Reflections in a Japanese Garden

Lighting the way...

Driving to Seattle I felt curious. Would the rain abate? Would a rain hat as well as my rain coat be necessary? So much sun recently. Today, a rainy, grey afternoon. The Plant Junkies garden club was converging on the Seattle Japanese Garden for a guided tour and I was among the hopeful!

I've come to enjoy Japanese gardens slowly over the years. Raised in a classic Dooryard Garden style, the Japanese garden seemed distant and way too formal for appreciation in my early gardening years.

Luckily, the West Coast boasts many traditional Japanese Gardens and I make a point to visit them as often as life allows. I've come to appreciate the storyline that each unique garden expresses. Plants following the dance of the seasons, celebrating the moon and poetry and art as part of the garden's function; people connecting with one another and with those things beyond the earthly, yet so sensuous one would need earth and a body to fully experience the juxtaposition...that a formal tea ceremony housed within an intricately built structure offers…

These are some of the fine points succinctly planted in each Japanese garden uniquely expressing in that garden's continued unfurling over many years. This is what brings me back again and again!

Azalea fire on cool green moss. Today, a rivulet flows...

"Gardens are the slowest performing art!"

A phrase I have always enjoyed and find especially fitting while visiting Japanese Gardens. Come, let us wonder and wander through the Seattle Japanese Garden on a rainy afternoon in timeless reflection.

A rocky island, reminiscent of another time, another place...

Possibility beyond imagining…

An open boxwood hedge..

…offers curvaceous form along a path

Grey skies, rain drops, perfect light…

Reflections between heaven and earth…suggest something just beyond view, mystery around every curve...

Community, art, poetry…cultivating perspective…

Beauty bridging time, distance, culture...

Growing and reflecting in a garden…

Enjoy a garden near you, soon!

A Wellness Adventure to Remember

The adventure began months before I boarded the flight from Seattle to San Jose, Costa Rica. I committed to the support team for Susun Weed's Wellness Adventure in July 2014. Like planting bulbs in fall and anticipating the delight of seeing them bloom in the spring, the commitment brought with it feelings of anticipation and the excitement of a pending adventure months before the actual journey began.

When I disembarked the plane, a magnificent hand-painted ox cart was a hearty welcome to a small, verdant country with a rich and colorful history. An especially magical greeting, given the small carts dreams which have visited me through out much of my life.

After landing in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, I caught a cab to Hotel Volcanes. Here the gracious and unpretentious accommodations were a pleasant respite before heading out to the Nicoya Peninsula. I felt comfortably at home with the indoor-outdoor gardens in the courtyard and dining room at the center of the hotel.

The next morning back to the airport for a hop flight over Nicoya Bay to Tambor on the peninsula. As the small plane took off from San Jose, we shouldered into a strong side wind and headed off to an unscheduled pick-up at a remote hotel. The unfolding excitement of a true adventure gathered momentum with a bush pilot landing at the hotel's rustic dirt runway!

The half hour flight was a great way to get my first glimpse of the 

Nicoya Peninsula's abundant, beautiful beaches.

Stay tuned…as we travel to Casa Smythe and the elegant Blue Zone B next...