Journeys to Portals

My speech and writing belie my too many years, decades, in the Middle East and North Africa–and my novels craft that history.

 If you are interested in ‘one step beyond’ landscape adventures in exotic geographies, then please sign up for my newsletter via Mail Chimp at https://bit.ly/3q5lcaq.

Buy my TANGIER GARDENS e-book and paperback–at SMASHWORDS here: https://bit.ly/3SIAfma

Sometimes life takes us down roads to places we never wanted to be. These are landscape stories. What makes them landscape stories? They are told by a professional landscape architect, CJ, whose expatriate international career put him in real life touch with landscape legends.  He wasn’t looking for legends—they found him.

Legends—from the Moors, from West Africa, from the Sahara, from the Golden Triangle, from the Swiss Alps, from Anatolia.

Myths? Allegories? Fables? Legends? The landscape—where an ever-vibrant blend of human life and culture thrives—one step beyond. If you haven’t been there… you have no idea. CJ went there. You should too. Get started with Tangier Gardens.

*****************************************

flahertylandscape belongs to Edward Flaherty, a published novelist and retired American landscape architect.

In life, natural things have always attracted me, so I look for them and write about them.

I am a nature lover and a landscape aficionado.

I am curious about all things green—the environment, plants, gardening, horticulture.

And because I am intrigued about the multi-cultural, mystical history of people and plants, I have lived in North Africa, Europe and the Arabian Peninsula.

So here on this website is what I have learned. My posts and books tell of landscape examples where the experiences of and the truth about portals may be discovered. This world is spectacular and inspirational.

Feeling S T R E S S E D?

Aren’t we all stressed out these days?

How to get relief? A path to relief, that is this website’s purpose.

Why the landscape?

Because it is freely accessible. Because it has always been a source of personal succor in times of stress–and now we are all under unusually intense stress.

The landscape provides access to portals. For sometimes only the briefest moment, a portal allows us to breathe. A portal allows us to feel the freedom, the peace, the inspiration we all innately desire. The portal is the most easily accessible source of basic self-help.

Think of it how you want.
The way I see it, the good Lord has provided in this creation the natural relief from our stressful conditions of life.
We have only to discover it.
Discover a portal, cross the threshold…unpredictable, unimaginable, indescribable, transcendent…all possible…

This site, this blog is all about finding paths, taking journeys in the landscape to find those portals of freedom and peace–and they, the plants, gardens and landscapes, are evergreen and freely accessible to all of us.

The Landscape Architect Series

If you are: 

-A nature lover or a landscape aficionado;

-Curious about all things green—the environment, plants, gardening, horticulture;

-Intrigued about the multi-cultural, mystical history of people and plants, then…

READ ON!

These are landscape stories, written by a fellow, Christopher Janus, who had adventures in and was inspired by the landscape.

You may ask what is the landscape? To which he would answer, “When we get out of bed in the morning and put our feet on the floor, we are in the landscape”. What? My apartment, my flat, my house, my town, my city? To which he would simply answer, “They all sit in the landscape”.

Christopher Janus, CJ, studied landscape architecture in university and graduated; but they did not teach him about landscape. He learned landscape from the hardest, most unfortunate events in his life.

“The Landscape Architect” is the title of this series of fictional autobiographies wherein CJ describes his unusual international landscape experiences and his worldwide career. The series reveals the twists and turns in his professional landscape architecture development. But the series explores further. CJ, drawing upon his fine arts history, becomes obsessed with experiences in nature and the landscape beyond the five senses. Beyond the five senses? The paranormal? You decide.

CJ chases nature, its landscape and plants to their existential roots. He describes his interactions with cultures, landscapes, gardens and plants of the world—where the unexpected and downright strange become daily facts of life.

Book One. Tangier Gardens: Out of the Classroom into Real Life…via Plant Portals. Introduced as a student of landscape architecture, CJ goes to Morocco for a term abroad design study.

Book Two. Curious Tales. Through a series of text selfies, short stories, CJ describes the unexpected landscape lessons he learned while in Morocco.

Book Three. Yenbo Palms: A Quest. After a difficult early career, CJ accepts a huge mid-career job in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with its chimeric desert sands. And a new mystery begins.

Book Four. Crystal Vision. In Crystal Vision, W Kurt Milligan, on the trail of a mystery that began in Book Three, continues his search for truth about what happened to CJ in Cairo.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Landscapes, gardens and plants are a boundless source of existential refreshment–and they are free. Ask CJ.

Who is CJ?

In my books–The Landscape Architect series–CJ tells his own story about his paths and journeys in exotic international landscapes. He has problems. He has discoveries.

Christopher Janus studied landscape architecture in university and graduated; but they did not teach him about landscape. He learned landscape from the most unusual and the hardest, most unfortunate events in his life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Want to learn more about these experiences in nature, in the landscape? Please join my email list.

