'Lost' by David Wagoner...( a poem about forests and more)

 Lost  by David Wagoner

photo by Jan Johnsen (NYBG - pinus bungeana)

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.

 

photo by Jan Johnsen (one of my gardens)

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.

photo by Blondieb

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

from Collected Poems 1956-1976 © Indiana University Press

Personal Space and Privacy - Japanese Vs. American

In my graduate Landscape Design Studio at Columbia University, I ask students to select an excerpt from the assigned book, 'The Hidden Dimension' and correlate a personal experience to describe it.
Yuji Yamazaki wrote this very enlightening piece...I had to share. (He said it was ok.)

“We learn from the study of culture that the patterning of perceptual world is a function not only of culture but of relationship, activity, and emotion. 

Therefore, people from different cultures, when interpreting each other’s behavior, often misinterpret the relationship, the activity, or the emotion. 

This leads to alienation in encounters or distorted communications.”

~ Edward T. Hall, Hidden Dimension

I have been living with my girlfriend for over 5 years now. My girlfriend, born and raised in the Long Island, NY,  sees certain things in a way that I don’t quite understand, especially things that relate to space and privacy.

Edward Hall mentions that there is no word to describe “privacy” in Japanese language.

 But I think that there is “sense” of privacy that you can develop in Japan.  A way to establish this sense of privacy is to block out other’s presence.  In densely populated cities, Japanese nuclear families are accustomed to share the most intimate space.  That is probably why we don’t have “privacy” in our vocabulary.

Growing up in Japan, I could go months without talking to my brother even though we shared a small 10’ x 10’ room, and it was not considered as being rude, it was rather respecting by mentally blocking out each other.  But my girlfriend would perceive this type of silence as a queue to ask me “Is
everything okay?

We  live in a small one-bedroom apartment, very similar size to the one with my brother. In Japanese setting, I can establish a sense of privacy by simply holding newspaper in front of my face and be silent—Japanese privacy is established.  In my girlfriend's culture, when you are in a room together, you are assumed to participate each other’s presence.  “What are you reading?”, “Wanna a cup of coffee?”, or “I’m bored” are the usual intrusion toward the silence.  You need to go to the other room and shut the door to have privacy.

Her privacy takes four walls and a shut door, which is about 100 square feet, my privacy takes 30” by 30” newspaper, which takes about 6 square feet. Growing up in a Long Island house with her own room, my girlfriend has yet to learn about my portable Japanese privacy, and I have yet to learn when and where to have that privacy.

GREAT INSIGHT!  My female advice, Yuji, politely answer her questions ......we never stop asking questions...

Flower Power - A Story about NYC and flowers by George Reis

George Reis is a student of mine at Columbia University and he also works for NYU as their Landscape Supervisor (he prefers 'Head Gardener')....our latest assignment required that he choose an excerpt from Edward Hall's 'The Hidden Dimension' and write a personal anecdote relating to the concept cited.

George wrote a touching essay on the power of flowers that I would like to share with you. Here the vibrant and beneficial energy of flowers soothes even the toughest of NY city psyches.....

“Our urban spaces provide little excitement or visual variation and virtually no opportunity to build a kinesthetic repertoire of spatial experiences…Man can be viewed as having visual, kinesthetic, tactile, and thermal aspects of his self which may be either inhibited or encouraged to develop by his environment."

Edward T. Hall,   'The Hidden Dimension'

I’ve heard Pete Hamill, the great New York writer, reminisce about the days when New York was a city of working class people who would commute on the subway to their factories or work sites with their tools in hand. In our post-industrial era, we now have a large population of people we may call “information workers,” people who work in offices and manipulate their work life mainly via computer screens. Most of their work day is spent in the abstract realm of spreadsheets, reports, analyses—in short, they spend their days living inside their heads.

These people run the risk of losing touch with what Hall calls the “visual, kinesthetic, tactile and thermal aspects” of their selves if they inhabit cities that don’t address the need for rich outdoor experiences. Hence the need, especially in a city of information workers like New York, for what Hall calls “visual variation” in our outdoor urban spaces.

I know lots of people in Greenwich Village who think NYU’s “campus” is an illustration of Hall’s point about the lack of visual variation in our cities. Fairly or unfairly, they demonize the University for obliterating the human-scaled, bohemian character of the Village with large, bland, modernist buildings. As a University employee, I keep my distance from that debate — I’m just the gardener after all and I believe universities do a lot of good.

But I would lose all my street credibility with the neighborhood if I didn’t admit that the exterior of NYU’s Coles Sports Center, a 21-foot high tan brick, acre-sized, featureless box of a building at 181 Mercer Street, is, in Hall’s words, a place of “little visual variation.”

