Said Harvard architecture professor Toshiko Mori, about the Saihoji Kokedera Temple and Moss Garden in Kyoto, quoted in "The 25 Gardens You Must SeeWe asked six horticultural experts to debate and ultimately choose the places that’ve changed the way we look at — and think about — plants" (NYT)(free-access link, so you can see all the photos and read about the other gardens).
I love the story of the creation of this garden: "In 1339, Muso Kokushi, a Buddhist high priest and master gardener, created what’s believed to be the first-ever karesansui (dry landscape)... carefully placed rocks and swaths of sand or gravel raked to invoke rippling water... In the nineteenth century, Saihoji was flooded repeatedly when a nearby river overflowed its banks... Rather than fight nature, the monks embraced change... With more than 120 varieties [of moss]... Saihoji looks quite different than it did in Kokushi’s day, but, in the hands of the monks who continue to maintain it, its purpose of encouraging serenity and contemplation hasn’t changed....."
The monks carry on a traditional practice of meditation, bound to this site for 7 centuries. But what would it be for you to drop in one day?
Should you travel halfway around the world to experience spirituality in a garden? You can avoid all that time spent in traffic and airports and metal tubes and find a nearby garden. And yet, all that moss — 120 varieties/700 years old! — there really is something different there, something that might shake you into some newer, better version of yourself.
For the annals of Things I Asked Grok: What are some examples of things people travel long distances to see but then only look at for a few seconds?
Because I wonder... after all that effort getting there, how long will you look? All that moss. You'll look at the moss. But really, how long?
Grok returned a list that began with the first thing I though of: Mona Lisa.
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38 comments:
The curated gardens in Japan should be enjoyed in silence and without massive attending crowds elbowing each other out of the way for a glimpse of a painting or sculpture. You could wander about the rocks and raked sand alone and in meditative thought without being jostled to see something you've seen in photographs all your life - David in Florence by way of example.
My maternal grandfather died while constructing such a Japanese-style garden. While positioning one of the larger boulders he popped an aneurysm and died within minutes, leaving my grandmother widowed and my mother, aged seven, fatherless.
The crowds encountered in traveling to places like this garden are, to me, completely off-putting. Japan would be crowded if there was nobody there except the Japanese, but there are plenty of others there, too. Spent two weeks in April there, and if you weren't there also, it sure looked like you (and everyone else) were there, too. That's a general problem with travel of that sort: the world has so much widespread prosperity that everyone is traveling to see things that used to be affordable only to the wealthy. It wasn't fair that way, but it's not much fun this way!
I have visited that exact garden in Kyoto while on an extended tour of Japan guided by my son, who lives there. Its serenity and beauty are ageless. While there were milling crowds about, they were quite respectful. I wouldn't describe their demeanor as meditation, but certainly mindful that they were aware that they were in the presence of something spiritual.
If you visit a great garden, and there are many of them, you come away feeling as if you've been drenched. There's just a particular ambience to seeing plants in their perfection of health and beauty that is truly replenishing to the soul.
I'm seriously good at slow-flying stable paper airplanes, which I spent several days tossing off the Eiffel Tower long ago. I did not visit the Louvre. It was just a layover between a train and an airplane though.
Rather than fight nature, the monks embraced change
Wisdom that is lost on modern "experts."
"Because I wonder... after all that effort getting there, how long will you look? All that moss. You'll look at the moss. But really, how long?"
No need to do that here in our country when you have the freedom to create your own if you have a yard (despite situations like in Quaestor's family - sad though it is ).
Thank you for unlocking that article, all the gardens, honestly, are fit for contemplation— examples of the myriad of ways we can cooperate with God’s creation for epiphanies of beauty. Yesterday I was reminded of that by writer Emily Malloy at theology of home blog, who wrote about gardens from a Catholic perspective. The land is our inheritance from God, and our cooperation with Him makes the garden fruitful.
“Setting aside space that would be otherwise productive,” she writes, “is an opportunity for sacrificial beauty. The offering of our inheritance to the Lord facilitates cooperation with divine providence, as the preoccupation with utility and productivity often leads to self reliance. On the other hand, tithing a section of our land for a garden of veneration serves as a reminder that God will provide for our material needs, serving as an anti dote to self reliance.”
Cultivating beauty — which has no end other than contemplation— is available to all who possess some little corner…we need not fly to far corners to find it.
Although, I enjoyed these pictures immensely, and would definitely seek out if I happened to be in the vicinity.
This story (and Quaestor's addition) have given me an idea for a moss garden. It's an option that was never open to me in the semi-arid SoCal environment in which I was raised and lived for 60 years. But here in Florida, well, all options are on the table. And I like moss. I see the Spanish variety swaying outside my office right now.
"You'll look at the moss. But really, how long?"
That's how I feel with the closeups on Handmaid's Tale.
JSM
Wasn't "My Secret Garden" a book about female masturbation?
"If you visit a great garden, and there are many of them, you come away feeling as if you've been drenched. There's just a particular ambience to seeing plants in their perfection of health and beauty that is truly replenishing to the soul."
I'm currently drenched by the redbuds in the garden right here at Meadhouse.
And I like moss. I see the Spanish variety swaying outside my office right now.
Spanish moss isn't moss. It's an epiphytic flowering plant. True mosses are non-vascular and do not bear flowers. To put those two branches of the Plant Kingdom is temporal perspective, mosses were well-established on land in the Permian Period, long before the dinosaurs, whereas flowering plant did not evolve before the Cretaceous Period.
