Is it new or is it always there?
Don’t we all feel joy at the unfurling of the leaves and flowers with the coming of spring?
What happens on that spring path through the forest?
What is that beauty to the eyes? In the air?
Does it emanate from the plants?
How does it make us feel better?
Take the walk. Find out for yourselves.
And it happened to CJ. In Tangier Gardens.
He describes it. Read about the joy.
In my novel, Tangier Gardens, CJ completed his term abroad design study by assembling a series of short stories documenting his unusual Moroccan landscape interactions. He learned about marabouts from at least three different sources. Trying to understand marabouts began CJ’s downward spiral. This is how he describes his learning experience. This is not a fantasy. It was CJ’s real life in Tangier.
For CJ the landscape had always been his muse…until he settled in to Tangier and the north west African landscape. The shape shifting began when he first learned about marabouts. It wasn’t marabout shape shifting, it was landscape shape shifting. Where was CJ’s landscape muse?
But according to Wikipedia, marabout definition is a bit short of the breadth I learned in my over two years living in northern Morocco. Wikipedia says:
Marabout means “saint” in the Berber languages, and refers to Sufi Muslim teachers who head a lodge or school called a zāwiya, associated with a specific school or tradition, called a ṭarīqah “way, path”. A marabout may also refer to a tomb (Arabic: قُبّة qubba “dome”) of a venerated saint, and such places have become holy centers and places of pious reflection.
But what I learned is that each marabout has its own story that changes over time. Let’s let CJ recall his second marabout story. To read CJ’s first marabout story follow this link.
I had wished only to get home, back to the US. But my experience at the Ramadan Kareem Party and on the way back…confusion all around me. Dreams? Realities? Realities made no sense. Nowhere to hide. This had been like teeps with super powers. Powers that shape shifted realities. That evening was like a carnival ride in a fun house–no beginning, no end–a psychological fun house; and I was falling off the rails on the fun house train.
I’d had enough. I thought I was attending a friendly social event. First Bree, then Harlequin and his albino brother, then Zainab, then the mad chanters. No, no, no! Cross-cultural bullshit, over the top.
Somehow, I got back to my flat. I had ended up in some place where reality overpowered the nightmare. Where reality became worse than the nightmare. Sidi Hamete knew what to do.
This story got so dark that I still hesitate to daylight all the details. I turn to my diary entries to aid my rather chilling recollection.
Beside me, on my bankette, Sidi Hamete was sitting crosslegged, cradling my head on her lap. She was telling me about ohrwurm, and how, once it is encountered by anyone, a weakness is implanted. That was the most I had ever heard her talk.
“What?” Stunned, I was stunned.
She said, “Magreb geomagnetique help ohrwurm; and this region is rich in geomagnetique.
“Ohrwurm eat discipline of host. Make them susceptible to immoral, unethical, danger, and horrible death.”
Stunned and now worried, I asked,“Can I be fixed?”
“Ohrwurm weaken discipline. Ohrwurm then weaken will power. Then invite dark, invite zombie.”
I pleaded, “Please turn my nightmare into sweet dreams.”
Again I pleaded, “Can you fix me? And what about my Hand of Fatima charm, isn’t that helpful?”
“Your Hand of Fatima is for tourists, and can I fix? Maybe. The first time and again this morning I give positive marabout powers and spells to bring protection, to bring normal to your life.
“Young man you have good heart. You must learn to protect it. Your time here in Magreb has taught you lessons of the street, lessons of the Africa. Do not forget them. Protect yourself. But do not harden your heart.”
She had found me on the doorstep when she opened the front door at 5am. She knew immediately it was more of the same and worse–she walked me up the stairs. She had to clean me up. Deeply this time. I looked around.
I was clean. My clothes were off. I was covered, wrapped in large, freshly laundered, white terrycloth towels.
Around me I saw: candles, censers, mortar and pestle, a small gas burner stove, potions, and an open can of detritus, as well as a large porcelain bowl containing a moist mixture of cloths and herbs.
Sidi Hamete, looking concerned and helpful, gently put my head on my pillow as she moved to the floor and sat next to the banquette.
