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The top of Ambition, portrayed by a grassy, earthen mound, offers a lonely, expansive view of the garden's acreage.
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The garden is full of hills and ridges, some of which appear too steep to be accessible to visitors with limited mobility. The visual metaphor: Turns in life are not detours from the path they are the path. Standing among the charred wooden heads, one has a wondrous view of the Adventure maze, its turns clearly illuminated. Sharon-based artist Ria Blaas made the Easter Island-esque heads for Community in 2008. The river bends behind it on its banks is a starburst-shaped sculpture by Windsor artist Herb Ferris, designed for people to lie back on and gaze at the sky or stars. In front of the musicians are a firepit and picnic tables that campers can use. it's easy to imagine the pieces at a Burning Man festival of yesteryear. McDonnell built it with artists from Marin County, Calif. Early along the path is the Creativity installation, made of towering driftwood sculptures in the shape of musicians.
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Playfulness is an important theme in the garden.
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McDonnell estimates that about 8,000 people visit the garden yearly, a fraction of the 150,000 who come to the industrial park, where Harpoon Brewery is the biggest draw. McDonnell began constructing the garden in the late 1990s, inspired by the Japanese Gardens of Tully, Ireland, which were built between 19 to symbolize "the Life of Man." Together with friends, family, and local artists and contractors, McDonnell added more rooms and structures to the garden over the years it opened to the public in 2004.Ĭreating, maintaining and sharing the Path of Life Garden, he said, has brought him a much greater sense of peace. The business offers fat-tire bike rentals and campsites on the garden grounds, as well. He also co-owns next-door Great River Outfitters, which leads day and overnight trips on the Connecticut River in kayaks, canoes, tubes and paddleboards. He designed the Adventure maze as a representation of adolescence and "sort of being lost." A former child therapist and "serial entrepreneur," he owns the land on which the sculpture garden and industrial park sit. "It's a trip," Path of Life Garden founder Terry McDonnell said with a laugh. A signpost offers visitors a choice: "Less" for an easy journey around the maze's perimeter, or "More" to enter the maze, which contains many dead ends and a bell to ring at its center. A few paces beyond that vulva-inspired stone sculpture is a hemlock maze, Adventure, that obscures the rest of the garden from view. Visitors enter through a metal underpass, called the Tunnel of Oblivion, which brings them to a simple post-and-beam gate, then to the first room, Birth. Like life itself, the garden path begins without a clear view of what is ahead. The path has 18 outdoor "rooms," each representing a stage of existence, from birth to death and even rebirth. The Path of Life Garden, nestled on 14 acres between the Connecticut River and an industrial park, is a sculptural garden that aims to symbolize the journey of the human soul. Tucked behind a parking lot within shouting distance of Windsor's Harpoon Brewery is a gate to a spiritual journey. Path of Life Garden in Windsor Offers a Space for Spiritual Reflection