Tuesday 20 May 2014

Island mentality and Wabi Sabi

Watching Chelsea Flower Show and the gorgeous Togenkyo, A Paradise on Earth, garden reminds me of the similarities that living on an island, or archipelago, brings. There is a similarity between "the fable of Togenkyo, a place of beautiful scenery that can help people to forget their troubles and strife, but that once visited cannot be revisited" and many of the Celtic stories of people visiting the Summerlands and the otherworldly people who dwell there.
Which brings me to the English Garden and Gertrude Jekyll. I think she would have approved of the Zen philosophy of Wabi Sabi. I was at a garden plant swap / sale this weekend where the garden seemed to fulfil the Wabi Sabi principles.

The principles seem also very Druidic to me. On care.com I once found this as a summary of the principles involved:

Zen’s seven ruling principles

  • Asymmetry (Fukinsei): Stiff, formal symmetry, suggesting frozen finality and artificial perfection, can be fatal to the imagination. Asymmetry lets us be loose and spontaneous—more human than godlike. It means we can get by with one—or three—candlesticks, and all the china doesn’t have to match.
  • Simplicity (Kanos): Zen eschews gaudy, ornate, the over embellished in favour of sparse, fresh, and neat. It’s the triumph of craftsman style over the cluttered Victorian parlour.
  • Austerity (Koko): Zen asks us to reduce everything to “the pith of essence.” Don’t love it? Can’t find a use for it? Let it go.
  • Naturalness (Shizen): Zen is artless, without pretence or self-consciousness. It is bare wood, unpolished stone, and flowers from the backyard.
  • Subtle Profundity (Yugen): Within Zen lies a deep reserve, a mysterious, shadowy darkness. The hint of soft moonlight through a skylight would be yugen.
  • Freedom from Worldly Attachments (Datsuzoku): The Buddha taught us not to be bound to life, things, or rules. “It is not a strong bond, say the wise, that is made of iron, wood, or hemp,” he said. “Far greater an attachment than that is the longing for jewels and ornaments, children and wives.” It’s the simplicity movement, not keeping up with the Joneses.
  • Silence (Sejaku): Inwardly oriented, Zen embraces the quiet calm of dawn, dusk, late autumn, and early spring.

Tuesday 13 May 2014

Beltaine Need Fire

It was a fine day, a strong day, a bright day and sat atop one of the Neolithic dykes where I could call the quarters and re-affirm my commitment to the Gewessi path atop Wolstonbury hill. As ever a guilty voice of negativity arose that I should be at the Anderida Grove's open ceremony by the Long Man. My Gewessi voice suppressed it with the need-fire rule...

Need Fire Rule

Prioritise what is needful - each action causes an effect. In this case my needful tasks were to trim the hedges, mow the lawn, prune the ivy and virginia creeper. Tasks delayed through procrastination, weather and illness during the Eostre part of the year. To attend the Anderida Grove's ceremony would have taken a day out of this long weekend. The needful tasks would not have been done, which would have caused stress and had a negative affect. I did the needful tasks which allowed time for this excellent ride and time on Wolstonbury. So once the heavy lifting of those big tasks are complete there was time for a bit of weeding and pottering...

A weed is just a plant in the wrong place

As I sat in the garden thinking about the relationships in my life I realised that this relationship with the garden is one of my more important ones. It has taught me to work with nature and thus influenced my gardening style. My wife commented about how when I started in this garden I used to put things in a regimented style but now manage to plant bulbs much more naturally. In addition much of the garden is now full of plants that started off as weeds but are now in a place pleasing to the eye, well I think so! In addition, now we're down to one old cat, the wildlife has come out. We had a blackbird nest by our lounge window. I think this was a second generation Hen who 'knows' us or rather knows we're not a threat. The birds were funny about us watching them go to the nest but were not flustered by our being outside, in the garden. The three chicks have now flown and I am constantly finding them around the garden as they mature from fledglings into adult blackbirds.

The Wrens and Robins are nesting in the garden also, whilst the Slow Worms in the compost are doing well too. Even the volume of midges that sucked the blood out of my exposed calves (owwwww the itching!) indicate a garden full of wildlife. Which makes me happy and that is what I see as the purpose for this modern small garden, it as a natural oasis and refuge from the stresses of this world. I strive for a balance between my interference to create areas of aesthetic interest, the needs of the wildlife in it and the desire of certain plants to dominate the whole garden.