spend her final years in a little cabin in the California redwoods. There, she took solace and inspiration from the beauty of nature and quiet surrounding her, much of which she expressed in her poetry.
Studies have shown that a walk through a garden or even seeing one from the window can lower blood pressure, reduce stress and ease pain. In one study, cardiac rehabilitation patients who visited gardens and worked with plants experienced an elevated mood and lower heart rate than those who attended a standard patient education class (USA Today, April 15, 2007).
Healing gardens are now a part of many medical centers, as hospitals and cancer centers have begun to create environments that heal not only the body, but also nurture the spirit. Such gardens are not new; they originated, believe it or not, in the hospices of medieval Europe.
“Nature heals the heart and soul, and those are things the doctors can’t help,” Topher Delaney, landscape architect, stated in a 2002 American Cancer Society article about healing gardens. Delaney, a breast cancer survivor, had a mastectomy in 1989. She was only 39, and after surgery, went into menopause and lost her sense of smell. The grim surroundings of her hospitalization inspired a change in her work.
“I had my pact with God,” she said. “Oh, God, if I get through this, then I’ll do healing gardens. You keep me alive, I’ll keep doing gardens.” She wanted to give others the kind of retreat she wished she’d had during treatment. “That’s what this [healing] garden is all about — healing the parts of yourself that the doctors can’t. The garden really gives hope because people see flowers bloom and others enjoying life,” she said. “It’s a garden full of change and metaphor” (July 24, 2002, American Cancer Society).
The poet Mary Oliver, a keen observer of the natural world, described how Nature and its beauty can open our hearts in essay, “Upstream.”
I walked, all one spring day, upstream, sometimes in the midst of the ripples, sometimes along the shore. My company were violets, Dutchman’s breeches, spring beauties, trilliums, bloodroot, ferns rising so curled one could feel the upward push of the delicate hairs on their bodies. … The beech leaves were just slipping their copper coats. Pale green and quivering they arrived into the year. My heart opened, and opened again. The water pushed against my effort, then its glassy permission to step ahead touched my ankles. (From “Upstream,” in Blue Iris, 2004).
My heart opened, and opened again…Why not experience the healing or renewing effect of a garden this week? Go outside to your own or take a walk through a garden. Find a bench and sit without talking among the flowers and trees, taking in as much of the detail as you can. Pay attention to what you see, hear and feel. Perhaps you may discover a poem or essay of your own waiting there.
Writing Suggestions:
- How has Nature been healing for you? Describe it.
- Try walking along a trail, sitting in a park, beside a stream or lake, or in your back yard and simply being quiet for 15 minutes or more. What do you feel after you have allowed yourself the quiet time in nature? What thoughts or feelings came up for you? Write about them.
- Nature can also be the inspiration for writing. Take your notebook with you. Walk along a path, sit quietly, and notice what captures your attention. Make a few brief notes about what you see. Once you return home, try writing another 20 minutes, exploring where your observations may lead you.