She continued, “We must finish this before you leave the Magreb. Once this djinn has you, it will never be vanquished. You are finished.
“Its connections are deep and everywhere. After the first time you are open, then inviting easy entry, any time, any place.”
I asked, “But is it actually a worm?”
“Yes and no. At first it is the essence of worm, subtle, alchemical. In time that essence grows and changes into dark that takes energy from your brain. Takes little by little your life. Your force. You cannot walk. You cannot move. You cannot see. You cannot hear. Maybe you can think, maybe not. The worm gets big.”
I asked, “Could this be evileye?”
Very quietly, Sidi Hamete said, “I don’t say no and I don’t say yes. I don’t say and we don’t talk.”
She continued, “Words like iron threads–fly direct to geomagnetique. Finish, okay–no more talking–now drink this tea.”
Sidi Hamete reached out with a small cup of gelatinous tea. She told me sternly, “Do not smell it. Do not think about it. Grab this cup. Drink it fully. Fast! It is for your life! Now take it and drink!”
I did!
“Fast and hard!”
Gulped it all down!
In the split seconds following, I felt it move down my esophagus and begin to settle into my stomach. Nothingness at first, then my thoughts started up again. Instead of talking, I started breathing–voluntary, controlled deep breathing. I had to gain strong control of my breathing to stop an aggressive repelling muscular action in my stomach that became a rasping noise in my ears.
The deep and strongly controlled breathing gradually settled the wrenching convulsions as what I swallowed had passed my choking esophagus, my convulsing stomach and finally moved quietly into my intestines. Then the rumbling began.
“Okay?” Sidi Hamete asked.
“Yes, but…”, I put my hand over my lower abdomen.
“That is normal. It will clean and empty, day or two, okay?” she said.
I said, “Okay.”
“Good, now just relax, and pray to your god.”
“But what did I drink…”
“You do not want to know. You do not want to ask. Be satisfied with my words. It is your own healing essence with the help from the plants.”
“…and will I be safe to go home?”
“No more questions, now sleep, my friend, before long it will be like nothing happened.”
I didn’t want any repercussions from that night. So I stayed quiet about it. But after Sidi Hamete went downstairs, back to her apartment, and in my weakness, as I laid down to sleep, when I closed my eyes, clarity briefly flashed. One realization crystallized. This entire six months had been about a battle between good and evil. Feeling ever so vulnerable, like a young child, I folded my hands to pray and whispered:
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
***
Interested in more of CJ’s landscape experiences in Morocco? Visit my Tangier Gardens Amazon book page.
In my novel, Tangier Gardens, CJ completed his term abroad design study by assembling a series of short stories documenting his unusual Moroccan landscape interactions. This is one of his stories. This is not a fantasy. It was CJ’s real life in Tangier.
Wikipedia describes Aicha Qandicha as a female mythological figure in northern Moroccan folklore.
But this wasn’t exactly describing CJ’s experience. Here’s how he told it.
Part One: We all have one
After I had the cast put on my ankle, I was immobile. My design study had gotten lost in the fog. I was desperate. I needed help. That’s when the Goblet stories began their reveal.
I learned some very unexpected things about myself in Tangier. The most intriguing occurred in October when I engaged in a disciplined chocolate and absinthe meditational cleansing. The cleansing was gentle. It revealed itself through subtle changes, internal realizations.
One morning before sunrise, I had finished the chocolate and absinthe treatment and was sitting quietly in my rooftop terrace garden when I found myself engaged in the strangest bit of internal conversation. A voice spoke to me. That voice spoke from a strange part of my head, near the inner ear or thereabouts.
It said, “Hello, my name is Goblet. I am your chalice keeper. I can help you.”
I needed help.
That was the beginning of a friendship—a kind of crystal ball friendship. I don’t know how else to describe my relationship with Goblet—sometimes there, sometimes not there. I could never be sure. But it was all built around my sense of hearing. Goblet explained the background.
Goblet told me, “There was a time when there was no such thing as white noise. Hearing always has had many configurable adjustment bands that could consciously, subconsciously, voluntarily, or involuntarily filter for hearing improvement. Then, as time passed, as environments morphed adjustment mechanisms failed. White noise and all iterative variations made hearing via air outright painful.”
