The Great Tao in a Garden

The idea that we are living within a world swirling with unseen energies is not a new one... 

The Chinese idea of Tao comes closest to what mystics, tribal peoples and modern day physicists explain as the basis of all life.

(white plumeria, Kauai )

 The Tao, as Alan Watts writes, is not God “in the sense of ruler, monarch, commander, architect and maker of the universe,” but an “intelligent rhythm” (Watts, “Tao: the Watercourse Way” P 40):

(from The Living Centre)

“The great Tao flows [also “floats” and “drifts”] everywhere

to the left and to the right,

All things depend upon it to exist,

And it does not abandon them.

To its accomplishments it lays no claim.

It loves and nourishes all things, but does not lord it over them.

(Jim's Golden Laceleaf Elderberry)

         A flourishing garden spotlights this intelligent rhythm.

It is our everyday “repository of life …….with no claim to its accomplishments”. 

(NY Botanical Garden Cascade)

Alan Watts uses a stream as his principal metaphor for the Tao.   A stream, he says, cannot be held in a bucket and such is the nature of the Tao, or energy that lies within and around all natural life.  How lovely it is that  flowing water of any kind in your garden can symbolize the invisible field of the Tao that flows all around us!

So how do we access the unknowable energy that pulsates around and through us? As Watts describes, "we know intuitively that there is a dimension of ourselves and of nature which eludes us because it is too close, too general and too all embracing to be singled out as a particular object.”(p.55)

He counsels us to “watch the processes and patterns of nature...... so as to have vivid awareness of ‘what is’ without verbal comment”.

A garden is a perfect setting

for developing our ‘vivid awareness”.

(garden by Jan Johnsen)

Loren Eiseley, Star Thrower

"Man would not be man if his dreams did not exceed his grasp...

 If I remember the sunflower forest it is because from its hidden reaches man arose. The green world is his sacred center. In moments of sanity he must still seek refuge there..."

 

- Loren Eiseley, The Invisible Pyramid

When Loren Eiseley, the famous naturalist, was alive no one looked at him as a mystic but he was indeed mystical.

 He was born in 1907 in Nebraska. In 1910 a very young Loren watched the passage of Halley’s Comet with his father. That spectacle contributed to Eiseley's profound sense of time and space that is so inspiring.

Eiseley became one of the most widely read and highly regarded nature writers of the twentieth century. "There has never been another writer like him," wrote a reviewer for the Library of Science, "and there never will be".  His admirers and correspondents included the science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, the poet W.H. Auden, and the cultural critic Lewis Mumford.

Loren Corey Eiseley  - an evolutionary biologist, anthropologist, bone hunter, poet, teacher, historian, naturalist, philosopher, "the heir apparent to Henry David Thoreau" (The Philadelphia Inquirer) earned a B.S. at age 26 at the University of Nebraska after nearly a decade as a Depression era WPA worker and drifter.  

His friend Umland wrote,

"From the time he was a teenager his mother had been constantly after him to find part-time work but he would hole up in the City Library and read books instead of making an earnest search.

He read science fiction, the poets, the nature writers, ghost stories.

 Librarian Lula Horn said he had to be chased out of the stacks at closing time.  "

He was awarded a Ph.D. in anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, in 1937 when he was 30.

He became head of the Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, in 1947. Elected president of the American Institute of Human Paleontology in 1949.  The Immense Journey, his first book, was published by Random House in 1957.

He was awarded the John Burroughs Medal and the LeComte du Nouy Award in 1961 for The Firmament of Time.

Eiseley pondered the ethical issues of our age --how man might be a part of nature's world, and not an enemy of it. This gave his wirtings a certain urgency.  He explored inner and outer space and brought poetic insight to scientific discipline, connecting multiple universes, humankind, and nature.

His famous short story 'The Star Thrower' can be read here - The Metta Refuge. Highly recommended to all fellow travelers!

Purple Angelonia and more in a Purple Garden

Johnsen Landscapes & Pools - Angelface Blue Angelonia and white Begonias

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 “If you pass by the color purple in a field and don’t notice it, God gets real pissed off.”

~ Alice Walker

Purple tickles the brain. It speaks to us of mystery and enlightenment.  Purple gardens evoke delight and sumptuousness.

