Sodai. Lithuanian straw gardens

Straw gardens represent one of the Lithuanian traditional art forms. Their volume decorations of precise geometric forms carry aesthetic and sacral functions. The most usual forms are of four-side pyramid and other derivative intrinsic structures as well as stars and spheres. The octahedron makes the most common shape, which is, double pyramids whose bases are squares of the same perimeters and whose tops face upwards and downwards. The gardens are decorated with traditional elements symbolising life, fertility and wellbeing. The straw gardens represent an important part of the Lithuanian and Baltic cultural heritage reflecting the old worldview, therefore, they are compared to the World Tree – the universal symbol of harmonious universe: the vertical axis represents the model of the Heavens–the Earth–the Underground or the Past–the Present– the Future, and the horizontal axis stands for the cardinal points.