Gardening with the Goddess: Creating Gardens of Spirit and Magick by Patricia Telesco, 223 pages, published by New Page Books, $12.99
A Review by Daile Boulis (dragon_fey@hotmail.com)
Patricia Telesco has written several of the books on my bookshelf, so I looked forward to reading her new book, Gardening with the Goddess: Creating Gardens of Spirit and Magick. I'm not really the gardener in my family. As a child and now as an adult, I can often be found in the garden planning, working and harvesting, but I don't consider myself to be a gardener. It's just something that I've done to be close to the loved ones in my life who are gardeners. And now, walking a wiccan spiritual path, being in the garden has taken on additional spiritual significance.
Gardening with the Goddess is a wonderful resource for any level of gardener, but even more, I found it to be a delightful read on living the magickal life and incorporating nature in my personal worship experience. From the introduction:
" Gardening with the Goddess looks at the way we garden in a slightly different way: by bringing common metaphysical processes into our efforts, such as blessing the soil, energizing it with spellcraft, following the moon's cycles, using crystals to enhance plant growth, and returning to natural methods of working the land."
The book also includes a large section on designing themed gardens for the purpose of creating sacred space, growing magickally empowered fruits, herbs, flowers and vegetables. Each theme includes histo-cultural information on the Goddess invoked in the theme, correspondences for plants, patterns, stones, minerals, crystals, shells, color, decorative touches, directions, adaptations, and after-harvest applications. There is also information for creating God gardens, elemental gardens, wish gardens, and more. Along with this wealth of information, the book also includes many resource tables on information such as companion plants, natural bug repellents, and gardening with moon signs and moon cycles. This book is simply packed with information!
I have other pagan/wiccan themed gardening books on my shelf, but Gardening with the Goddess will be the book I return to again and again.
