Dellrose Garden Club
“Kind hearts are the gardens, Kind thoughts are the roots, Kind words are the flowers, Kind deeds are the fruits, Take care of your garden And keep out the weeds, Fill it with sunshine, Kind words, and Kind deeds.” -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Imagination is everything. It is a preview of life’s coming attractions.’ -Albert Einstein
“It captures the idea that the creative imagination neither ‘just’ sees nor ‘just’ creates, but brings the new into existence through the combination of both… all human reality is an act of co-creation. It’s not that we make the world up; we respond more or less adequately to something greater than we are. The world emerges from this dipole. We half perceive, half create.” -Ian McGilchrist, The Matter with Things
“That which dominates our imagination and our thoughts will determine our life and character.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Imagination is not a talent of some men but is the health of every man.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Growing the Imagination
Welcome to the Dellrose Garden Club! I am so excited you are here. This is one of my absolute favorite places. It contains everything I have experienced over the last 51 years of my life. This beautiful garden is full of mystery and magic, and the makings of this wonderful and strange thing we call ‘Imagination’.
Dellrose Garden Club is a sacred place for fellow travelers who seek to grow their own imaginations. It is a place where we can take off our shoes and explore the depth, wonder, and beauty of our invisible and visible lives.
Whether we know it or not, everything is dependent on the ‘health’ of our imaginations including who we are, how we feel, what we think, why we do the things we do, what we pursue, and where we spend our energy, time, money and life.
If we are imagination deficient, the left-hemisphere of the brain and its flattened version of reality will dominate our thinking and behavior, and (eventually) “people will feel a deep dissatisfaction and an acute longing for a more real life, a life that allows their souls to come to expression and to awaken; a life where they could discover a different resonance, one which echoes their heartfelt dreams and longing.” (excerpt by John O’Donohue, Divine Beauty)
According to Dr. Ian McGilchrist, “Imagination is not an impediment but, on the contrary, a necessity for true knowledge of the world , for sure understanding, and for that neglected goal of human life, wisdom.”
I have yet to encounter a great thinker, writer, artist, wise person, or joyful child who does not possess a vibrant imagination.
The Dellrose Garden Club is a place for us to dig in and engage our own imaginations so we, like Wendell Berry, can have “the power of imagination to see things whole, to see things clearly, to see things with sanctity, to see things with love.”
Gardening Classes
❋ Engage your real Experiences (Memory)
❋ Dig into your story (History)
❋ Play in the spring of Creativity
❋ Encounter Beauty
❋ Gather Wisdom
❋ Explore the old and familiar with new curiosity
Dellrose, TN
“I make a distinction… between fantasy and imagination. Fantasy is something that is like dressing up reality in a way that’s cute… But imagination is quite different. It’s looking at something that you think you already know until its strangeness appears to you and you enter into it with your whole imaginative faculty… seeing it for the first time, and that is the power of the imagination… Where fantasy leads us into falsehood, imagination is the only path into truth, and it’s something we’re doing all the time.” -Ian McGilchrist