In the summer of 2006, a lucky sequence of events allowed me to tear out the 1,000 square foot strip of lawn and the thin line of New Guinea impatiens on the north side of the building’s entrance and replace it with a border of about 30 varieties of annuals that were on sale for reduced summer prices. I planted five large clumps of Brillantaisia subulugarica surrounded by plants like Angelonia, Cuphea, annual Rudbeckias, Euphorbias, Helichrysum, and Caladium for the shaded spots. The result, mostly unforeseen by me, was an undulating annual border of brightly contrasting colors. It was an exuberant planting for a tired building face.

[click here for a  video of a similar garden there ...]

I was unprepared for the reaction I got from passersbys. Gushing with gratitude is one way of describing it. I never attributed this to any special talent on my part, but rather to the lack of varied plantings visible from any sidewalk within 20 blocks.

But one particular reaction stunned me. An attorney told someone in the building that that summer’s litigation had been particularly stressful for him as he was defending the most hideous client of his career. What got him through it, he said, was taking a couple minutes each day to look at my hurriedly planted annual border. That’s when I began to understand the power of public horticulture.

In light of Hall’s insights about how we experience space, I understand now that this attorney got solace from this little garden because it was varied in texture, height, and color, and also because it was legible—it cohered in a way that held his attention and relieved him temporarily from the daily stress of his work.

Amen to that.

Coherence and the potent energy that flowers exude. We are hardwired to respond to these gems of Nature.

Thanks George! - Jan
 

'Flowers became his Cure' - A Healing Garden

photo by Jan Johnsen

In 2006, the National Gardening Association in South Burlington, Vermont (I used to be a garden design consultant for them in the early 80s) decided to celebrate National Garden Month by inviting readers to share their garden tales for a "This is My Garden" Sweepstakes.

Here is one of the poignant and inspiring stories that they received:

Deciding to Cure by Joanne B.

Darryl, my husband, lived in what is now our home for 9 years before we married. Each fall I planted daffodil bulbs. He had no interest in planting anything. 

During the winter of 2004-2005 Darryl suffered a bad bout of depression. So that spring and summer flowers became his cure.

 Petunias in planter - created by Jan Johnsen

He built a planter at the front edge of the lawn, planted perennials and lots of petunias in hanging baskets and scattered large pots about the yard.

During the autumn we planted tulip bulbs and pansies in the planter. Darryl also planted hyacinths, daffodils and Asiatic lilies.

planters created by Jan Johnsen

Now kids walking by on their way to and from school stop to look at it all. Some have said funny things. Are they real? Are you selling flowers?

Adults slow down as they drive past. One sunny afternoon, a fancy car with a woman at the wheel stopped. I walked out to talk to her. Said she was just stopping to look at our beautful yard. Then she introduced herself as the mayor. I knew her name of course but had never met her. "We give beautification awards" said she.

National Gardening Association

A dull yard became a paradise simply because my husband decided to cure his depression with flowers rather than seek medical help.

Congratulations- Joanne B! I am on your team...Flowers rule. I wonder if you got a beautification award....So everyone: planting those bulbs now will give you a great smile at the end of a cold winter....

Matt's Description of a Healing, Serenity Garden

Matt Berger was my high school intern for a season...and now he is a sophomore studying landscape architecture at University of  Rhode Island.  He is a remarkable young man - check out his blog " Doubling Your Summer Money for Young Adults"  ... He even created a college scholarship fund for any student from his high school that exhibits a passion for environmental awareness! He funds it with his earnings as a landscaper in the summer.

He wrote this as a message to me, describing his vision of a serenity garden, and I would like to share it with you.

Montauk Daisies

Jan, after listening to your talk show, I was thinking about "Serenity in the Garden" and what it makes  me think of. So I sat down, and wrote ...the first things that came to me...

When you walk into a garden [designed for serenity], you feel a sort of energy. A fusion between relaxation and excitement.

...Your first rush of energy is usually captured at the entrance way...As you leave the stressful world that we all share, and enter into the garden of thoughts, dreams, and peace, you become the feather floating in mid-air....

a garden for healing - j.johnsen

You look down and appreciate as the ladybug sits on the plant's leaf, you notice the bee's pollinating the magical wild flowers, and the the squirrel keeping an eye on you as it cracks open a fresh acorn.

Rock Garden - J.Johnsen

This is the feeling of Serenity.

You become one with earth as you sit on that rock, which is perfectly situated between that ground covering of moss and the tall zebra striped grass. You feel ... its slightly vibrating rush of intensity ...

Dry Stream garden - J Johnsen

As the rock takes you in ... it forms a relationship with you. It allows you into its very diverse environment. You are now an accepted being in this garden. Whenever you enter, you will know that you are in your ...room of comfort, peace, and of course, serenity.

This is the feeling of Serenity in the Garden.

Matt, I don't think Alan Watts could have said that any better! (Now, go look up Alan Watts.)

Thank you for that wonderful description.