"I hold my soul in peace and silence. Psalm 131 - "Without silence, nothing blooms." Jacqueline Kelen, The Inner Flowering.

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Far from being a simple workplace, the craftsman's workshop is more like a medieval walled garden, hortus conclusus, suspended between earth and sky. A place withdrawn from the world, intimate, deep, anchored in an undisturbed universe that breathes a deep peace. In this studio, as in a garden, chaos is transformed into harmony, the agitation of the world gives way to a haven of quietude and peace. Time seems to stand still.

 

The garden workshop becomes a refuge, a calm and sacred place where those who wish to do so can "garden in their soul". A place conducive to inner retreat, meditation and contemplation, it also embodies joy, work, generosity, patience and constancy, and gradually offers us beauty. Just as in the alchemist's athanor, mysterious and silent operations take place there, slowly transforming the coarse into the subtle, the rough stone into the chiselled stone and, finally, matter into spirit.

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"There, all is order and beauty, luxury, calm and pleasure. "  Charles Baudelaire, L'invitation au voyage.