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Book Review
‘There is in fact a close parallel between gardening and alchemy.’ This is just one of many thoughtprovoking remarks that punctuate Christopher McIntosh’s remarkably understated book. Gardens of the Gods takes the whole business of gardening apart – not at the digging, planting and weeding stage, but right back at first principles. What is a garden for? Why do we need gardens? Why did we start our journey into ignorance and loss in a garden – and how can a garden bring us back to our selves and the creative forces about us? This book holds the keys and the clues to turn the lock and transform any garden – no matter how small – into a reflection of paradise. And what is Paradise? McIntosh tells us that the Greek paradeisos comes from the old Persian pairidaeza: a walled enclosure. The cosmos is the image or reflection of paradise. The book is itself a garden tour; McIntosh lights up the historical maze and philosophical path. We hear of the symbolic language of gardens, how hidden myths whisper to us through the gardens of China, Japan and India, from ancient times to modern cities. McIntosh’s description of feng shui (‘wind and water’) is luminous. We learn of Islamic gardens (foretastes of Paradise), pagan and Christian motifs in European gardens as well as Rosicrucian marvels and recreations of Eden. Many today’s inspiring gardens are described, often through personally conducted interviews. There is much for the Freemason in McIntosh’s wise and wonderful work. ‘The mythologies and religions of many different peoples and regions tell of a hidden "centre of the world", a place of timelessness and immortality where superior beings dwell, immune from the temporal flux of the world we live in.’ The image of the centre is as axiomatic to many gardens as it is to the master mason. The final chapters show us intriguing ways to connect or reconnect with Nature, as well as offering practical illustrations of how to turn our own plots into sacred or more meaningful spaces. While the world goes mad, Gardens of the Gods should do for gardening what Walton’s Compleat Angler did for fishing. This is essential reading for all gardeners – and, of course, all Freemasons and other lovers of symbolism. Tobias Churton
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