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| The Yin and Yang Of The Zen Garden |
Experiential, intensely metaphoric and functional — Japanese gardens do something beyond visually please — they alter perception.
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Rain doesn’t simply fall in a Japanese garden; it’s part of the garden, as elemental as a brushstroke to painting. To the Japanese, rainfall denotes time’s passing, even as the pine tree signifies yearning. Unlike their splashier Western counterparts, Japanese gardens conceal as much as they reveal, unfolding in layers of cultural memory and subtle shades of meaning.
Japanese gardening is mysterious and interpretive. The Japanese words for garden, Sono and Niwa refer to the peaceful inter-relationship of opposites, wildness and domesticity. This dichotomy is like a foundation planting in Japanese gardening, which uses simple materials and gesture to reflect Nature and Man.
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“The garden engages all the senses, the mandate is to confine or capture the senses, so there’s no need to emotionally wander, which allows us to focus and engage all our senses, arousing a feeling of completeness,” says Alberta designer and educator, Edzard Teubert, of Fuzei Gardens, specialists in Japanese design. “Japanese gardens are ‘gardens of the virtuous,’ representing a Confucian ideal adopted into Buddhism and Zen. They’re to be learned from and to grow with.”
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Tranquil and understated, the Japanese Garden, its sophisticated beauty serving both the inner and the outer eye, encourages contemplation and observation. “Most people miss the point. It’s too simple. Westerners have a need to intellectualize,” says Teubert. “Japanese gardens provide the greatest flexibility for accommodating personal expression.”
“For me, it’s an ideology, not a learned skill. Once you understand the philosophy of ‘maintained nature’ you can just use instinct… Nothing is more relaxing than the sound of water rustling through smooth stones,” says Missourian, Brady Boyd, a computer programmer, who describes his 16-year-old Japanese garden, featuring a naturalized waterfall and a bamboo grove, as a personal hobby.
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Neither Easy, Nor Hard, Just Nicely Challenging:
“A Japanese garden may be built in a junkyard comprised of only metal parts, it’s about placement and meaning,” says Teubert. “Seeing azalea bushes is representative of rolling hills or clouds beneath a mountain. A metal fender or sculpture could provide the same imaging if the next relating piece is in the same order of placement.”
- Most Japanese gardens are asymmetric, apparently random, yet every part is planned. Elements are often organized in odd numbers, reflecting traditional Shinto rites e.g.: the three, five, seven Coming of Age Rites, four and six suggesting death and ill luck. Three stones with a five-tree grouping represents the Valley of Eight Peaks, home of the Immortals. There’s no centerpiece – the aim is harmony with pivotal points of balance and reference.
- Fences and entranceways manipulate light, providing texture and pattern.
- Water suggests cleanliness. Ponds with lotus flowers are bordered by stones and stocked with koi, which symbolize courage.
- Stone appears in water basins, irregular paths and triads — one tall stone with two small flanking stones – represent Buddha.
- Traditional plantings include bamboo, moss, Japanese maple, coniferous trees and shrubs. Design details – such as snow on a branch – impart aesthetic eloquence year-round.
- Go to the Japanese Garden Database: www.jgarden.org for more information.
“A Japanese garden affects mood differently than a bed of bright roses or the straight lines of English gardening,” says Brady Boyd. “I’m more reflective in my Japanese garden than anywhere else. It’s where I do my best thinking.
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