The World is in My Garden: A Journey of Consciousness - Softcover

Maser, Chris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1883991668 ISBN 13: 9781883991661

Publisher: White Cloud Press, 2005

Synopsis

The World is in My Garden is based on a simple premise: the idea that the private garden is a metaphor for everything that goes on in the macrocosm, including ecological, social, personal, and spiritual issues. Chris and Zane Maser work the metaphor of the garden in a rich way. Chris is an environmental scientist and activist who has worked around the world to protect and preserve the world’s ecosystems. The Masers show us how to connect what seems like a simple personal act (the home garden) to larger issues. Written with passion, warmth, and a deep understanding of the worlds of matter and consciousness, The World is in My Garden is a book that teaches us how to live in a more balanced way with all of life.

About this title

About the Author:

Chris Maser has spent over 25 years as a research scientist in natural history and ecology. Trained as a zoologist, he has worked with many museums, the US Navy, the BLM, and the EPA. A lecturer and consultant, he has written many books, including Forest Primeval: The Natural History of An Ancient Forest.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

So it is that while working in my garden, I can, for a while, be untouched by the various wars (both those of ideology and those of physical weapons) that are raging in the outer world, or by the disease and hunger that ravage this country or that, or by the corporate greed that is destroying whole ecosystems and cultures, both at home and abroad. It is not that I don t care about what goes on in the outer world, but rather that my garden is at once the field of battle in which I struggle within myself to grow, an isle of solitude in a sea of worldly strife, and an entrance into a realm of reality beyond the material, much like the rabbit s burrow leading to Alice s Wonderland. It is here, in my garden, that I personalize my perception of the world in a scale with which I can cope and to some degree affect. Here, as the French painter Ingres says of art, one arrives at an honorable result only through one s tears. Thus, in some small way, I can affect the world at the scale of my garden by consciously learning to understand and work with those physical, biological, and spiritual principles that govern the intrinsic wholeness of Nature and myself as a quintessential part thereof. As such, it is spiritual succor that I find in my garden when the burdens of the outer world grow too heavy for my shoulders. It is here that I kneel before the Eternal Mystery and find peace in turning the soil and in weeding. And it is while weeding that my inner vision shifts, and I often see my garden not as an infinitesimal place in the world, but rather the world as an infinitesimal part of my garden. I say this because if my garden were encircled by a high stone wall in which there were four gates, one for each cardinal direction, I would name each gate by the element it brings to the inner unity of the circle wherein lies my garden. One gate would be named Ecological Consciousness in honor of the awe inspired by Nature, another Social Consciousness to commemorate the human struggle for just governance, the third Personal Consciousness to highlight the courage it takes to change and grow, and the fourth gate would be named Spiritual Consciousness to connote the unity of all things found within the garden, which is a reflection of the same unity found without.

About this edition

• Publisher: White Cloud Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1883991668
• ISBN 13: 9781883991661
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 232