Re: Garden Show impressions
- Subject: Re: Garden Show impressions
- From: m* l*
- Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 17:31:11
Sean,
Like some of the others who have responded, it has been a number of years
since I attended the San Fran show, at least four, maybe five.
The U.C. Davis arboretum people run a bus down from Davis, Ca. every year
for anyone with the fortitude to indulge.
As I recall, the reasons I decided to stop going were very similar to those
you have expressed so well in your posting. What stands out in my memory
was walking along one of the vast galleries of the cow palace and suddenly
being struck by a feeling of unease. The sense, if you will, that this was
the garden show that P.T. Barnum would have put together and then labeled
"the greatest show on earth".
Now don't get me wrong, because as a kid I really loved the circus.
It's just not what I want in my back yard. But if you think about it
the S.F. garden and landscape exposition (is that what they still call it?),
is just a logical extension of the country and social milieau in which we
live. For better or worse we have chosen merchandising as the way to select
the artifacts that will prevail.
I have been meaning for some time to share with you the following long
quotation from garden history. Now seems as good a time as any:
ON GARDENS AND THE WAY
By Muso Soseki
>From ancient times until now there have been many who have delighted in
raising up mounds of earth, making arrangements of stones, planting trees,
and hollowing out watercourses. We call what they make "mountains and
streams." Though all seem to share a common liking for this art of
gardening, they are often guided by very different impulses.
There are those who practice the art of gardening out of vanity and a
passion for display, with no interest whatever in their own true natures.
They are concerned only with having their gardens attract the admiration of
others.
And some, indulging their passion fo aquiring thing, add these "mountains
and streams" to the accumulation of rare and expensive things they possess,
and end up by cherishing a passion for them. They selsect particularly
remarkable stones and uncommon trees to have for their own. Such persons
are insensible to the beauty of mountains and streams. They are merely
people of the world of dust.
Po Lo-t'ien dug a little pool beside which he planted a few bamboos, which
he cared for with love. He wrote a poem about them:
The bamboo- its heart is empty.
It has become my friend.
The water- its heart is pure
It has become my teacher.
Those everywhere who love mountains and rivers have the same heart as
Lo-t'ien and know the way out of the dust of the world. Some whose nature is
simple are not attracted by worldly things and they raise their spirits by
reciting poems in the presence of fountains and rocks. The expression "a
chronic liking for mist, incurably stricken by fountains and rocks" tells
something about them. One might say that these are secular people of
refined taste. Though they are in the world and wothout the spirit of the
Way, this love of the art of gardens is nevertheless a root of
transformation.
In others there is a spirit that comes awake in the presence of these
mountains and rivers and is drawn out of the dullness of daily existence.
And so these mountains and rivers help them in the practice of the Way.
Theirs is not the usual love of mountains and rivers. These people are
worthy of respect. But they cannot yet claim to be e followers of the true
Way because they still make a distinction between mountains and rivers and
the practice of the Way.
Still others see the mountain, the river, the earth, the grass, the tree,
the tile, the pebble, as their own essential nature. They love, for the
length of a morning, the mountain and the river. What appears in them to be
no different from a worldly passion is at once the spirit of the Way. Their
minds are one with the atmosphere of the fountain, the stone, the grass, and
the tree, changing through the four seasons. This is the true manner in
which those who are followers of the Way love moutains and rivers.
So one cannot say catagorically that a liking for mountains and rivers is a
bad thing or a good thing. There is neither gain nor loss in the mountain
and the river. Gain and loss exist only in the human mind.
Translated by W.S.Merwin and Soiku Shigematsu
in the book SUN AT MIDNIGHT.
Thanks once again for all the work in running this board.
Regards,
Michael Larmer
Sacramento, California
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