Cicero – famed orator, lawyer and politician was certainly wise. So, it is interesting that his most well-known quote is that above. Like most wisdom, it is not shaken by the passing of millennia. Indeed, his words are especially pertinent now that we live in urban environments where green spaces and white pages are being replaced by concrete and screens.
This quote lives on because it encapsulates all that is important for our well-being. Books and gardens are the ultimate holistic therapy, nourishing as they do our minds, our bodies and our spirits; bringing us balance and harmony.
What have the Romans ever done for us?
The Romans were mad about libraries and no self-respecting household would have been without one. These libraries were usually modest affairs made up of little more than an alcove or cupboard containing books. The library would be divided into two sections: one for Latin and the other for Greek texts.
It would be impossible to estimate the value of Latin learning upon modern civilisation. It is said that Petrach’s discovery of Cicero’s letters alone initiated the Italian (and then our own) Renaissance. Roman learning and oratory underpin the very foundations of our legal system, language and literature.
The value of books
Only the elite in Rome would have had a library. Books were prohibitively expensive, since prior to Gutenberg’s printing press, they were written by hand.
We, in contrast, have unlimited access to books. We can borrow them from public libraries, buy inexpensive ones from charity shops and modestly priced ones from our local book shop. Books are everywhere and the choices, when we add in the internet, are limitless.
Why read?
This is a question that I often ask my students and depressingly discover that it is something for which they seldom have much of an answer. Schools rarely ‘sell’ the idea of books and this is a real shame. They are seen as means of improving spelling and perhaps sources of information or entertainment, but not much else.
Books, of course, do much more than improve our language skills. Their most important function is to give the brain a good mental workout. Our minds need to be exercised as much as our bodies and the benefits are huge. Reading has been shown to: improve communication skills; reduce brain deterioration in old age; reduce stress (by up to 68%); increase creativity; improve inter-personal skills and empathy; increase our vocabularies and induce better sleep. Ideally, we should read books in their paper format for the best results.
The benefits to the workings of the mind are well documented, but I would also like to include the benefits that they can offer to our souls. Whatever our spiritual inclinations, there are books that can help and teach us. Reading is a slow process and so we have time to contemplate what is written at our leisure. I often read a few pages or a chapter, put the book down and think. I regularly reread books that I find particularly helpful to glean every last ounce of wisdom from them. (I’m on the third reading of Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth).
Good literature too can have insights we might find valuable to our lives. A great deal of wisdom can be found in poetry, plays and fiction. Through reading we are opening ourselves up to other ways of seeing the world. We may not adopt them, but we at least have a better understanding.
Of course, one of the best places to read is the garden and when the weather is inclement, I retire to my ‘story shed’. Reading outside enables us to combine life’s two essentials.
Gardens are especially wonderful because they provide an opportunity to improve our physical, mental and spiritual health.
The green workout
Those of you who garden are well aware that it is strenuous. Gardening is one of the best ways to exercise, burning a whopping 330 calories an hour. Yet, unlike many forms of exercise, it doesn’t really feel like work. Minutes and hours pass by in a sort of trance and as we stand to stretch out backs, we are often shocked by the amount of time that has passed.
My current situation means that I can only garden for very limited stretches of time (if I do not wish to end up face down in the dirt) but by careful management, I can do several short bursts. It may not make me fit, as such, but it keeps me mobile and I’ll take that.
Even if we don’t do much physical work, we can still benefit. We gain vitamin D from sunlight and B vitamins from the soil. A good play in the dirt is a great way to release all those micro-organisms that aid our gut and therefore our digestion. If we grow our own vegetables and herbs, we will eat more healthily too.
Garden therapy
Garden or horticultural therapy is nothing new, though it sadly fell out of favour for a while when modern medicines became the main ‘cure’ for mental disorders.
Fortunately, the benefits of the garden on the mind are being ‘rediscovered’ with brilliant work being done for all sorts of groups – from Alzheimers’ patients, to soldiers suffering from PTSD to young people with extreme anxiety and depression.
All of us will suffer from anxiety or low mood at some point in our lives. We all have to deal with grief, disappointment and anxiety. And the best therapy is, literally, on our doorstep.
If you are interested in how this works in detail, I cannot recommend highly enough Sue Stuart-Smith’s book The Well Gardened Mind. But for those who want a quick overview, numerous studies have proven that gardens bring numerous benefits, including: reducing stress and anxiety; promoting relaxation; cultivating a spirit of acceptance (since we can tend our garden but not control it); empathy through the nurturing of plants and lastly in bringing us hope. The winter may be severe – but we know that spring will follow.
The beauty of flowers
We should never underestimate the role of beauty in our lives – not the airbrushed variety in magazines, but the real beauty of nature.
I work at my garden all the time and with love. What I need most are flowers, always.
Claude Monet
And of all the plants in the garden, flowers are the showstoppers. Modern brain imaging techniques can illustrate how beauty literally fires up the pleasure centres in our brains causing us to release dopamine and serotonin – happy hormones – at the same time as our own opiods. ‘Hence, beauty calms and revitalises us at the same time.’ (Sue Stuart-Smith)
Flowers also play a role in our spiritual life. They are often used in religious teaching (Buddha’s flower sermon/ Jesus’ ‘Consider the lilies’) because they are such perfect emblems of a divine order. And there are few religious festivals which do not have flowers at their very heart.
Contemplation of the perfect symmetry of a flower, is an excellent mindfulness technique and one I have used often when feeling a little fraught. Some flowers bring the additional benefit of fragrance and some, like the rose and lavender have well-known calming qualities.
So next time you see a flower – stop and smell it. I guarantee it will improve your day.
I appreciate that not everyone will have access to a large garden, but the benefits I have written about hold true even if you only have a window box or a few flowers on the window sill or blooms in a vase. Books, as I have already said, are freely available. And if you have both? You have everything you need.