The Beauty Of Wind Chimes

BeGood | Mar 22, 2010 |

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First cousin to the garden wind spinner are the perennial garden favorite wind chimes. Who doesn't love that small (and sometimes quite large) cluster of glass, ceramic, wood or even metal petals which are strung together in such a way that when the wind passes over them, they brush together to produce lingering sequence of harmonic notes. Wind chimes bring music into the garden, a loveliness that rivals bird song.

Wind-powered garden music and wind spinners have been around for about as long as human beings have been cultivating gardens. We seem to be hard-wired for their presence in our lives. However, their real emergence came through the Buddhist cultures of Asia many centuries ago. In India, China, Japan and other Asian countries, Buddhist nuns and monks built graceful ornamental wind chimes that they then strung up throughout their shrines and temples as well as in the surrounding gardens. Whenever the wind blew, a soft and ethereal music filled the air, moving the spirits of the men and women meditating there.

These chimes enabled a deeper meditation practice, but were also believed to be channels to the Gods and Goddesses and other spirits that overlooked the human world.

Now that can sound a bit otherworldly to contemporary gardens – after all, we've a good deal more sophisticated over the years. That's all well and good but the truth is, the healing qualities of sound have long been established as scientific fact. As the sound vibrations resonate through our bodies – which are vibrations in and of themselves – a degree of healing occurs. This isn't anything fancy or mysterious.

The truth is, the right music can ease sorrow, inspire action, deepen our thinking processes and even relieve depression. Why not attune our ears to the heavenly echoes of wind chimes?

It's important to remember that any selection of wind ornaments can promote calm and peace. No matter how sophisticated we've come – no matter how far away we might be from those Buddhists of yore – we can call use some relief from the pressures of our lives.

We tend to consider wind chimes and wind ornaments as being primarily decorative. We start our search for them in visual terms. What colors will match my flower beds? Will a wind sock work near the birch tree?

There's nothing wrong with that line of thinking. Of course our gardens are stunningly beautiful and easy on the eye. But don't neglect your ears! Adding the perfect set of wind chimes can bring a background music to your garden that will fit right in with its visual beauty. Really, once paired up with a wind spinner or other wind garden ornament, it's hard to remember what we did without them!