The Zen of Gardening

A friend of mine is a gardener in London and her garden space is what I dream about when I long for old brick walls and worn down potting sheds and ageless English garden style. Her garden has all of this and more....even a resident family of Foxes!



She was describing the process of removing snails from her lettuce beds....removing one and tossing it out of the way....finding another and tossing it as well..... another...another.... and next morning, tossing another. All very Zen-like she thought.
And I agree. Much of gardening has a Zen like quality to it. Hard and persistent work. A patient attitude. Birth, death, and re-birth. Tossing snails out of the way. Playing with the baby foxes. Mothering the tomato plants.

I love everyday in my garden, and in the gardens of my dreams.

Spring!

Wow..... Have I neglected this blog or what? It is a photo/literary project, and the project has been temporarily dormant, to say the least. Time to get re-energized in this season of new growth and color and freshness...

One thing is for sure....the lack of posts has nothing to do with a lack of wonderful images being put on the Wabi Blogi flickr group. They have been very inspiring and I want to thank everyone for continuing to add photos to the group.

I have looked at this photo again and again over the past week....it is so beautiful and soothing...



Love's Blue by Hichako

Winter Ocean

I'm often more impressed with the beauty of the shoreline in the Winter than at any other time of year...



Brigantine Beach, NJ (C H Paquette 2008)

Wabi Photo Contest Winner

We are about a week late in announcing the winner of the Wabi Winter photo contest. The Juror, J Randall Updegrove of Missoula Montana, had a very difficult time selecting from what were all excellent entries. After very careful consideration, he has chosen this entry, submitted by Short Shaman



Randall was impressed by the warm light of this photo captured on a cold Winter day, and felt it represented the search for the transition into Spring that we seek during the bleakness of long Winters

10 minutes more.....

I once dreamt that all life was black and white.
The good stuff, the right stuff, was white. And that, that should be avoided, the black, was clear and distinct. In the dream, my life was a circle neatly divided and all the right things were to the left; shining and white. Then there was the divide into those things that were the other side. Regret, despair, and disappointment. What a clear and organized dream.
But, as I walk through each day with my eyes wide open, my life is not so easily divided.
Left and Right.
Black and White.
Instead it is a stripe here, abutted to the shadow. The white so narrow – the black so wide. And the texture too … drifting grains of black sand, bleeding into the white; the white fading to black.
Oh how I wish I could return to my orderly dream. That the white was wider, and easily kept to; and the black so thin, it was easily skipped over or brushed away.

Photo by C H Paquette 2007
Writing by Leslie Hobbs 2008

Leslie Hobbs lives in Raleigh North Carolina. By day she works with one and zeros, helping customers to decipher their meaning. By night she types away in her blog, trying to make sense of her world and telling a story or two along the way.

(This is from a 10 minute writing exercise practiced by a small writing group in Raleigh, North Carolina. Each person selects a photograph and has 10 minutes to write something using the photo as a creative prompt.)

Winter Wabi Photo Contest......

Don't be left out in the cold! There is one week left to submit your Wabi Sabi Winter themed photograph to the contest. Add up to three photos to the Wabi Blogi Flickr pool and tag them Contest. Winner gets a very nice book.... The Tao of Photography by Tom Ang.

more 10 minute exercizes.....

Tantalizing
I once dreamt I was standing near the road. My printed, calf length dress blowing against my body as cars whisked by and wisps of hair blew gently against my face. Sometimes I was afraid the skirt would blow up and I would reach down and hold it against my thigh. I mused, maybe if it did blow up that would bring business to my lonely roadside stand.
“Marilyn Monroe didn’t need talent, she was a business woman in her way”. I snorted a sigh as I looked up at the sign above my head, “so much for advertising my eggs, melons, tomatoes, and other tantalizing gifts of sun, soil, and toil.”
Swish, another car, another look, but no buyer. I rearrange the honey, smile – “good business you know”, looked up the road with hope swelling in my chest. This time I see a car coming over the hill, two minutes until – swish. Maybe, maybe not, I say to myself as I hike my sun browned leg up on the chair and tighten my shoe laces. The car slowed – my leg wobbled the chair as I brought it slowly down in the dust and straightened up just as the car pulled off the road into the grass. At that moment I knew I could do business like Marilyn Monroe. I straightened my printed dress skirt, smiled the best southern girl smile I could give and asked the gentleman, “would you like to buy some fresh melons from the garden?”

