When I'd ask people what they meant by wabi-sabi their definitions were vague or squishy, and then one day somebody told me that it was a Japanese thing and most Westerners could never understand it. That sealed it for me. I put wabi-sabi aside in a big box where I kept all that sort of stuff and decided I shouldn't waste time worrying about something I probably could never understand anyway.
Read MoreIt never comes all at once. Photos of autumn color in the landscape, and the memories of autumn’s glories we keep in our minds, typically capture the peak of the season. This is only one phase of autumn, however, a fraction amounting to a few days.
Read MoreCast your mind back to 2020, the year the Covid-19 pandemic changed everything about the way we live. The North Carolina Arboretum, like every other public institution in the world, had to react and adapt to the strange new reality of people avoiding social contact.
Read MoreIf you plan on doing work that requires any real thought, any consideration of possibilities, forget it, a live demonstration is the worst way to go. Doing creative bonsai work by the clock is not a good idea. It might well be that most decisions in life get made with one eye on the clock, and maybe a lot of those decisions would never get made at all if it wasn’t for the clock, but creativity shouldn’t be constrained that way.
Read MoreYou could never do that. You'd go out of your mind... but that's the point, right? Out of your mind. Leave your mind behind, leave thinking behind, live in the moment and be here now. Yeah, listen to you. What's the secret of life oh great guru?
Read MoreBut beyond being an artist Zhao was also proof of something, a living example of a fact you thought must be true but couldn't prove. There had to be multiple ways of going about it — had to be. If the whole little tree business was truly an art form then there couldn't be just one right way. Art doesn't work like that.
Read MoreMemes are units of cultural information that are spread by imitation. In this way of thinking, language, writing, reading, art, music, dance, sports and exercise are all memes, as are literally countless other human activities not having to do with biological survival. Eating is not a meme, but farming, cooking and using utensils all are. If it has to do with culture, not biology, it's made of memes.
Read MoreI thought the game was over, but the tree didn’t. All the other parts of the oak were still good, still growing, still strong. That tree still wanted to live and I wasn’t going to be the one to tell it otherwise.
Read MoreBy intention, the bonsai garden is a place where reality is meant to be set aside for a short time. The garden creates an environment conducive to magic. The magic is not inherent in the garden, but is brought in there by the visitors who enter. The visitors walk in carrying with them their own unique set of experiences and, hopefully, their imaginations.
Read MoreNaturalistic bonsai requires the study of trees in nature, with an eye toward truly seeing what trees do and understanding why they do it. That is the big attraction for me in coming to a place like Maymont. Here there are genuinely old trees of different species, growing out in the open where they can fully express themselves while being viewable from all angles, near and far.
Read MoreNo eyes, ears or mouth, no face, no arms or legs, no hands or feet — plants have no body parts that are recognizably the same as ours. Plants don't look like us. They don't act like us and we can't communicate with them.
Read MoreOnce we identify with something we tend to personalize it. Once we personalize something we grant it status as a unique entity, one of many, but separate and worthy of its own recognition in the greater scheme of life.
Read MoreIt was not until almost thirty years later that I identified that tree, from memory. So clear was my recollection of time spent up in that tree's boughs that I could distinctly recall the look of its bark, the shape of its leaves, the form of its structure. Once I started working at the Arboretum and learned something about plant science, these memories were enough for me to know the tree's botanical identity.
Read MoreThe routine so familiar you know it by heart,
a well worn path trod year after year
yet remaining somehow eternally new.
Read MorePeople who get into bonsai in a big way typically go through a phase early on in which every woody plant they see is evaluated for its potential to be made into a bonsai. That is, they will look at any smaller sized tree or shrub in a pot or in the ground and imagine how it might literally be turned into a designed miniature tree.
Read MoreWe decided we’d get out to the Three Sisters Swamp together and set about making plans to do that. A trip to an unfamiliar swamp in a remote area is not something to be undertaken casually. The only access to the Three Sisters site is by boat, so with the aid of the Internet John found a guide who leads tours of the swamp and we got in touch with him.
Read MoreSometimes you have to get away. No matter how you spend your time on a regular basis, and it doesn’t matter if you truly enjoy what you do, sometimes you have to get away. This year having a vacation meant more than simply getting away from the work routine for a little while.
Read MoreFrom that low beginning, an entity seeking to recover must first endure and summon the will to go on. It must suffer the defeat but fight back, and persist in the struggle for however long it takes. Forever after, such an entity bears the stamp of the ordeal, for better or worse.
Read MoreLast night you read how the hurricane would land on the Gulf coast of Florida, then travel north-northwest through Georgia and South Carolina before arriving in western North Carolina. There would be lots of rain, the forecast said, maybe as much as twenty inches. There would be high winds too.
Read MoreAlthough the growing season is now over for temperate plants in our part of the world, there is at this time a flurry of important work that must be done. The last two months of the year see a reordering of business all across the bonsai front.
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