| WINDSOR — As people become ever more isolated in their environments and every technological advance seems designed to help them work faster and harder, one man is on a mission to help humanity slow down to contemplate and appreciate its existence.Terry McDonnell has spent the past 10 years creating the Path of Life Garden, located between Harpoon Brewery and Simon Pearce Pottery on Route 5, just north of downtown Windsor.Located on 14 acres, the garden offers 18 distinct areas, each symbolizing a stage of life.
“I’ve been working on it for 10 years, and probably have another 20 years to go before it’s complete,” McDonnell said.
McDonnell was inspired to create the garden 10 years ago after visiting the Life of Man Japanese Garden in Kildare, Ireland.
Like the garden McDonnell would later create in Windsor, that garden offered “rooms” — sculpted outdoor areas — that reflect the Japanese philosophy of the stages of life, from birth to death and eventual rebirth.
“I knew I wanted to do something with the land, but I didn’t know what,” McDonnell said, but upon his return to the United States his mission was clear.
“This is a Vermont version of a Japanese garden,” McDonnell said, sweeping his hand toward an enormous field dotted with wood and stone sculptures on the bank of the Connecticut River.
The first room, signifying birth, is a stone emerging from a shallow depression. A path links each room, and after birth, the path leads to a maze made from 800 hemlock trees, which symbolizes adventure.
McDonnell said he planted the trees eight years ago, and today they stand more than six feet tall.
The garden is a hobby for McDonnell, who works as a child therapist part time at Kimball Union Academy in Norwich as well as maintaining his own private practice.
“Being a child therapist, this sort of thing fits my interests,” McDonnell said, gesturing to the maze.
McDonnell’s tour through the garden is rare. Like life itself, each visitor to the garden embarks on a self-guided tour.
“Some people spend half an hour and some people spend five hours,” McDonnell said.
The path of life leads through rooms symbolizing learning, wisdom and hope before leading to creativity, which is symbolized by four 20-foot driftwood sculptures of people making music.
McDonnell drove the wood cross-country from where he gathered it at the mouth of the Russian River in northern California.
From creativity, the path leads to union. Two stones on opposite sides of a circle represent two people and a large stone in the center represents the barriers between them, but within that center stone is a window allowing communication, McDonnell said. Atop each large stone are cairns — small piles of stones.
“It reflects the fragility of our unions, and people come and move them all the time, which is pretty cool,” McDonnell said.
From union, the path leads to family, communication and solitude, which is symbolized by a single stone, surrounded by lilacs beneath a rough-hewn gazebo. McDonnell said he once saw a family walking the path and each member took a turn experiencing solitude.
“And I’m sure that when they came out they each talked about the nature of solitude,” McDonnell said.
From solitude, the path leads to ambition, symbolized by a large hill one must climb next to McDonnell’s beehives. “Bees are the most ambitious animals I know,” he said.
The path then leads to sorrow — symbolized by the skeleton of a Native American teepee — and then on to forgiveness, which is formed by a ring of 50-foot lengths of bamboo stretching toward the sky. Upon entering the ring, the visitor’s eyes are drawn upward.
“People automatically look up, and I think that’s where forgiveness comes from,” McDonnell said.
The path leaves forgiveness and enters joy, which is symbolized by blueberry and raspberry bushes giving fruit for visitors to pick and eat.
After joy, visitors enter respite, a cool shady place in woods near a stream with a hammock and picnic tables. At this point, even moving quickly a visitor has been out in the sun for an hour and the shade is a welcome respite.
“This is a different world in here,” McDonnell said. “People say that this is their favorite room.”
From respite, the path leads to contemplation, manifested in a large statue of the Buddha, from which one can survey the entire garden. The path then leads to death — a ring of maple tree stumps — and then to rebirth, which looks like a cemetery with trees.
“I once saw a picture of a cemetery in Sweden with trees growing out of it and it made me think of rebirth,” McDonnell said.
Jane Walker Richmond of Montpelier walked the path recently and admired the combination of themes.
“Having studied different cultures, it’s nice to come to a place in such a serene setting,” Richmond said, noting the mix of Japanese, Thai and Native American imagery. “The honoring of life and Earth was most important.”
The garden is open from dawn until dusk year-round. Admission is $5 for adults, $2 for children 4 to 12 and free for children younger than 3. Entrance is through the barn housing Still River Kayak Rentals, which rents boats allowing paddlers to navigate the Connecticut River. If the shop is closed, visitors can leave their admission fee in the drop box at the start of the path. For more information, visit www.pathoflifegarden.com.
Contact Josh O’Gorman at josh.ogorman@rutlandherald.com. |