Photo by C H Paquette (2007)
Writing by Cynthia Dowdy (2008)

Cynthia Dowdy, Licensed professional counselor in private practice.Arboretum volunteer gardener, Book club member, Swing Dancer (East and West), Hiker,Beginning writer – feeling and finding my way through words.

(This is from a 10 minute writing exercise practiced by a small writing group in Raleigh, North Carolina. Each person selects a photograph and has 10 minutes to write something using the photo as a creative prompt.)

10 minute exercize...

The Sky is Big

I once dreamt I was a bird.
I was high over the mesa.
The sky was over me, under me, holding my wings.
The sky was big, but small as I
was, I was bigger, bigger than when I was tied to the earth.
I was a hawk in the daytime.
I was an owl at night.
My brothers were scared of me, hooting in the tree outside their bedroom window.
My grandmother talked to me in an old language that no one else understood.
But I did.
I could hear her thoughts.
She knew I was a bird sometimes.
I thought maybe she was too.


Photo by C.H. Paquette (2007)
Written by G. Fitzgerald (2008)

G. Fitzgerald lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, is editor of the annual Sertoma Writers' Anthology, was very impressed by her one visit to New Mexico.She is the author of 3 novellas and is working on one from which this dream is an excerpt.G Fitzgerald

(This is from a 10 minute writing exercise practiced by a small writing group in Raleigh, North Carolina. Each person selects a photograph and has 10 minutes to write something using the photo as a creative prompt.)

wabi winter photo contest

There is at least two long cold months of winter ahead...it's the perfect time to get out and walk in snowy woods or fields and take some photographs. Or sit quietly by the fire and write some poetry. With that in mind, it's time for the first ever Wabi Winter Photo Contest. The theme is open for your individual interpretation, but should relate to wabi sabi in some way. If you want to include some text or a short poem to help explain your photograph you are welcome to do so.
Photos will be judged by J Randall Updegrove
a highly experienced nature photographer who lives in Missoula, Montana.
The winner will receive a copy of The Tao of Photography by Tom Ang.
Please submit your photos to the Wabi Blogi group on Flickr.You may submit up to three photographs for consideration. Please tag your entry Contest. The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2008, and the winner will be announced on this blog on February 7th, 2008
Good luck!

teaism

Time to start the new year and get back to posting on this little blog. I gave up drinking coffee about two years ago. Most people assume it was because of the caffeine.
This was not the case because I continued to drink green tea. I got into the habit of making a pot of really nice green tea in an electric percolator every morning and then drinking most or all of the pot of tea throughout the day. Thats a lot of tea! And a lot of caffeine. I was recently told that my blood pressure was elevated when I had some minor surgery, so I decided then and there to eliminate my caffeine intake. No more pots of tea. I am now drinking herbal teas and chinese medicinal teas by the individual tea bag. Boiling the water takes time and patience. I can no longer just walk into the kitchen and instantly pour myself another mug of tea. Slowing down and taking the time to prepare an individual cup of tea is much closer to the traditions of teaism. I feel the difference in my body and mind without the caffeine surging through my system.

Emergence....

emergence by Diana Pappas

I just had some minor surgery that corrected years of sinus problems, and this photograph is the perfect expression of how I am feeling today.

Diana Pappas is a photographer who really appreciates the beauty of Rust. Her set of rusty photographs is wonderful.

one last gasp....

Passion! by Yoshiko314

Seems like as soon as I begin to stop taking notice of the Fall colors...they are suddenly gone forever...and I long for one more glimpse. Take a look at Yoshiko314's gorgeous photo sets of Colored Leaves. Her annual series of minimalist foliage photography is really beautiful work.

a poem, just because....

seed fury by C H Paquette


Washing My Face

Dawn at the kitchen sink, sunrise still
an hour off, and out the window
the birch tree's swirling: a wind through the courtyard's
done it, stirred the loosening leaves
among dozens of goldfinches frantic
in its branches, feeding on the fat catkins,
and even in this soft, constant mist of rain
the tiny petals, nearly iridescent, glitter
as they fall, a snow of shed skins annointing
the phalanxes of blown irises and the black cat, Lily,
who rises through it all
to take the most careless finch,
just as the rest of the flock, as one - a wedge
of child-sized feathery fists - blinks
from the limbs and vanishes
down the canyon wall
even before Lily hits the ground, before
the column of water fallen from the faucet
enters the dry, open basin of my hands.

byRobert Wrigley
from 'Earthly Meditations: New and Selected Poems'

Thanks to Fiona Robyn for sending along a favorite poem, just because....

the beauty of rust....

Yellow Rust by Ennoia

the beauty of pond scum....

Late Fall #5 by Moonchild1111