Energetic Landscape

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.

~Native American Proverb

There is a natural connection between children and the landscape. They are born still tethered to the energies of the universe. A simple stream will inspire awe, wonder and curiosity without any pushing or prodding from an adult. In fact, it is the adult that needs the nudge to move closer.

I am often deeply moved by watching how easily my children embrace the land with full acceptance. How they are able to find intrigue in the simplest forms of nature. For adults it is much harder. We have lost the purity of youth that leaves the door to flows of energy wide open. Children just sense the life...or the lack of it...with a profound acuteness.

In practicing yoga this winter, I am taking a journey through the chakra system of the body. It is a delightful practice which surprises me often. Starting at the base of the spine, at the base of this energy system, we are exploring how we are rooted, grounded in life. It is hard for me not to make a connection to the earth and to plants as I start this journey. I am a novice and open, like a child, to the newness of this teaching.

This energy system is unseen (for most of us anyway) and it takes a certain stillness to tap into the body in this way. It takes some practice and some faith. For me, connecting this to the energy of plants is helpful. I love them so much and am so inspired by how they emerge from dormancy each spring into a full and glorious picture of life and then slowly wither and fall into a dream state of stillness again as winter returns.

The landscape industry is a fast paced business of aesthetics that has a hard time remembering that each and every plant is an energetic whole. That each garden is a community of plants interacting energetically (as well as biologically) with one another. It is easy to use up that energy with careless use of our earth. We see that with each account of environmental shift reported in the news.

My wish is that in 2010, I am able to connect with a community of garden lovers that want to restore the environment one small garden, landscape or park at a time. By acting locally with our own small borrowed slices of earth we can effect change by adhering to sustainable landscape practices, by considering the garden as an energetic community, and by committing to conscientious design, installation and care of the land we are borrowing from our children.

Next time we will explore the first chakra, earth energy, and the root systems of plants...

Happy Gardening

Bradstreet

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant;

If we did not sometimes taste the adversity,

prosperity would not be so welcome."

Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)

Reading Anne Bradstreet's quote reminds me of how much gardeners anticipate spring. Not being a winter sport kinda girl, I bundle up and wait out winter. I don't ski (down hill or cross country), snow shoe, or get into snow ball fights (cuz I'd lose! Have you MET my husband?), nor do I generally venture out with a sled (much to my children's chagrin). I don't mind ice-skating and actually get a kick out of shovelling the walk (2 or 3 times...tops!) and feel a pretty nice power-rush workin' that snow blower. I have been known to help with a snow man...but Chris beat me to it this year! Mostly I am waiting for the thaw. As beautiful as the snow and bare branches are, I still feel cold and miss the greenery of the growing season.

Mrs. Bradstreet seemed to have it right though, without the cold, stark winter season, how could we even fathom the glory of spring? How do they do it in warm climates where there is no fall foliage, winter blankets or glistening icicles? Hmmm, I am thinking I might manage if I were in Hawaii!

Married to Governor Simon Bradstreet, Anne Bradstreet was best known as the first woman to be published in the United States. Her works were mostly centered around religious themes, but she also was deeply observant of her surroundings. In the long lonely days of colonial New England winters, she managed to dig deeply into her spirituality and faith and find inspiration all around her. She did all this AND raised seven children! I am starting to wonder what I do with my time?

I guess I could start by being observant and finding inspiration in the resilience of the landscape which always comes full circle regardless of where it starts. Spring will come! The warm air and the lush new growth will follow with perfect predictability as well as with surprises.

And sure as spring comes...time will pass and winter will return.

Happy Gardening

Wyeth

WHAT DO YOU SEE?

"I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure in the landscape-the loneliness of it-the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it-the whole story doesn't show."

Andrew Wyeth - American Painter - 1917-2009

"Art critics mostly heaped abuse on his work, saying he gave realism a bad name. Supporters said he spoke to the silent majority who jammed his exhibitions. “In today’s scrambled-egg school of art, Wyeth stands out as a wild-eyed radical,” one journalist wrote in 1963, speaking for the masses. “For the people he paints wear their noses in the usual place, and the weathered barns and bare-limbed trees in his starkly simple landscapes are more real than reality.”" - NYT see link below...

I love this man's wonderfully weathered face in this photo printed in the New York Times. I also deeply respect his approach to nature. He looked on it as it was and saw through any clouded belief about how it should be. He interpreted what was there and put no judgement upon it. What a skill.

I am forever looking at the landscape and judging it, maybe that is the designer training that has veiled my ability to just see. My practice for this winter is going to be to look at the landscape and take it in for what it is.

Of course at some point I will want to change it, improve it, update it or just pretty it up...I can't help it. But I believe that if I study what nature is doing a little more closely, the way a painter might, maybe I will get some of the most precious and valuable design tips ever.

Happy Gardening

Above NYT quote from...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/17/arts/design/17wyeth.html

New York Times article - Andrew Wyeth, Painter, Dies at 91

By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN
Published: January 16, 2009