Inner Gardening: Four Seasons of Cultivating the Soil and the Spirit [Hardcover]

Diane Dreher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 22, 2001

Cultivation of the soil meets cultivation of the soul in this refreshing approach to personal growth by the author of The Tao of Inner Peace. By combining practical gardening advice, personal narrative, and lessons in spiritual practice, Diane Dreher offers anyone who wants a more serene, balanced life a nurturing volume of the gentle, perceptive self-help that has endeared her books to thousands.

Inner Gardening was written for the gardener in all of us and unites inspiration with gardening advice and wisdom, insights from medieval and Renaissance poets and philosophers, as well as the author's own gardening experiences.

Divided into four seasons, the book takes readers on a journey of renewal throughout the year. New gardeners will find a monthly set of gardening tasks, including useful information about soil, mulching, composting, planning, pest control, and plant care. More experienced gardeners will gain new knowledge of garden history and learn how seasonal cycles and garden tasks echo centuries of tradition. Each chapter then segues into "Gardening as Spiritual Practice," offering personal exercises for self-cultivation: planting seeds of ideas and dreams, weeding out bad habits and unfulfilling tasks, designing new challenges one step at a time, and more.

Brimming with life-enhancing strategies for garden and gardener alike, Inner Gardening affirms what everyone who has ever planted a seed and watched it grow knows: what we cultivate around us, we also cultivate within.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this resolutely optimistic, self-help-meets-how-to manual, Dreher, author of The Tao of Inner Peace and professor of Renaissance literature at Santa Clara University, offers a month-by-month guide to gardening as a spiritual pursuit, in which hands-on garden advice provides the grist for a metaphor-driven, checklist approach to "inner" growth and cultivation. (Notes on weeding the flowerbed meander into prescriptive musings on "weeding" the "unwelcome intruders" and "unproductive activities" from one's life.) Dreher neglects the ways in which gardening can itself be trying requiring the gardener to stare down rot and death on a daily basis, placing physical strain on body, wallet and even land. More irritatingly, she takes a finger-wagging tone toward much of contemporary culture and offers wistful (and ahistorical) glances at the medieval and early modern world, which she idealizes as having allowed the "natural" and "simple" to flourish. Still, this book offers some delights: a cache of agreeable quotations, charming historical and literary anecdotes (Adam's naming of plants in Milton's Paradise Lost), useful instructions on such tasks as double-digging and tips on how to make a compost heap more productive (toss in a box of energetic earthworms). More successful on the firm terrain of practical counsel for the gardener and as a pastiche of garden trivia, this book falters when striving to offer guidance on self-transformation. (June)Forecast: Dreher's Tao of Inner Peace sold more than 150,000 copies in trade paperback; this one has the potential to reach those readers as well as those who are seeking to cultivate their gardens as well as their souls.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

"... to feel the magic of gardening, and discover a new path to your own garden within, read this beautiful book." -- --Gay Hendricks, Ph.D., author of Conscious Living and - with Kathlyn Hendricks - Conscious Loving

"It's a beautiful, clear book that shows how the simplest acts of pruning,cultivation, harvesting, and renewal can be used for ... -- --Jerry Lynch, Ph.D., sports psychologist and author of Thinking Body, Dancing Mind and Running Within

"It's a beautiful, clear book that shows how the simplest acts of pruning,cultivation, harvesting, and renewal can be used for ... -- --Jerry Lynch, Ph.D., sports psychologist and author of Thinking Body, Dancing Mind and Running Within

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; First Edition edition (May 22, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 068817812X
• ISBN-13: 978-0688178123
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,511,974 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Diane Dreher has a Ph.D. in Renaissance English literature from UCLA as well as credentials in spiritual counseling and holistic health. She is Professor of English, Work/life Balance Consultant, and Research Associate at the Spirituality and Health Institute at Santa Clara University. Diane's work has been featured in USA Today, The Dallas Morning News, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, Redbook, Glamour, Working Woman, Entrepreneur, and web sites on leadership, spirituality, and personal growth. Her books offer insights from Eastern and Western philosophy to help readers meet the challenges of contemporary life.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A profound multidisciplinary collection, November 5, 2001

By 

Joseph Sullivan (Marietta, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Inner Gardening: Four Seasons of Cultivating the Soil and the Spirit (Hardcover)

INNER GARDENING is a remarkable book in a number of ways. First of all, Diane Dreher's work addresses the whole reader in a way other books cannot because of their self-imposed limitations of scope. INNER GARDENING is a book full of interesting useful information on cultivating one's land. So, it is good for the VICTORY GARDEN crowd. It is also an insightful original piece of scholarship concerned with themes of nature in Western and Eastern cultures. So, it is right up the alley of someone who reads Rebecca Bushnell. Most important to me, the book communicates meaning through its own organizational structure. The collection begins and ends in the springtime. I was pleasantly surprised at how clearly Dreher writes on the topics of origins and fruitions. I cannot recommend this book strongly enough.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Beautiful Patch Work Quilt, September 15, 2001

By 

Rick Herrick (Banner Elk, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Inner Gardening: Four Seasons of Cultivating the Soil and the Spirit (Hardcover)

"Inner Gardening" is like a beautiful patch work quilt. Dr. Dreher weaves together her considerable learning about gardening, Eastern philosophy, Renaissance history and literature into an inspirational book that you will consult over and over again. Each chapter corresponds to a month of the year with detailed instructions on specific gardening tasks. The author then reflects on the inner meaning of these tasks and how the disciplined performance of them contributes to a richer life. I highly recommend it to you.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Review of Inner Gardening, August 6, 2001

By 

meyers66 (Ping Chen Taiwan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Inner Gardening: Four Seasons of Cultivating the Soil and the Spirit (Hardcover)

I'm new to gardening and I found this book interesting. There are many different reasons why I'm interested in gardening. I like the plants but more importantly I wanted to garden myself. I wanted to grow something inside. The author bridges these two types of gardening nicely. She infuses the chapters with a variety of different angles on gardening. In some sections she brings in the botanical view. There's also the historical folklore perspective. She encourages risk and self-exploration by communicating some of the her own experiences in Aikido as well as her thoughts when she's gardening. Then there's, for lack of a better term, the self-workbook questions. For example pg 98 - "Something is always growing in our gardens, whether we cultivate it or not." Similar to The Artists Way, the author asks the reader to explore their life. I don't think the psychological and spiritual benefits of gardening would be so valued in our culture if the activity weren't time tested. At the same time, readers need coaching to uncover or find their ways. The author guides the reader by asking them to reflect on their lives. These questions encouraged me to start gardening and exploring within my own life as well. I encourage others to pick up this book and begin growing new ideas within the soil of their own minds. I would recommend the book to many because it's multidimensional and it challenges me to grow.