Leonardo da Vinci said that light streaming through purple stained glass windows could increase the power of meditation ten fold. And scientists have found that purple stimulates the brain activity used in problem solving, integrating both hemispheres of the brain – the thinking left side with the feeling right side.  Stare at purple and your mind will stop chattering...Try it!

 In 2008, the ‘Color of the Year’ selected by Pantone was ‘Blue Iris’ (Pantone 18-3943), which combined, "the stable and calming aspects of blue with the mystical and spiritual qualities of purple..."  So true - calming and mystical.

Indeed Blue/ Purple Iris are intoxicatingly beautiful. Especially Siberian Iris 'Caesar’s Brother' which is a velvety rich purple perennial that blooms profusely in late spring and is spectacular when planted in masses.  Very reliable, trouble free and grows zones 3 -9 in sun or part shade.   Also deer resistant and suitable for heavy soils! (photo from Bluestone perennials)

This is a must for a Purple Garden.

Purple Smokebush - Cotinus 'Royal Purple'

In feng shui, purple is used in healing and meditative spaces. In gardens it is used to create a luscious setting that captivates all who enter.

In my small front entry garden I have a purple Smokebush 'Royal Purple' (Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple') which has beautiful, velvety, dark purple foliage throughout the growing season. It is  topped with smoky-purple flowers  in mid-summer creating a smoky cloud.  It is in the corner and is a wonderful accent  shrub. I prune it down in the very early spring to about 2 ft high and the new growth is gorgeous. Deer resistant too!

 Purple is a blend of stimulating red and calming blue, the proportions of which determine its hue. Shades range from an indigo blue-purple to a violet red-purple. In Hinduism indigo purple governs the pineal gland or third eye and Violet purple triggers the crown chakra at the top of the head. Focusing on these respective colors quiets the mind. 

 Okay - purple gardens rule!

Purple Gomphrena - 'Buddy Purple'

One of my favorite purple annual flowers - blooms until frost - is Gomphrena Buddy Purple or Purple Gnome. I plant it with everything - here it contrasts beautifully with Jack Frost Brunnera. And below I  paired with pink supreme roses, iris ensata and more...

 Purple flowers have been proved to be rich in nectar...that is why bees and butterflies love purple flowers. Here is a butterfly on a purple aster:

Purple Dome New England Aster is an outstanding compact perennial ( comes back every year) notable for its mounding habit and luscious deep lavender-purple flowers. 18” x 18” wide. Easy to grow in any decent soil and not bothered by mildew.

Purple Dome Aster courtesy of Plant Delights

Another great and easy pruple plant is Agastache 'Purple Haze'...One of the easiest and most rewarding perennials to grow! This new selection of Anise Hyssop produces darker purple flowers and looks amazing when planted en masse. Vibrant violet-purple flowers on strong, upright stems bloom from midsummer to early fall.   A great plus: The leaves smell like black licorice when cut or crushed.

Purple Haze Agastache courtesy of Acorn Farms

And by far one of my fave raves for purple in the garden is Angelonia - an annual flower that blooms throughout the season....Plant in beds or pots....This is Angelface Blue but it looks purple. I paired it with Silver Licorice Plant (Helichrysum) and Pink petunias.

Of course purple comes in all hues so here are a few more plants to add to a purple garden:

Variegated Iris

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'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

Why We Garden - Oneness with Nature

    Holy Mother Earth,

 the trees and all nature, are witnesses of your thoughts and deeds.

~  Winnebago saying

A garden is nature, bounded  -  protected and shaped by human hands.  It can be a simple balcony filled with planters, a sweeping vista dotted with trees or a small courtyard bordered by plant beds.  

Our urge to co-create with Mother Nature has been with us since time immemorial.   This impulse lies in the need to be connected to something greater than ourselves.  

Gardening enhances a heightened sense of empathy and expands our awareness of non-human life.  When we garden, we see how the lowly earthworm is as important as the forest. 

