Plans for a Medicine Wheel Garden

This month our speaker was Herbalist Ginny Shannon. She gave a very interesting talk about Medicine Wheel Gardens – how to plan and make one and the significance of such a garden.

Medicine Wheels or Sacred Hoops, as the native Americans call them, have been constructed since time immemorial. Ancient monuments were constructed by laying stones in a circle and adding stone spokes. The hoop is symbolic of “the never-ending cycle of life”. It has no beginning and no end. Tribal healers and holy men have regarded the hoop as sacred and have always used it in their ceremonies.

Today, native Americans still use Sacred Hoops as do gardeners and spiritualists. Making a Medicine Wheel garden is a beautiful way to create a place of solace, meditation and healing in your own back yard. Ginny brought photos of her journey in making one. She also employed principles of Feng Shui in hers. Using specific colors for each quadrant and orienting it by the compass points adds to the garden’s symbolism. Also, adding meaningful ornaments and objects make it even more personal to the creator. I would love to find a space in my yard for one.

Reported by Max

Recommended books to help you create your own garden:

• Hale, Gill   “The Feng Shui Garden”,  Pownal, VT  – Storey Books, 1998
• Kavasch, E. Barrie   “The Medicine Wheel Garden”,  Bantam Books, 2002
• Too, Lillian “Feng Shui for Gardens”,  Boston, MA – Element Books, Inc. 1999
• Wydra, Nancilee  “Feng Shui in the Garden”,  Conttemporary Books, 1997

Ginny’s Garden Shots:

Getting the Circle Started

Watering Baby Plants

Medicine Wheel All Grown Up

Many thinks to Ginny Shannon for supplying these photographs for us to publish.