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Cheryl Wilfong teaches mindfulness meditation at Vermont Insight Meditation Center when she isn’t rearranging one of her 28 flower beds or tending her out-of-control vegetable garden. Master Gardener and mistress of metaphor, she delivers the Dharma into daily life in the garden.
Cheryl Wilfong is also the author of Following the Nez Perce Trail: a guide to the Nee-Me-Poo National Historic Trail with eyewitness accounts, 2nd edition, published by Oregon State University Press in 2006.
Reviewed by Marie-Hélène Fasquel for Readers' Favorite
Garden Wisdom 365 Days by Cheryl Wilfong is a non-fiction inspirational book which primarily explores mindfulness through parallels with nature and the act of gardening. It is construed as a journal and one topic is explored each day, following the author’s musings on her garden, the North Country climate and plants. The pictures are incredibly beautiful and also help readers get into this sublime mood of quietness and calm. The images allow us, as do the different texts, to reflect and pay attention to all the little things that we tend to forget in an ever evolving and ever increasing rhythm, which both exhaust us! The very personal notes and the way Cheryl directly addresses her readers is enchanting.
When I set out to choose a book to read, Garden Wisdom 365 Days by Cheryl Wilfong was a natural (no pun intended) choice: it was just what I needed the most at that precise time of my life and what many of us do need without realizing it: time for ourselves, to reflect on what our life has turned into, how we have treated our mind and body, and what we can do to show more compassion to our own self as well as to others (which is only possible once we are ready to embrace our own self). And it did prove to be an excellent choice! The inspiring daily reminders of mindfulness and the garden wisdom made me think about what is most important to us, if we want to keep giving and sharing, and it did so using metaphors and parallels between nature and/or human nature. What else? The different entries raise varied issues, ranging from dissatisfaction with our lives, compassion, desires (and misconstrued ones at that), meditation, kindness, appreciative joy, equanimity… to name but a few. This is the perfect book for an awakening in our highly technological lives! I thank the author for sharing and for giving us such a gem, such an ode to nature and to human nature!