Goblet continued, “For certain important messages, in order to hear them without extreme and torturous pain, it became necessary to go underwater to hear. Then finally today, resulting from the hard filters, we have so many sounds that are not understandable. It is for our safety that our ears now have a hard fixed filter that limits the sound waves we can hear. The ears’ capacity is only 15% of its total capability.”
Goblet’s historical perspective intrigued me.
Goblet added more, “That hard filter is not the only ear filter. Each of us also has a secondary filter, an intelligent, discretionary filter that is known generically as a chalice keeper. A chalice keeper is an angel—a personality with a duty to protect and to clarify that which appears unknowable in life. Chalice keepers are sexless. They pass on knowledge untainted by human vices.”
Goblet paused, weighing my comprehension, then continued, “You may wonder what is the chalice? It is the low-level network of control that regulates passage and transformations via the sensitive, multi-dimensional connection gates, the ports, the portals between sound waves, the hardware of the ear itself and the neuron transfer of sound via the nervous system in the brain. That control also includes the essential connections to the pineal glad and to the seat of intelligence in the heart itself.”
Back in the US, my world normally was a din. But while in Tangier that din expanded into a multi-layer aggressive—a confusing labyrinth.
While I was asleep, Goblet moved quickly and directly to solve what was troubling me. Goblet always found the way. Goblet found the intended destination by keen hearing.
Every time I went to sleep, Goblet could detach himself from me. Goblet could travel to the places it could never travel with me because in hours of consciousness I functioned as a restraint, as Goblet’s governor. My world fit into the constraints of time and space, while Goblet was free of those constraints. I walk through the world in 85% ignorance of what is around me. Goblet witnesses everything and is there in particular to assist me, should I choose to listen in times of stress and danger.
Chalice keepers are why most of us have magic in our ears. Goblet is why there was magic in my ears. Our ears bring us magic. They suspend time; they suspend place. They control the ports, the portals of connection to all worlds, real or imagined. For me, Goblet was active and motivated because, as a designer, I was an explorer. Chalice keepers are especially keen to help explorers. Goblet helped me. Goblet was my pass to the .
Here is how I came to understand it. Human’s gross sense organs are all severely filtered. The sense organs are limited so that the confusion of continuously multiple inputs does not overwhelm the need to act. If the human sense organs are overwhelmed, the human may become paralyzed—a sort of analysis paralysis where too many new inputs are occurring too frequently to allow for intelligent discrimination.
Goblet filters these inputs for me. Goblet hears everything as it is. Then when I am under stress, uncertain, anxious, Goblet feeds, via sounds direct to the ear, or dreams, or thoughts or ideas, the data to facilitate my discriminating and decision making. Goblet does not decide. In essence, Goblet is like a data base. Goblet filters, then feeds data to me. Then I assess those data and, via free will, decide on my own course.
Goblet is not all knowing. Goblet goes out to gather information. When I am sleeping, Goblet does this. Goblet has limits to travel. Goblet must find and arrange material conveyances while problem solving for me. For transportation, Goblet communicates most regularly with dragonflies and storks. In the scheme of things, they have a duty to facilitate the required travel of chalice-keepers. They and the chalice keepers share knowledge and information without the constraints of time or space or language as we know it.
I was obviously under duress. My attempts to come to grips with the culture of Morocco, the street scene of Tangier, while simultaneously trying to reconfigure my design study caused me ceaseless stress. My goal had not changed. I still wanted to graduate and get on with my life in the professional world of landscape architecture. But my filters were clogged. Noise had weakened me. I had become a rebel without a clue.
Goblet definitely had work to do.
Part Two: In the bled Magrebi
Sometimes all needed was Goblet helping recall what I had slept through in history or geography classes—or books or stories that I had read.
Stork, known locally among his friends as Cico, pronounced seeco, knew he was on call; but he was comfortable sleeping in his nest on the top of an old column in Tangier’s La Montagne neighbourhood. He was on his winter vacation. He liked Morocco, quiet, drowsy kind of place—mild winters—early springs.
