Our Herb Garden is a Sacred Medicine Wheel. It is a healing and ceremonial space, an outdoor Temple to the Sacred.
Medicine Wheels have been part of many ancient cultures. Our design is based on the Celtic Medicine Wheel and is a co-creation with the nature spirits at Derrynagittah. The healing plants in the garden give additional potency to this powerful spiritual structure. This Medicine Wheel represents the turning of the Wheel of the Year. Around the edge of the Wheel are eight separate gardens aligned to the cardinal and non-cardinal directions.
The four cardinal directions are also dedicated to an element – in the East is Air, Fire in the South, Water in the West and Earth in the North. In the Centre of the garden stands a piece of local bog oak within a stone and plant spiral. This embodies the Tree of Life and is the connection place between Heaven and Earth, Above and Below.Each of the eight gardens is an altar dedicated to the energies of a specific time of year. The North Garden holds the energy of the Winter Solstice, North East holds Brighid’s Day or Imbolc, East the Spring Equinox, South East Bealtaine, South the Summer Solstice, South West Lughnasadh, West the Autumn Equinox and North West Samhain or Halloween. Both practical and beautiful, the Medicine Wheel Garden helps us to reconnect with Nature and with ourselves, rediscovering the Sacred in everyday life.
“We enter the medicine wheel to find our places on the wheel of life and our relationship with all of life, to find hidden reservoirs of gentle strength within ourselves and find new ways of walking in harmony on the earth.” - Grandfather Thunder Cloud, Elder of the Cherokee Nation
