The Peace Garden, dedicated to the 17th Karmapa, is a healing sanctuary and botanical garden located in the heart of Sedona at the Creative Life Center. It is a garden that unites native plants, healing herbs, fruit trees and specimens from many parts of the world. There are pathways through the garden and shady sheltered areas for sitting and contemplation. It is our goal to have self-guided interpretive nature walks available as well as educational, artistic and cultural events there.
The Garden’s Peace Pole was planted and dedicated as part of the initial landscaping. There are about 200,000 of Peace Poles in almost each of the 195 countries on earth, all lovingly dedicated as monuments to Peace. They serve as constant reminders (and energy radiating antennas) for us to visualize and pray for world peace.
The centerpiece of the garden is the Peace Pagoda designed by architect Lee Christensen and dedicated in 2002. Due to the octagonal geometry of the Pagoda, a special acoustic resonance effect can be experienced when standing in the exact center of the building.
Above the garden are the remnants of an historical irrigation canal. We found out that, a century ago, in the pioneer days of settling Sedona, the Garden was in fact a garden and an orchard. The mid-cliff overgrown ledge actually was an aqueduct from Oak Creek – buried under a couple feet of rocky soil (and sometimes appearing in chunks), there is a concave concrete channel. This old canal highlights the historic roots of the Peace Garden.
Since the garden was founded in 2000 until August 2019 Gardens for Humanity has developed the Peace Garden into the healing sanctuary it is today, faithful to the visions of its founders Shirley Caris and Adele Seronde. Community participation contributed much to the gardens growth and development, through donations and volunteer work. For example, each year since 2008 at the Sunday before Thanksgiving the Peace Garden has been a venue of a community-wide afternoon work party during “Sedona Mitzvah (Good Deed) Day.” Many of the improvements and plantings were accomplished during that day.