Digging Deep
Unearthing Your Creative Roots Through Gardening
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Gardening and creativity expert Fran Sorin’s Digging Deep does for gardeners what Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones has done for millions of writers and artists: it shows how to approach your passion with an eye towards freeing your spirit and living a creative and joyful life. If you’re yearning to get out of the rut you’re in and cultivate more meaning and connection in your life, you’ll find the encouragement and tools to make it happen in Digging Deep.
Overflowing with tips, exercises, and resources, Fran Sorin’s empowering guide offers much-needed inspiration in today’s technology-obsessed and often nature-deprived culture. This new edition features a foreword by Larry Dossey and a new introduction, where Sorin encourages us to discover the magic that takes place every day—in the garden and in life—as we engage in a playful type of creating.
In her acclaimed classic, Sorin, who is the CBS radio news gardening correspondent and has also been regularly featured on NBC’s Weekend Today Show,, shows you how to apply her Seven Stages of Creative Awakening to unearth and connect with your own creative essence in every area of your life.
“Digging Deep teaches the art of living creatively—from envisioning and creating the garden of your dreams to cultivating and embodying more imagination, passion, and play in your daily life.” —Andrew Weil, M.D., #1 New York Times best-selling author of Spontaneous Happiness
“Captivating and enchanting!...A must-read for anyone who wishes to find themselves in the garden—and for everyone who didn’t know they could.”—Amy Stewart, New York Times best-selling author of The Drunken Botanist
“Full of inspiring stories, creative exercises, and practical gardening tips, Digging Deep will help you bloom along with your garden.” —Marci Shimoff, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Happy for No Reason
“Whether you’re a beginner or a lifetime gardener, you’ll find much to celebrate.” —USA Weekend Magazine
“A familiar face on television and voice on radio, the longtime broadcaster and popular motivational speaker approaches gardening like yoga. Digging Deep rejuvenates the mind and spirit as well as exercises muscles.”—The Sacramento Bee.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Garden designer Sorin invites readers to"unearth" their"creative roots" in a book long on platitudes and cheerful encouragement but unfortunately lacking in advice that would-be gardeners can put to real use. In the introduction ("what does it mean to be creative?"), Sorin sets the book's tone by explaining that her"mission is not to have everyone create world-class gardens, but...to show new and experienced gardeners alike how they can use their gardens...as tools for their creative awakening." Accordingly, she organizes her book into"seven stages of creative unfolding": Imagining, Envisioning, Planning, Planting, Tending, Enjoying and Completing. These are sensible divisions, certainly, but the exercises that Sorin provides offers within are not always inspiring (e.g.,"Ask yourself: What would I do in my garden if there were no limits on time or money?";"Spend some time writing about times in your life when you followed your instincts, both in and outside your garden"). Even in sections like"Tips for Container Gardening," which offer numerous opportunities to introduce hands-on advice, Sorin's recommendations ("add water-retaining gel crystals") are familiar. Sorin does provide some useful bits, listing, for example,"The Six Must-Have Gardening Tools" and giving suggestions for controlling pests without using toxic chemicals. But the bulk of her book takes gardening as a metaphor for emotional and spiritual growth--which means that readers heading for the self-help aisles might like this volume better than those wandering through the gardening section.
