'The Well- Gardened Mind'- The Restorative Power of Nature Wednesday, March 23, 2022

I interview Dr. Sue Stuart-Smith, author of “The Well- Gardened Mind”- The Restorative Power of Nature. She is both a psychiatrist and a gardener. The utility and value of this book can hardly be overemphasized, given the pressurized and frankly pathogenic or illness inducing-lifestyles that many of us lead today, often while being quite detached from Nature or Source. The Well Gardened Mind, is a work that both educates and delights. It is a cornucopia of facts, stories, anecdotes, and possibility. Like gardening itself, it opens up the mind and the heart. Moved by a familial connection to gardening involving her grandfather’s recovery and rehabilitation after captivity as a prisoner-of war, and her own personal experience of the physical and mental benefits of gardening, Dr. Stuart-Smith illustrates the significantly positive effect gardening may have on mental recovery and equilibrium with regard to stress management, mood, and anxiety disorders. Frequent close contact with Nature allows one to reconnect with others as well as with life itself, gardening having been useful in the rehabilitation and treatment of addictions and chronic pain, as well as in mental hospital and prison programs. Gardening teaches us that we are never entirely in control. It slows us down in order to adapt to Nature’s pace, tending to steer us towards contemplating time in a cyclical manner rather than in our usual linear way. Gardening is ultimately a transcendental experience and arguably also a spiritual one, as it connects us to something greater than ourselves and offers us a higher meaning that goes way beyond anyone's individual life. By learning to prefer ‘generativity over stagnation,’ we may become more collaborative than competitive. Nature, after all, need not explain herself. She simply exists and prevails. This is an absolute ‘must read’ in my opinion.