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Meditation Gardens

Places of Beauty and Stillness

Questhaven offers a variety of tranquil garden settings to practice prayer, meditation and contemplation in beauty and stillness.

A strong relationship with Eternity can only be laid through conscious remembrance. The bridge we build through communion grows stronger with use. Conscious remembrance, another term for meditation, establishes our spiritual identity in the realm of Unceasing Reality.
Flower A. Newhouse, Meditation: the Way to Attainment, 1951

Click on the panoramic images below to take a virtual tour of Questhaven's gardens and memorials.

Welcome Garden

The Welcome Garden

The Welcome Garden greets visitors right next to the Office. It is a Christian Mystic interpretive garden with interactive signs of spiritual thoughts from our founder Flower A. Newhouse. Meditative benches can be found along paths that wander beside a running stream and pools of water. One is greeted by the fragrance of sage and other California native plants and trees. This garden is a great place to begin your journey at Questhaven and learn a bit about our spiritual traditions.

 

Christ Statue

The Christ Statue

Just across the road from the Welcome Garden is our bronze Christ Statue, the Great I Am, by Angela Johnson. It is meant to be approached so one can look into His eyes and receive a blessing. This has quickly become a special place to stop and sit and connect with our Lord Christ.

 

Meditation Bench

The "I AM" Walk

Surrounding the statue area is a mindfulness walk in nature that leads to the seven I AM statements of Christ from the Bible. It is our tradition that when Christ spoke these words He was speaking from the God level within Him. This walk is intended to view Christ from many perspectives and then use His words to awaken God within us. This bench shows an offshoot of that walk so someone can sit and look up to the cross on Inspiration Point. There Christ gently reminds one by saying, you are in me, and I in you.

 

Prayer Garden

The Garden of Remembrance

Questhaven's original prayer garden is the Garden of Remembrance. The adobe addition for our original chapel, El Chapelito, and adjacent prayer garden were added to Questhaven in 1948. The prayer garden has served as a sacred space of spiritual radiation for communing with God and for conscious remembrance and reflection. It is intended to be a place to connect to the Divine feminine aspect of God.

 

Chaparral Observation Deck

Chaparral Observation Deck

Built in 2020, the observation deck, located behind the Academy building, offers outstanding views of the surrounding hills and native chaparral. It was intended to be a unique nature experience to help one connect with God—built to create the sensation that one is walking out on the tops of the native plants to join them in prayer and meditation. One is immersed in the chaparral or "Elfin Forest" that is comprised largely of Chamise, Black Sage, Laurel Sumac, Warty-Stemmed Ceanothus and Mission Manzanita.

 

Flower and Lawrence Newhouse Memorial Courtyard

Memorial Courtyard

At the back of the church are two special places to visit. The first is a Memorial Courtyard for our founders, Flower and Lawrence Newhouse. The fountain was built in 1963 following the passing of Lawrence while the bas-relief of an animal blessing was added in the mid-1990s following Flower's passing. It is now a gathering space for quiet sharing among friends or a place for prayer and contemplation.

 

Stephen Isaac Memorial Bench

Meditation Bench

Continuing to walk around the back of the church one will find a beautiful bench in nature with a quote from Dr. Stephen Isaac, who worked closely with Flower after Lawrence passed. It is a wonderful location to view the rolling hills as you meditate under the canopy of large oak trees.