When I knew that the gardens were going to be mine, I knew that I wanted one of them to be my zen space. I knew that I wanted it to be the space that my office opened on to – if only through a window – I knew I wanted it to be Japanese influenced.
That much I knew.
In my mind it would be a sand and rock garden. It would be raked gravel. There would be mossy stones.
In its first incarnation, that isn’t quite how it looks.
While it was being created there were things about it that I adored…and still do…but even while it was being created, I could see things happening that were not in line with my idea for this space. There were too many plants going in for one thing. And the old plants, the over-growing things that I felt did not belong and were to have been, I’d been told had been, up-rooted, dug out or killed off…well, they were having none of that. They were here to stay.
I thought I would spend all of my time in that space, but in my first month in the gardens, I scarcely stepped over the threshold. When I did, I wandered around, pruning, photographing. Occasionally I would sit, but not for long. I had a confused notion that it would be a peaceful place in which to read or to write. Of course, it isn’t. It’s a zen space. Reading and writing are work. Or they are distracting. They are not zen.
The first time I really sat in the space, purely for the point of sitting in the space was exactly one month after I moved into the house. I took ‘stuff’ into the space with me. My camera, my journal, a glass of wine. The camera was used. The wine and the journal came back indoors, later, untouched.
I discovered things.
I learned that the main seat, under the wisteria, was so high that I could swing my legs as a child would do. If I did so, I’d crash through the bamboo screening under the seat. Actions and consequences. I decided that the screen was femmer anyway and would not last forever. I’d give it a chance though and would save leg-swinging for later. I learned that if I closed my eyes and listened, I could hear the leaves talking. That was the only sound that afternoon in that part of the garden. The wind and the wisteria conspiring. I learned that I liked sitting with my eyes closed, just listening.
The biggest thing I learned though, was that the month I had spent looking at the zen garden from the outside in, was not me not appreciating it. After all, I had been looking, I had been taking pictures, I had been walking around, tending where tenderness seemed needful. I just hadn’t been sitting. I was not neglecting the space. I wasn’t unappreciative of it. I was giving it time. I was allowing it space. I was waiting to see what it would become. I was letting the plants and the ground, and the sunlight, shade and wind and rain decide which plants belonged there and which would either die back or ask to be moved elsewhere. The jury is still out on that, but I think I know.
Interestingly, most of the ones that are certain to remain, are the legacy plants…the ivy, the wisteria, a ramble-rose, the bay, a couple of unidentified plants that I’ll find names for eventually.
The bamboo has taken a hold, and I’m still hopeful for the jasmine. The Gunnera is fighting for its life. We will see if it survives. The acers, I’m likely to move. I hope they’ll hold on till the spring, then I’ll find somewhere more suitable.
The ground is shingle and flint. Shades of grey that are muted and calming. The dry-river was lovingly constructed, but I wasn’t told, and I should have known, that it would need to be reconstructed daily, as the birds dug and the night-visitors snuffled.
After that first afternoon, one month on, I wondered if what I had was a zen space at all, so I looked it up. A zen space, I discovered, is any space that you construct or devise or furnish or designate with the intention that zen shall be its function. It is a space in which to be calm, to listen, to feel, to not-think, to wait, and then…only then…to see.
One of my friends has repeatedly asked me as the renovation of my new home has continued “is it how you imagined?” And I have repeatedly said “No.” When I look around at this place that is becoming my home, I realise that none of it is how I imagined. It is all so much more than I could possibly have anticipated.
And I know that none of it is frozen in time. It will settle, it will grow, it will change.
My zen space is at one with that. It is less Japanese than I intended it to be – and at the same time it is probably a lot more zen because of that.
