Sacred Places
Roberta's House Meditation Garden
A bright labyrinth with a butterfly at its center, on a fast stretch of North Avenue.
WHERE
Baltimore, MD
PARTNER INSTITUTION
Roberta's House
Visit
Where it is
928 E North Ave, Baltimore, MD
What happens here
Children, families, staff, and volunteers come to find healing in nature. Roberta's House holds programs and community events here, outdoor concerts through the summer with the audience on the lawn, and memorial services at the wall of candle niches. Visitors walk the labyrinth using the focal words to set an intention.
HOW IT CAME TO BE
The garden slows the traffic down.
Drag to see the transformation.
01
The Need
Roberta's House supports children and families suffering loss and provides a safe place for them to heal and recover, treating grief as a public health preventive service. The space beside the building was lawn. North Avenue runs alongside it, a busy corridor with high volumes and speeds of vehicle traffic.
02
The Vision
Roberta's House wanted the space to become somewhere they could hold programs and community events, and to serve as a visible cornerstone of the North Avenue corridor. The labyrinth's brightly colored pathway, the focal words along it, and the little butterfly at its center were all specific community requests or symbolic motifs already meaningful to the Roberta's House community.
03
The Transformation
The former lawn now holds an outdoor plaza for summer concerts with lawn space for the audience to sit on. The small labyrinth carries the colors, words, and butterfly the community asked for, its palette deliberately chosen to energize and soothe and mirroring the interior of the building. Lush native plantings soften the whole. A wall with niches for candles gives Roberta's House somewhere to hold memorial services. Because the garden faces busy North Avenue, it also works as a traffic calming device, slowing drivers as they pass.
WHO TENDS IT
Annette March-Grier
Firesoul, Roberta's House Meditation Garden
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