This, in turn, leads to an oceanic feeling that we are one with Nature.  Arne Naess, the Norwegian philosopher, called  this expanded sense of self,   ‘the ecological self’:

^"We are not outside the rest of nature and therefore cannot do with it as we please without changing ourselves … we are a part of the ecosphere just as intimately as we are a part of our own society.." 

photo by Jan Johnsen / in garden by Johnsen

The ecological self has always been with us.  It is this self (not the  human centered self of our Western World) that created the nature based rituals and ceremonies of Native American and Australian Aborigines;  that used monumental trees or great stones as their religious totems;  that developed the pleasure grounds of the Persians and the sacred groves of the Greeks. 

 The ecological self sees Nature as a conduit to the cosmos.  As the 19^th century traveler and nature lover, W. H. Hudson, wrote in his evocative, turn of the century book, ‘The Purple Land’:

photo by Jan Johnsen / Mt Kisco, NY

“Face to face with Nature on the vast hills at eventide, who does not feel himself near to the Unseen?”

Tree Spirits, Einstein and 'Frozen Light'

Why do certain tree species evoke the same response from all people? 

The Oak, for example, was considered  by the Celtic Druids to be the 'King of the Greenwood' . To them, oaks represented mighty and enduring power.  The ancient Greeks also revered oaks - groves of them were deemed sacred territory.  

 

And Native Americans viewed the oak tree as a symbol of strength with supernatural powers. In fact, the tradition of “knocking on wood” is said to be of Native American origin  - they would knock on an oak tree in order to avert the failing of a hopeful prediction.

This similarity is true for many other trees from Ash trees to apple trees to maples.... So why do disparate cultures see tree 'personas' similarly?   Is it Coincidence or Co-incidents?

I think Albert Einstein figured it out.  In  1905, Einstein, a young patent inspector in Switzerland,  came up with a simple equation that challenged the way we in Western society saw the  physical world: 

Few people, at the time, realized what this mix of numbers and letters meant but it was revolutionary to those who did. 

Einstein originally wrote the converse of this elegant equation  (M =  E/C2)  but it all means the same thing - 

mass (or matter) is a function of light and energy;

matter is energized light.

As Niels Bohr, another famous scientist, explained it, mass is basically ‘frozen light’. This applies to all physical creation, including trees and humans.

In essence, Einstein realized that human beings (and trees) are ‘energized light beings’. 

 This revolutionary equation brought modern physics to the border line of science and spirit. 

Einstein alluded to this interface when he described the awe that inquiring scientists feel when confronted with the  inner workings of nature:

“…[it is] a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority, that compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.  This feeling is … closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages.”
  (Albert Einstein, the World as I See It”, p.29)

         
   If we, and the physical world around us, are ‘energized light’ then the idea that electromagnetic auras surround our bodies is not as improbable as once thought.    Ironically, Science, in its own way, has validated the Renaissance paintings of the saints by confirming the existence of halos!

            Plants and trees are also energized light and they, too, have an energetic aura.

Our forefathers' views that trees have spirits is the acknowledgment of this energetic 'footprint'.  

Once you see the world in this way, thanks to E = MC ² , a garden is more than a verdant retreat - it is also a conglomeration of chlorophyll filled, light catching balls of energy!

As Rumi, the 13th century Persian Poet and mystic, wrote:

"Once we were particles of Light, now we are beings of

Light, radiating Love"

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...

Simplicity in Landscape Design

Simplicity and repose are the qualities that measure the true value of any work of art."

- Frank Lloyd Wright

This sentiment is at the heart of my approach to gardens and garden design. (Hence: Serenity in the Garden)

Simplicity is not simple...it is, in fact, quite difficult to achieve.

Simplicity of layout requires great attention to detail. For example, in the photo above, the garden designer had to address how big the squares were, how far apart they should be spaced, what size paving should be used around the turf squares and what color, what kind of turfgrass should be used and how may squares and rows should there be..... The end result is sublime and quite effective. 

Simplicity in planting design is also daunting at times. Here Robert Irwin planted up a roof garden at the Getty Center. Note the glorious shapes, their counterpoint,  the arrangement, and the bit of red to the upper left...always go for that bit of red....

and here the simplicity is in the long, slow curve of a wide walk and the stately trees that border it on both sides. Note how far the trees are from the walk - this space is critical to the overall design. Any closer and they would seem menacing. 

 I think they widened this walk - look at the additional paving pattern and the lovely pebbles in the border of the walk.  Reflexology path,  anyone?