06-11-2023 Capital Style - Flipbook - Page 13
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Visitors are encouraged to write down their thoughts and feelings in this
journal, which is housed in a bench in the Healing Garden.
“The walls and the bushes
growing up them … it almost gives
you the feeling that the garden is
holding you,” said Gretchen Mulvihill, the hospital’s grants manager
and the garden’s “firesoul,” or
combination of garden caretaker
and advocate.
The Healing Garden has been
a much-loved and heavily used
fixture at the hospital since 2000.
It is among nearly 150 urban
pocket gardens that either have
been created nationwide or are in
the process of being built under
the auspices of Nature Sacred, a
private foundation formed in 1996
by an Annapolis couple, Tom and
Kitty Stoner.
According to a statement on the
foundation’s website, the Stoners
were visiting London about 30
years ago and were beginning
to feel stressed by the pace and
the noise. Walking in one busy
neighborhood, they stumbled upon
a hidden park used by Londoners
during World War II. Some had
inscribed their thoughts on several
benches scattered throughout the
park.
“What we saw, felt, read,” the
Stoners wrote. “It changed us.”
Tom Stoner had made his
fortune in the radio broadcasting
business. Shortly after the couple
returned home, they funneled
those proceeds into creating the
TKF Foundation, now called
Nature Sacred. The foundation
aims to foster mindfulness and
reflection by building oases of natural beauty in environments where
they are needed the most, from
hospitals to prisons to schools.
Slightly more than half of the
gardens in the network — 77 — are
in Maryland.
Typically, this is how the pro-
cess works, according to Angela
Walseng, who handles publicity for
the foundation: an institution sets
aside a space for a healing garden
and signs a contract with Nature
Sacred to design a green space that
incorporates input from the community the garden will serve.
Gardens in the Sacred Place
network share five common design
elements: an entrance portal setting the mood; a path guiding visitors on a journey; a surround that
makes them feel safe; a destination;
and a bench with a half-moon
backrest made from wooden pickle
barrels. Beneath the seat is a small
shelf holding a waterproof journal
on which visitors are encouraged
to write down their thoughts.
“Day 2 of my mom being in the
hospital,” a visitor wrote on Easter
Sunday. “She’s in kidney failure.
She is my only family and I love
her so much.”
The plants were donated to the
hospital by Homestead Gardens,
Mulvihill said, which also provides
gardeners to perform the needed
upkeep.
The garden is as important to
the hospital’s staff as it is to the patients, she said. Mulvihill has held
staff yoga classes and conducted
guided meditations in the gardens
among other activities.
“We know the impact that
nature can have on people’s lives,”
Walseng said.
It has been well documented
that spending just 20 minutes in
a city park can lower heart rates
and blood pressure and reduce
depression. It mitigates stress and
physician burnout. It’s a place to go
when you have reached your limit.
“We want to create a sacred
place in every community,”
Walseng said.
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Summer 2023 | CAPITAL STYLE |
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