When Nature is the Grander Focal Point

No matter the grandness of a Garden Design, below, Nature always outshines.
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More than fall color, the trees bathe the grand statue, owning it.  Makes me smile.
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Recognize the garden, below?  Versailles.
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Went to Versailles summer 1976 with my parents.  For dad just another NASA business trip, a bit more exotic than Huntsville, AL to work with Wernher von Braun, or at a base in California with the Department of Defense.  This trip was with the European Space Agency, ESA, Germany, Holland, Belgium, France for this trip.  ESA was working with NASA on the Space Shuttle payload avionics systems.  NASA, boring, but it was interesting to see the scaled mock-up of the Space Shuttle payload while in France.  With personal tour by its director, and the man dad was there to meet with.  We had been to dinner & a show at the Lido in Paris the night before, where the French Director of ESA sat across from me at the table.  A sexy man, very George C. Scott in Patton, he spoke perfect English, and kept my champagne glass full, every time he saw my parents heads turned.  Yes, liked this man.  I was 16, my first champagne.  George C. Scott wanted me to meet his son, Please come to our home tomorrow for dinner.  A little more to the story, but it was obvious my parents were out of their element.  They made 'excuses' and we exited Paris, without their hospitality.
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Those excuses made at the mock-up of the Space Shuttle payload.  George C. Scott trying his best to get me to his son.  Damn.  My experiences with NASA different from most.  My 1st job was at NASA, won't go into the rabbit hole now.


Pic, above, here.


 
Pic, above, here.

We stayed a couple of nites, while dad was working with ESA in Paris , within walking distance of Versailles, at the Trianon Palace hotel, above/below.



Pic, above, here.

After my daylong visit to Versailles, palace & gardens, I was exhausted.  Something happened to me in the gardens of Versailles.  Walking back to the Trianon, above,  there was a cool patch of woods, at right in photo, with a few wood framed chairs strapped with canvas.  No air-conditioning in the hotel, mom/me decided to sit/rest in the woods for a bit.  I sat, and next thing I remember is waking up about an hour later.  Sixteen years old, I was wildly embarrassed, napping in front of mom.


 
Pic, above, here.

We had a corner room at the Trianon, with views of the courtyard, and woods.  Our room had large windows facing the courtyard, not the tiny window, above.  The bathroom in our room, as Toddy in Victor/Victoria so well described was, A religious experience.
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Pic, above, me, Tara Lee Sayers, shot by my mom, summer 1976, in garden at Versailles.
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During my day, above, in the palace/gardens of  Versailles.  Until that day, had never experienced such moments of Being Alive.  Too young to know what the feelings were didn't stop me from their thrill.  Who knew, creating a garden, such as Versailles, was something one could do?
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There isn't a layer of Garden Design that isn't Alive to me, after several decades.  Never, to this day, once I'm within the 'work' of designing a garden do I not get lost to being on this Earth.
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When Joseph Campbell says those types of moments are Eternity here.  I know it to be true.
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Garden & Be Well,  XO T
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“Eternity isn't some later time. Eternity isn't even a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now that all thinking in temporal terms cuts off.... the experience of eternity right here and now, in all things, whether thought of as good or as evil, is the function of life.”

― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth