Denver Botanic Gardens III- Garden, Art and Happiness

"Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace."

~May Sarton

One of the question Pastor Rick Warren challenges readers of the Purpose Driven Life is "What is the your metaphor for life?"  Mine is the garden. I don't feel out of place in Denver even though the ripe hips on the rose bush shout that I'm not in my native Southern California. Here, we are clipping away to get our autumn repeat blooms. My hunch is Denver is not going to want to encourage tender growth when the frost hits them. Neither technique is wrong as long as it is in response to the local environment.The important lesson is to thrive, our lives must adjust to where we live. 

Kizuna (Bonds Between People)- West meets East is on display through November 4th.   This view of       an art installation created just for this season is seen across a planting inspired by the artwork of the late American abstract impressionist Clyford Still. The longer I live, the less I see a line between art and the garden. To be truly be happy, one must be able to taste both. 

This  whirlwind of wooden shaving began as green bamboo. In his installation pieces, the artist Tetsunori Kawana enlarges on  the same sensitivity to the sculptural rhythm and and organic response  of natural materials as he learned in mastering ikebana- Japanese flower arranging. Of his art and soul, the artist says "Always I am listening to the Earth."

Looking up through his THE SHAPE OF FUNDAMENTAL ENERGY II,  his motionless tower  imbues the sense of circulating winds with tornadic power.  

The ubiquitous garden border, a concoction of Victorian England, breaking free of earlier rules regarding strict formality... I believe encouraged by a Monarch who truly loved her husband. Love is like that,  opening the heart to previously unknown paths to beauty.

The landscape architects used a bit of visual tom-foolery to add length to the perspective even tho'  the real estate ran out. By shortening the height of the hedge as it recedes, the perspective runs longer.

I thought this scene a nice spot to stop. To rest on a bench. To appreciated scenery beyond framed  by the opening in the latticework. This is the landscape equivalent of finely crafted lingerie peaking out from under a silk blouse. Utterly seductive.