28 thoughts on “Journeys to Portals”

  5. Edward, I love your blog, as well as your writing. I love the way you create through landscapes. It all pertains to life as a whole, right down to a macrocosm of possibilities. Please let me know if I am seeing this wrong, but I believe I see right where you are coming from in that, I strive to do that very thing with my poetry. I want to break down nature with all the senses. So, I must tell you how remarkably brilliant this is. To leave stories open ended is also fabulous. The human mind can take those stories anywhere. For myself, I think of it as mini vacations for people who cannot get away. I know I am going to love reading your stories. I thank you so much for dropping in and checking mine out. I am so excited about your writing, I could just burst. Thank you so much for being, and for being remarkable. Much light and Happy Thanksgiving.

  7. Thank you for the ‘like’, Edward. It’s amazing how much setting, in real life or in a short story, can impact what can occur or be told. Interesting concept. : )

  9. Mr. Edward,
    Thanks for visiting my Blog and putting your likes.
    I was amazed to see and browse your Blog and have followed it also.
    I shall come and read other posts in due course.
    I felt that a person like you who can write such beautiful articles and has such wonderful thoughts should be commenting on my Posts.
    Please do not mistake me.
    Thanks again or your visit.
    Regards
    Shiva

  13. You can unfollow someone. On your profile in the right panel, below your list of friends, there is a section called People XXX is Following. Click that heading and it will take you to a list of people you follow. To the right of each person are options to Add as Friend, or Stop Following.

  14. I like the your approach much from gardens, to … all types of interactions with the landscapes!
    I experience the landscape and write about it when it becomes embedded in me…thanks for visiting my blog – – you introduced me indirectly to your blog!

  15. I stepped away from my existential response to Grant Richard Jones above by saying I was ‘heading outside for a walk’. I am attaching an audio file which is music from the Bernese Oberland group, Edelwyss-Starnen. They sing the last verse of Mys Alpli, their alps. High in the Berner Oberland, an alp is a field, a pasture, a productive piece of mountain land where animals can be grazed. Thus in the background of this you can hear the bells of the sheep, goats and cows. These people share their love of the landscape and its animals in their music.
    [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/217597274″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”25%” height=”150″ iframe=”true” /]
    Listen to that, let it find its way from your ears to your heart–that is a walk outside. 🙂

  16. Strange that–stories without ends–strange package–like opening a wrapped present again and again without ever getting to the present. Does that say something about a life condition we all face? Oh, don’t mind me–I’m heading outside for a walk. All the best, Grant! 🙂

  19. Hi Edward!
    I love the concept and connection that you’ve made as life being a landscape in and of itself. I see much truth among the layers of it – much like an onion. Thank you for stopping by my blog! Sunny regards, Heidi

  24. Ed, thanks for pointing me to the blog. I will enjoy perusing it from time to time.

    So, this is what old retired landscape guys do when they are kicked to the curb? I wonder what old retired GIS guys will do when they get kicked there?

  25. Thanks Becky for sharing your landscape perceptions. I hope others of you do, too.

    I like Becky’s varied layer approach to landscape…mental to the real in art; and utilizing personal space for growing food…both essential in their own ways but the last–the edible landscape, in these days, is so very important.

    Becky made me think that I need to say that my landscape stories are challenging and not focussed on neo-romantic beauty and wonder…why not beauty and wonder? Well, heck most of you have that right outside your front door or at the edge of your neighborhood. 😉 Don’t need someone else’s second hand experience, right!

    I write my landscape stories like a walk through a garden, through a landscape…places that are a bit familiar but, at any given time you can, in a relaxed sort of way, just discover something, or find something fun…or awesome. Those are the landscape stories…plot secondary…characters secondary…the journey through them–primary!

    Listen, I am convinced that I don’t need to lead any reader by the nose. Each reader brings important resources on the journey through my landscape stories. In recognition of those individual resources, I provide opportunities for discovery within the many landscape threads in the stories.

    I set up the stories to have, in summary, four fundamental, discrete yet interweaving, layers of experience–sensual, emotional, intellectual and spiritual…these give a variety of entries…doors…windows, for a variety of readers into the unforeseen.

    You all can take it from there. Have fun, enjoy the reading.

    PS: As the author, I will never give you the answer. That is your challenge as a reader…exactly as it is in life.

  26. The combination of landscape, fiction, and art in your blog is fascinating and something of a mystery.

    The story of landscape in my life is a story of a longing to create art with the pallet of nature, discovering what is real, by playing with the raw materials of creation. Recently, my interest in landscape has become one of practicality…the return to the old ways, utilizing the elements of nature for more than spaces of beauty and wonder — utilizing personal space for growing food — the edible landscape.

    Whether fiction, art or practical, there is no doubt that a landscape is an influence on the lives of the people and animals in its midst.

    Blessings on your adventure.

  27. Thanks for connecting with me on Linked n. These look fascinating and just from reading the home page, touch on similar life interests… I’m a landscape designer and horticulturist, a garden writer who has been told I should also write romantic novels, have visited Morocco and Tangier, lived in the middle east and love the fusion of cultures and the places where they meet. Though I have little time for reading, this looks like something I will love.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *