Environment Meditation and Healing Garden

 

The Garden’s purposes, in brief, are to:

 

  • promote sustainable living in our community;
  • provide a space for people to meditate on the environment;
  • promote conservation of the natural environment in Canberra region;
  • enable Hospice visitors to experience calm and reconciliation nature;
  • promote mental/spiritual healing and multicultural reconciliation;
  • strengthen interfaith and multicultural links by  working  to gather;

 

Benefits to the community:

 

The project will:

  • contribute to cross-cultural understanding, harmonious dialogue, and friendships and appreciation among the faith groups and the cultural communities represented;

       

      • promote reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, and between spiritual traditions otherwise prone to misunderstandings or conflict;

       

      • deepen awareness of environmental conservation and sustainable living issues

 

  • promote understanding of the ACT Government’s sustainability vision, commitments and targets;

 

  • provide a fitting site for the expression of the Canberra community’s concerns for action for the environment.

 

 

The site:
The chosen site, about 50 x 30 metres, is in Grevillea Park just east of the ACT Hospice and the cycle track as it loops around the upper side of the Hospice area. or the

 

 

The main elements of the garden, adding to existing natural vegetation, are:

 

  • a horseshoe-shaped row of yellow-flowered Grevilleas along the western, northern and eastern sides of the site to reduce disturbance from winds and traffic noise;
  • inside the Grevilleas, two tiered rows of smaller shrubs would be placed at 1m intervals: Bursaria (white-flowered) and Correa (pink-flowered);
  • inside all these, a row of 12 trees or shrubs, representing the 12 participating faith groups.The smaller shrubs will be along the inner margin of the garden bed with the Grevilleas behind, to give an amphitheatre effect;
  • a flat brass plaque setting out the purpose of the Garden placed at ground level

 

The garden will be installed by a collective working party of volunteers from the
Canberra Interfaith Forum (CIF) and co-operating organizations/individuals in autumn 2011.

For more info and/or to help, please contact

 

Vernon Bailey baileykv@pcug.org.au

 


 

 

Vernon Bailey

 

Vernon Bailey is a retired doctor who spent most of his life in the developing countries of the world, working in the areas of nutrition and environmental sustainability. An active member of the Canberra Interfaith Forum, Vernon has spent the last few years working to see his vision of an Interfaith Environmental and Healing Garden established in the ACT.

Google map Interfaith Environmental Garden Project

 


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