Welcome to my blog on creating an ‘enchanted garden’ using a conscious gardening approach.

Here I hope to share with you the process of co – creating a garden with the nature spirits and the fae, opening your awareness up to the multi dimensional aspect of nature and bringing in the spiritual perspective to gardening. It’s going to be an exciting journey and the methods are taken from my book,’ The Enchanted Garden – Conscious Gardening with the Fae and Nature’s Elementals’, which will be published this autumn 2021 by Clairview Books.‘

My faery guardian wanted the word ‘enchanted’ used in the title as she believes it will stir long forgotten memories within humanity’s collective consciousness, to a time when we were enchanted with the world. We were literally in reverence and awe with the world and thus treated it with more respect and cherished and looked after it.’

I have recently moved in early January of this year (2021)and inherited a garden that is a fairly blank canvas. It contains mostly lawn with narrow flower beds around the edges, defined with railway sleepers. It all feels and looks very angular and uninspiring and definitely not a garden inviting wildlife to take up residence, let alone the fae – the two definitely being synonymous.

So my first step is to make a conscious connection to the spirit of the land – the Genius Loci . To introduce myself and feel in to the current state of being that the Genius Loci holds. To ask what it needs from me and whether it is happy to co – create a wildlife and fae friendly enchanted garden.

So how does one connect to the spirit of their land? I will share with you how I do it, but I’m sure there are many ways to connect -using, dance, song or shamanic ritual. It needs to feel authentic and true for you as a  unique soul. So today I sat in the sunshine, dropped into my heart space and rested here in a state of pure awareness, waiting for the chitter chatter of my mind to fall away. Then I took my awareness to my crown chakra and opened it up to Source/ The Creator and allowed pure source light to flow through my chakras, breathing it  into my heart and expanding it out into my physical body and then into my subtle energy bodies (etheric, emotional, mental and spiritual). I then visualised this Source light to continue flowing down my chakra column into the earth star chakra beneath my feet and from here I took my awareness to mother earth and her soul – Gaia. I took time to breath here with Her, heart to heart, sending Her love and gratitude. I then asked  Gaia if there were any messages for me, any guidance for my day and whether there was anything I could do for Her. Then with my breath, I flowed Her beautiful energy back up to my earth star and back up my chakra column into my heart. There it blended with pure Source light and again I breathed this out into my physical and etheric body and my subtle energy bodies. Finally I returned my awareness to my earth star beneath my feet and invited the spirit of my land to connect with me. On the first occasion I invited my guardian gnome to help with this connection.  I will write more about gnomes in a later blog – they are awesome!

And this is how I experienced the Genius Loci of my garden. ( it will be different for each of us depending on how we perceive subtle reality i:e whether your predominant sense is visual, a feeling, knowing or hearing and how happy the spirit of your land is). At first I was aware of a pulsating golden light and a feeling of deep peace. I got a sense that one of the reasons the spirit of my land feels so peaceful is that it is part of a wider circle of land that encompasses many beautiful mature trees in a nearby golf course and park, radiating out their wisdom and love.

I asked the spirit of my land whether there was anything I could do for it and it showed me the patio.

I became aware that the flow of energy was blocked here, not only by the concrete slabs but also by the railway sleeper edging. I was inspired to show it an idea of replacing the rail way sleepovers with fruit tree ‘step overs’  and planting into where each patio slab joined the next, with small creeping plants such as thyme or one of my favourites, Erigeron Karvinskianus. Into the centre of each plant and into the soil, a quartz crystal could be placed, programmed to flow out  love and light. Of course one could just place the quartz but a plant would be softer on the eye and better for wildlife. This would be a little like acupuncture for the land!

I felt that the spirit of the land approved of this!

Over subsequent weeks, as I have built up a relationship with The Genius Loci, I learnt that it’s name is Mar. I feel an easier and deeper connection when I use its name and have built a temporary crystal mandala on my lawn to honour it. I hope to replace this with something more permanent when the garden has been designed, maybe a standing stone with its name upon it or a symbol it might give me.

I shall continue to regularly connect with Mar to deepen the relationship I have to my land and to check out with it, ideas I gradually come up with, on the design of my Enchanted garden. There is a chapter about my connection with the Genius Loci of my last garden and the information it gave me, in my book.