Those gardens are really impressive. I think I actually want to...travel to see a few.
I just contemplate the black mold in my bathroom. It’s very peaceful and calming.
Larry David visits a beautiful office in LA, with beautiful views. He asks the receptionist: how long after you start here before you stop looking at the view? A morning? An hour?
The problem with cultivated moss is that you can no longer tell which way is north
Portland Oregon is great if you like moss. I think I've had my fill.
Smilin' Jack said...
“I just contemplate the black mold in my bathroom. It’s very peaceful and calming.”
No sneezing, coughing, or congestion?
With temple gardens, there are some that are really famous, so they're usually quite crowded. But then there are others that are also quite nice that are much quieter, and perfectly fine for quiet contemplation. I don't go to Kyoto all that often, but I do go to Kamakura fairly often. In Kamakura, famous gardens, like the hydrangeas at Hasedera or Meigetsuin, or the bamboo at Hokokuji are usually quite crowded, but nearby Myohoji (with a striking moss-covered stairway) or Eishoji or Zuisenji are quite nice and peaceful and generally not especially crowded. If you want that peaceful contemplative experience, the less famous temple gardens are often very pleasant.
“Harvard architecture professor Toshiko Mori”
I am assuming her nickname is Memento.
Looking at the list, I have wanted to visit the gardens in Soochow for some time. I'm not really familiar with Chinese gardens, but I have visited the Yu Garden in Shanghai, and it was very picturesque, those also very crowded. The Katsura Imperial Villa and Vaux-le-Vicomte are also on my list to visit someday.
In DC, I recommend Dumbarton Oaks. The formal gardens are beautifully laid out and well maintained. The wisteria have just finished blooming, and the peonies and irises are coming in. Roses too, I think. Originally, it was joined to Dumbarton Oaks Park, I believe, with the park serving as a nice sort of wilderness to ramble in, but the park is now separate and accessed by a long lane running by the side of the garden. There other, larger gardens in the US, like the Huntington Gardens in California, but Dumbarton Oaks is still my favourite, for its somewhat more intimate scale and unified effect.
I'd love to contemplate the Gardens, but its rather hard being if you're Tourist no. 123 in the crowd.
Hmmm. Is Grok thinking like you? Or are you thinking like Grok??
"I'm currently drenched by the redbuds in the garden right here at Meadhouse...."
Once the blooming is done, the seed pods are produced. Both are edible, very tasty in salads or poached in a little butter.
I thoroughly enjoyed my week+ in Kyoto. I was supposed to be attending a scientific conference but spent the entire time visiting temples and gardens. It was the only time in my career I skipped out of the meeting, but Kyoto was too incredible to have done otherwise. There were plenty of low-traffic places to visit along with the main attractions. But that was 30 years ago, so who knows now.
The Botanical Gardens in Christchurch are well worth the visit. We like them better than the more famous one in Sydney.
If you're in Madison, you can walk around the neighborhood and see the lovely gardens and maybe meet and talk to the gardeners. There's also Olbrich Gardens, Centennial Garden, and the Arboretum. And you can walk for miles along the shore of Lake Mendota in the Lakeshore Preserve.
I like being here year round for the recurrence of the cycle. Things like the trout lilies in spring feel important because of the time and the repetition.
The moss in New Hampshire sports various high chroma greens no doubt because they Live Free.
Funny because the Japanese tourists I see at the tulip farms and colorful civic gardens of North America are decidedly un-contemplative. They're usually trying to shoo you out of their photograph. Don't even get me stated on Germans in our National Parks.
" Don't even get me sta[r]ted on Germans in our National Parks."
Meade and I often talk about the joyful German we encountered at Mesa Verde National Park. He was ecstatic and twirling about exclaiming "I can't believe how lucky I am!" ... meaning lucky to be seeing that landscape that day.
"He was ecstatic and twirling about exclaiming "I can't believe how lucky I am!" ... meaning lucky to be seeing that landscape that day."
Lucky to be alive, sure. But the fact that he was there was not luck. He made that happen by his energy and commitment. He traveled halfway around the world, with time spent in traffic and airports and metal tubes, in order to enable his luck.
"The journey is part of the experience - an expression of the seriousness of one's intent." - Anthony Bourdain
The calla lilies are in bloom again.
There's also Olbrich Gardens, Centennial Garden, and the Arboretum.
Well that was one good thing about SoCal, plentiful year-round gardens. We hiked the Botanical at UC Riverside, the Arboretum in Santa Anita, even the Palm Canyon Trail and night zoo in Palm Springs. And of course the San Diego Zoo is itself a wonder of botany and when as members of the Zoo Society we could get in at night for and other times for cool tours where they point out the wide variety of plant life.
Thank you for this article; I enjoyed it tremendously. I've been to a couple of the gardens and would like to go to several more of them. The Katsura Imperial Villa was well worth the visit and not at all crowded ( we visited in October). The High Line in NYC was a little over-rated despite its significance.
If the traveller "raw dogged" the entire airline journey there and back, that would be quite the meditative experience. Maybe not the zen approach (except in the garden), but more Indian yogi style. I think there was an Indian siddha who attained enlightenment sitting in a median of a busy crossroads for a number of years.
No love for Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island. I am disappoint.
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