Heart & Soil

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Des Kennedy. Heart & Soil

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As editor of GardenWise magazine for more than a decade, I enjoyed the distinct pleasure of receiving, with every issue, what can only be described as “garden literature” from the ever-eloquent Des Kennedy.

Just what is garden literature? For me, it’s the examination of gardening within the wider context of human experience. The recognition that choosing to live the life of a gardener is essentially a political act, a dedication to values and principles entirely at odds with consumer culture. That gardening is a day-by-day reverence of the life flow of earth, of the harmony so vitally required for the survival of this planet.

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Throughout this volume, Des’s richly textured background—including stretches as a monk and a scholar—shines through his musings on the “near-magical properties” and healing powers of a garden. Yet his voice as always remains comfortingly down-to-earth. For as contemplative and far-reaching as his thoughts may be, he is not afraid to poke fun at himself. “Earth laughs in flowers,” says Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Des—shortlisted three times for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour—laughs too. But whether it is at himself wielding a “delinquent pole pruner like a jousting knight his lance” or wheelbarrowing downhill in a slide of “terrifying beauty,” he remains keenly aware of the importance of all those who literally have the earth in their hands.

This is a book that joyfully celebrates the resilience of both the garden and the gardener, that helps us to find our way forward in the championing of the environment that sustains us—and that finds genuine hopefulness for both ourselves and our planet in “the abiding strength of resurgent earth.”

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