The Medicine Wheel Garden: Creating Sacred Space for Healing, Celebration, and Tranquillity

by E. Barrie Kavasch

The American Indian medicine wheel was an ancient way of creating sacred space and calling forth the healing energies of nature. Now, drawing on a lifetime of study with native healers, herbalist and ethnobotanist E. Barrie Kavasch offers a step-by-step guide to bringing this beautiful tradition into your own life--from vibrantly colorful outdoor circle designs to miniature dish, windowsill, or home altar adaptations. Inside you’ll find:

• Planting guides for medicine wheel gardens in every zone, from desert Southwest to northern woodlands

• A beautifully illustrated encyclopedia of 50 key healing herbs, including propagation needs, traditional and modern uses, and cautions

• Easy-to-follow herbal recipes, from teas and tonics to skin creams and soaps--plus delicious healing foods

• Ideas for herbal crafts and ceremonial objects, including smudge sticks, wind horses, prayer ties, and spirit shields

• Seasonal rituals, offerings, and meditations to bless and empower your garden and your friends, and much more

Practical, beautiful, and inspiring, The Medicine Wheel Garden leads us on a powerful journey to rediscovering the sacred in everyday life as we cultivate our gardens . . . and our souls.

Genres: Gardening, Spirituality, Nonfiction, Native American, Health, Indigenous, Nature

350 pages, Paperback

First published June 25, 2002

Reviews

[Fostergrants · Rating 3 out of 5]

part of me wants to cringe at the exploitation of Native American culture...the other part of me cannot stay away from gardening books. what i liked about this book was this man's experience with finding a deep, almost spiritual connection with his gardens, and being aware of the mood and energy one creates. a good garden should do that. he also stresses respect for local plantlife instead of tearing everything out for prepacked Home Depot plants. what i did not like was the use of what seemed liked New Age poof filling in the blanks of what we just can't know of Native American spirituality. his tone is never disrespectful but it is unfortunate that things must be stretched all out of proportion to be more compatible with our "western" ideas.

[Nancy Lines · Rating 5 out of 5]

This year's project, creating my Wheel Garden, with herbs and healing plants

[DNuttzz · Rating 0.25 out of 5]

Yikes.

This white author claims to also have Native blood, going so far as to claim direct descendent of Pocahontas, without even touching on the extreme white-washing and 'rebranding' of this historical figure into something palatable for white people, and to help prop up the false "we all got together happily and had a big shared feast" narrative.

Even if she didn't just pick the most famous Native female name out of a hat and claim relation, this book is written like a white woo woo boomer doing some heavy cultural appropriation.

I know it's super dated (2002), but this book simply would not be published today, and thank goodness for that.

I checked this out from my local library as it was listed under "related" to some other herbalism books. I am recommending to them this be replaced with something more appropriate.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is interesting if you're making a garden which i'm not at the moment at least. the herb info was a little general/list-like. i did learn alot more about the indigenous medicine wheel idea though so that was kind of cool.

[Amy Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I may have to buy this for my herbalism library.

[Kimberly Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Medicine Wheel Garden: Creating Sacred Space for Healing, Celebration, and Tranquillity