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This pair of landscapes, below, are opposites in style, yet both have style centuries older than industrialized landscapes. What style is that? Agrarian/pastoral. More, both landscapes focus on the house and its inhabitants/guests, as proscenium and star. A sweet pairing, life is the focus, not life maintaining the landscape.
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Pic, above, here.
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Top pic appears modern, bottom pic appears historic. More, their style, appropriated to other sites, becomes new again, unique.
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Ambition and aspiration are both of great value. Yet how they are mixed, and their changing percentages given across our life, even a day, show in our material lives. Ambition and aspiration should be in the landscape, with aspiration weighted heaviest, they've made the best landscapes for centuries across continents and cultures.
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Industrialized landscapes stop at mere ambition. Agrarian/pastoral landscapes, even with a bit of industrialization tossed in, have ambition, but their aspirations are greater.
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What does this mean? 'Ambition is what we want to achieve and aspiration is who we want to become.'
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Pic, above, here.
Pic, above, here.
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Seeing agrarian/pastoral landscapes as a child, there were a few, compared to thousands of industrialized, I saw generosity of spirit, welcoming arms, a rich conversation, fun, intelligence, secrets, home, love.
Pic, above, here.
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Hedges, trees, & a meadow/gravel terrace is the trinity for agrarian/pastoral, and the new modern industrialized landscape. Be like Iris, know how you can get away with anything.
Pic, above, here.
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Grief, when it comes, I take into the garden. At least I know what the garden will do. A new grief? Never know what it will do.
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Pic, above, here.
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Your landscape should tell me who you are from the curb. If I see a photo of your patio, it must be so fabulous I have to go inside your home, and wander the garden.
Pic, above, here.
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Gardens have always been places of light and love, to me, from earliest childhood, and respite from the darkness & hate that comes in measure to all.
Pic, above, here.
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Perhaps it was not being able to have children, I never had to give her, above, up. Ever. No worries if you've never gardened this passionately, there is no age limit to start.
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Get dirty? When I garden there are bruises, blood, time ceases yet expands, hunger doesn't exist, epiphanies arrive, grief has a place to harbor for awhile, forgiveness is given but feels like a bestowal.....
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Garden & Be Well, XOT
4 comments:
Oh, I love this post!
The top picture is of John Saladino's house right near me!
I love it. It is about as far from our garden as is possible.
Our garden is growing back really quickly!
We are so lucky!
NEED TO FEED THE ROSES BEFORE THE RAIN THIS WEEKEND!!!!!!XO
Your wisdom about gardening is always sound. It's how I knew I was passionate about the garden, it was always the cure for any stress going on in my life.
xo,
Karen
As usual this is a fascinating complex post. And I was glad when you wrote: Ambition is what you want to achieve, aspiration is what you want to become. That's something for the mind to grab hold of and ponder because life sure does tempt one to focus on the achieving more than the becoming.
I adore your last picture! I'll pin her but I also may add those words to a photo on the wall near my desk, taken of me when I was about four, sitting on log steps leading up to our house. I'm wearing a chenille robe, my bare legs crossed at the knee and I'm smiling as if I didn't have a care in the world, as if my life was just the most exciting thing possible. When I taped the photo up recently I wondered what had turned that child into the terribly shy girl in elementary school and how I could get her back.
Many layered rich post, Tara,
Dewena
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