My Reluctant Return from the South Coast

Compare and contrast these two portraits.

The first is an orangutan kept captive in a zoo.

The second is me, a lab technician who has demonstrated a record of reliable attendance.

Oh wait.

One advantage I have over the orangutan is my relative freedom to get in my car and take a road-trip (whenever work and finances allow).

We hominids have done some useful things with our brains. We’ve built shelters that protect our things, our work and even ourselves from the environment. But with our usual shortsightedness, we didn’t anticipate that the subliminal hum of ballasts and the flickering hellish green cast of fluorescent lamps would drive some of us bonkers.

Every once in a while I miss the sky.

Careful observation has revealed that in our universe, generally, everything is progressing from order to disorder. But there are lots of eddies - places were energy gets sucked into swirling vortexes - where, briefly, order can arise from disorder. Everyday, most of us make some small contribution to order, but we are inefficient, and the order we create costs dearly in resources and energy. Our biggest product appears to be waste.

It may be a side effect of getting older, but it is hard to keep hoping that something good is just over the horizon.

It feels like a storm is coming.

Even so, when presented with a dense, dark forest, we continue to hack our way through the underbrush and take stabs at cutting out our own spaces and trying to make something we think is beautiful. (Of course when I say ‘we’ I mean somebody besides me, because I’m pretty sure I haven’t made any beautiful gardens.)

Cape Arago - Shore Acres - Seasonal Garden

Cape Arago - Shore Acres - Seasonal Garden

Over the course of my life, I’ve occasionally tried to keep various fish alive in water filled glass tanks. It always seems that something goes out of balance, and by the time I recognize it, it is too late for the fish.

The lesson I suppose is that once one starts a garden, it is crucial to monitor it and maintain it.

I have no illusion about road-trips being some kind of escape into the wilderness. They’re not. I utilize an extensive system of roads and trails. I carry with me sophisticated equipment for survival. I eat packaged foods that are safe and sometimes even nutritious. It’s clear to me that I’m not exactly a free, self sufficient mountain man.

So I guess what road trips do for me is remind me that our hard or tedious jobs, red tape, bureaucracies, and FDA audits are the gardens we’ve made to protect us from the heartless and harsh economy of the wilderness.

North Spit – Coos Bay

Approaching the last vestiges of wilderness puts us in touch with the natural garden that shaped us.

North Spit – Coos Bay

Stern section of New Carissa – North Spit – Coos Bay

We can be reminded of lessons the ocean taught us…

…how wind and waves have formed us. . .

…how evolving brains have brought us the phenomenon of self consciousness and self reflection…

…to learn the rhythm of the tide…

…and explore an instant of geologic time…

Devil’s Punchbowl – Devil’s Punchbowl State Park – Oregon Coast

This Week's Song explores some of the possible consequences of continued short-sighted gardening.

The Japanese Garden @ Portland, Oregon

I should probably begin by telling you that about the only plant I’ve ever managed to successfully grow was a Chia Pet, so you can imagine that gardens and gardening are somewhat of an impenetrable mystery to me.



On the left is an example of Mt. Hood National Wilderness (From the Ramona Falls trail. See http://thenarrativeimage.blogspot.com/2007/05/ramona-falls-trail-super-sized-part-two.html). On the right is an example of Portland Oregon’s Japanese Garden. While I personally find both scenes beautiful, there are several aspects about the garden scene that show evidence of human tinkering. Some of the obvious signs are a human constructed concrete artifact, groomed bushes and trees, and a preponderance of plant varieties seemingly chosen for aesthetic purposes.

Just for the purpose of comparison, this corn is an example of a garden designed for the efficient production of a food crop. Curiously, I find this scene aesthetically pleasing also, but did not find any growing at the Japanese gardens.

It is tempting to get carried away and insinuate that the designed gardens are easy to recognize because of their obvious order.

But in the biggest garden of all, we often see that order and disorder go hand in hand. Great swaths of habitable ecosystem are swept away in the blink of an eye. A new niche is provided for some other opportunistic species (and if there are any favorites, it would appear to be the beetle family).

Japanese Garden - Portland, Oregon - Admission gate

After paying eight bucks to get in, I walk past the guardian lions and take a look at the Welcome Brochure I’ve been handed. The brochure informs me that, “Eastern symbolism challenges the visitor to reflect and be open to varying interpretations of sights and sounds.” Keeping this in mind, I take a second look at the guardian lion, and as the brochure suggests, I try to take a moment to feel the Garden’s mood of peace and harmony. The lion’s expression seems none too peaceful and I imagine it softly growling at me, “Stay on the path or this globe I’m standing on might as well be your left testicle.”

Japanese Garden -Portland Oregon - Strolling Pond Garden

It’s an overcast day so I set the White Balance on the Rebel to the cloud symbol. This may have been a mistake because later I will see that most of the pictures have an artificial looking warm yellow-green tint.

Japanese Garden - Portland Oregon - The Natural Garden

See what I mean?

Japanese Garden - Portland Oregon - Strolling Pond Garden

I thought the red in this tree would make a good complement to the predominate greens everywhere else. While I was trying to make the picture, I was also thinking that it would be nice (though not possible) to sit under this shaded canopy for awhile with a quality beer or two, watching the endless line of tourists stopping to pose on the moon bridge to have their portraits captured.

Japanese Garden - Portland Oregon - Authentic Moon Bridge

Here I try desperately to get some believable green colors, but end up using Photoshop’s watercolor filter instead.

Japanese Garden - Portland Oregon - Strolling Pond Garden

The water in the pools was muddy and unsettled. It provided good cover for the Koi until they neared the surface. At first, only a slow moving golden glow would diffuse through the suspended silt, like a distant lantern in the fog.

Japanese Garden - Portland Oregon - Strolling Pond Garden

I spent some time just watching the primitive looking fish moving in their world of water, patrolling the bank in front of the visitor benches just in case some of the bipeds proved to be illiterate (Please don't feed the Koi! - Throwing coins prohibited!) with a pocketful of crumbs. I thought about surfaces and boundaries, ripples and reflections, all between worlds and points of view.

Japanese Garden - Portland Oregon - Sand and Stone Garden

Maybe the attraction of gardens is that it gives us the illusion of control and a chance to feel like co-creators – super-hero sidekicks – helping to order and direct various manifestations of life.

For more information about the Japanese Garden, visit their website at: www.japanesegarden.com