text and images britt-arnhild
In the backyard, in the most remote corner of The Blue Garden, you find my sanctuary, my refugium. This area was a complete wilderness when we moved here 11 years ago, but together we have transformed it to a place for silence, for reflections, for prayers, for peace. Terje doing the digging and carrying of stones. I doing the planning and the planting.
To reach the refugium you can take different routes. I usually pass the greenhouse, then the potato field. I have a little rest at the lily of the valley-stone, and here I am.
An old bench, stones, some plants.
A place to find silence inside myself, the traffic outside th garden can be heard here, sometimes quite heavy, but I seldom realize it. This is my place for the special moments of silence.
I have the greenhouse now, which in many was has replaced the sanctuary.
Still, it is a place where I love to walk though during my morning walk in the garden, a place where I want to sit down during my garden walk at night.
My sanctuary, my refugium, my Sacred Land.
We all need holy spaces in our lives, sacred land. This spring Martin Palmer has helped me to understand more of this need. Through his book Sacred Land, and most of all through our meeting in Bath where Martin took me on a walk of Sacred Bath.
The backyard, whe wilderness which we have transformed into a sanctuary, has become Sacred Land for me.
