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Amazing, the things they do not teach you in school.
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Focal point bench, below. Sitting in the bench, you must create a focal point in the opposite direction, bottom.
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Got it?
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Do it.
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Garden & Be Well, XO T
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Pics from Ben Bentreath.
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And most think Garden Design is some sort of voodoo, its practitioners thinking up la-ti-da maybe this/maybe that a bit here a bit there. Nope. Garden Design is pure templated known geography zero recreating the wheel its mechanics laid bare for all the world to see. See. Therein lies the problem. Pure seeing. My best epiphanies about garden design came years after looking, not seeing. The map is not the territory. Gardens that do not satisfy are exactly drawn from the known map. Beautiful gardens expose the territory here, and other realms. Want that? Get you some. Bemused I am about how befuddled I was before seeing the territory, trying to follow the map.
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Best compliment ever, recently. A Canadian client said I was PECULIAR. Ok, thank you. In truth it's peculiar to me, trying to live by the map. Been there done that. Once you hop off the map, into the territory of your life, there is no going back. Why would you? Got it? Do it. Want it? Get it.
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Warning. Not for the faint of heart. Leaving the map, for your territory, is exactly where the ancient mapmakers, before knowing the world was round, foretold at map's edge, Beyond this point there be dragons. Remember the dragon, breathing fire at all who would take his virgin girl. Every scale of his hide a 'Thou shalt not'. That fact is living according to your life's map. Killing that dragon is living in your life's territory. Got that?
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From, In the Field,
"The privelege of a lifetime is being who you are.
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What you have to do, you do with play.
Life is without meaning.
You bring the meaning to it.
The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be.
Being alive is the meaning.
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The warrior's approach is to say "yes" to life: "yea" to it all.
Participate joyfully is the sorrows of the world.
We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.
When we talk about settling the world's problems, we're barking up the wrong tree.
The world is perfect. It's a mess. It has always been a mess.
We are not going to change it.
Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
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We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.
If we fix on the old, we get stuck. When we hang onto any form, we are in danger of putrefaction.
Hell is life drying up.
The Hoarder, the one in us that wants to keep, to hold on, must be killed.
If we are hanging onto the form now, we're not going to have the form next.
You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs.
Destruction before creation.
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Out of perfection nothing can be made.
Every process involves breaking something up.
The earth must be broken to bring forth life.
If the seed does not die, there is no plant.
Bread results from the death of wheat.
Life lives on lives.
Our own life lives on the acts of other people.
If you are lifeworthy, you can take it.
What we are really living for is the experience of life, both the pain and the pleasure.
The world is a match for us.
We are a match for the world.
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Opportunities to find deeper powers with ourselves come when life seems most challenging.
Negativism to the pain and ferocity of life is negativism to life.
We are not there until we can say "yea" to it all.
To take a righteous attitude toward anything is to denigrate it.
Awe is what moves us forward.
As you proceed through life, following your own path, birds will shit on you. Don't bother to brush it off.
Getting a comedic view of your situation gives you spiritual distance. Having a sense of humor saves you.
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Eternity is a dimension of here and now.
The divine lives within you.
Live from your own center.
Your real duty is to go away from the community to find your bliss.
The society is the enemy when it imposes its structures on the individual.
On the dragon there are many scales. Every one of them says "Thou Shalt."
Kill the dragon "Thou Shalt."
When one has killed that dragon, one has become The Child.
Breaking out is following your bliss pattern, quitting the old place, starting your hero journey, following your bliss.
You throw off yesterday as the snake sheds its skin.
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Follow your bliss.
The heroic life is living the individual adventure.
There is no security in following the call to adventure.
Nothing is exciting if you know what the outcome is going to be.
To refuse the call means stagnation.
What you don't experience positively you will experience negatively.
You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path.
Where there is a way or path, it is someone else's path. You are not on your own path.
If you follow someone else's way, you are not going to realize your potential.
(note: this is what the Holy Grail is all about... not some cup --dv)
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The goal of the hero trip down to the jewel point is to find those levels in the psyche that open, open, open, and finally open to the mystery of your Self being Buddha consciousness or the Christ.
That's the journey.
It is all about finding that still point in your mind where commitment drops away.
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It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life.
Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.
THe very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for. The damned thing in the cave that was so dreaded has become the center.
You find the jewel, and it draws you off.
In loving the spiritual, you cannot despise the earthly.
The purpose of the journey is compassion.
When you have come past the pairs of opposites, you have reached compassion.
The goal is to bring the jewel back to the world, to join the two things together.
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The seperateness apparent in the world is secondary.
Beyond that world of opposites is an unseen, but experienced, unity and identity in us all.
Today, the planet is the only proper "in group."
You must return with the bliss and integrate it.
THe return is seeing the radiance everywhere.
Sri Ramakrishna said: "Do not seek illumination unless you seek it as a man whose hair is on fire seeks a pond."
If you want the whole thing, the gods will give it to you. But you must be ready for it.
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The goal is to live with godlike composure on the full rush of energy, like Dionysus riding the leopard, without being torn to pieces.
A bit of advice given to a young Native American at the time of his initiation:
"As you go the way of life, you will see a great chasm.
Jump.
It is not as wide as you think."
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Joseph Campbell & Bill Moyers, "JOSEPH CAMPBELL AND THE POWER OF MYTH
Ep. 4: Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth — ‘Sacrifice and Bliss’
In the fourth episode of The Power of Myth, Bill Moyers and mythologist Joseph Campbell discuss the role of sacrifice in myth — including a mother’s sacrifice for her child — and the need for all of us to find our sacred places in the midst of today’s fast-paced world. In this clip, the two discuss where heroism can be witnessed in modern society.
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Watch, or read the transcript, here.
2 comments:
"Peculiar" sounds good. I'm known as "quirky" and a "misfit" by others who are closer to me. Design is peculiar, especially when it isn't forced creativity and artsy-ness. Making it all work together is odd to many.
Once again you've given us something so crucial to plan and design around: a double axis/focal point. Thank you! Brenda
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