Cico was in a languorous daze. Pleasant, he was… then he heard his name being called… he thought, “It’s one of those chalice keepers… they are generally nice… but they have a knack of interrupting my sleep.”
Goblet was eager to get advantage of a large stork—traveling with a stork was almost like traveling first class on a commercial airline—large seats, lots of room, but better. Always a smooth flight; and thus easy to absorb information.
Cico responded, “Hello, who’s this and what’s this—a ride where?”
“My name is Goblet; and with your help I need to get out and into the countryside.”
“Countryside? I can get you there. Hop on. The countryside is pleasant at night.”
Goblet liked Cico’s helpful attitude and asked, “What’s it like here? Do you find it difficult? I was with Aeshna, the dragonfly recently, and we had a horrible intrusion by young humans.”
“No, it’s not bad down here—it’s like a winter vacation. But you can’t ever be sure about human youth. Most chalice keepers down here stay home. Most all the humans are content with their mosques and their mountains—but up north in Europe it’s different. Always dissatisfied, those Europeans—always seeking discoveries, answers. So it is hard work up there. Truth is most of the storks head south.”
Goblet preferred the storks—nice smooth rides—and soft smooth personalities. Not like the dragonflies—but oh, those dragonflies were colourful, beautiful, and riding them was exciting, fast…
“What are you looking for?”
“My master needs to get the aura of the countryside and its importance to humans here.”
“I can help; but first, can you tell me something about humans?”
“Sure, what is it?”
“Why is it that humans have such a hard time understanding the good and the bad at the same time? Why do they think that death is bad? Why do they not understand that life begets food for other life and that death is inevitable? I thought you chalice keepers were to help them with these big picture items?”
Goblet, noting the old tendency among storks toward verbosity, had to push gently to get a word in edge-wise. “Humans have this thing called hope and they must nourish it otherwise they have a tendency toward self destruction. Especially when lots of them congregate, they make swirling, massive interventions on the landscape.”
“Ok, we will sort out your master. Everyone counts—one by one. In the countryside, we should visit marabouts. They are filled with human historic endeavour to discover something better in this region.”
“Marabouts—in the countryside—tell me more.”
“The marabouts in the countryside, anywhere, can shelter both good and bad djinns—or either one, or the other… you never knew if no one told you or you had never visited—and over time they change. The bad ones mislead like a rascally boy, just happy to make a fool out of you. The good ones can part the cacophonic curtain of life, granting a visitor temporary peace or provide useful direction for the visitor’s life. Sometimes the same djinn can do either, depending on the attitude, the aura of the visitor.”
“Here’s one. This marabout has a mix of Christian, Moslem and Animist roots. Even so, Christians are not allowed, though some sneak in when no one is watching. This saint bestows barak, good luck on visitors who leave their fluss, their money, and promise to become in this world servants, instead of takers.”
Goblet looked about—looked ok on the inside—Goblet had brought my thoughts and set them on a ledge inside. Goblet and Cico sat still without talking—just listening, just feeling. Then Goblet felt a chill. Both simultaneously noted the creek just outside and downhill from the Marabout window.
Cico said, “There are all different djinns—friendly djinns, nice but dim djinns, confusing djinns, threatening djinns, and djinns ready to cause bodily harm—but a creek next to this Marabout…”
Goblet and Cico looked at each other–they both knew what that meant. Aicha Qandicha— powerful djinn in this part of Africa.
Cico said, “She is always about the sources of water–she can smell the men who are strong, who are saving themselves, who know restraint, austerity…”
Aicha Qandicha could smell that masculine strength from the thoughts, my thoughts which Goblet had set down at the Marabout.
Cico continued, “She attaches herself to strong men. She craves the challenge of undermining them. She knows how to distract men with her beauty and then confuse them.”
Goblet snatched up tightly my thoughts and motioned to Cico. They sped as quickly as they could, away from the creek, up high in the air, away from the humidity that marked the area of the Marabout and the creek, hoping to disconnect from any trail my thoughts may have left behind.
Goblet hoped that Aicha Qandicha would not follow my thoughts back to Tangier. Goblet knew that the last thing I, already redlining with uncertainty—the last thing I needed were attentions from Aicha Qandicha.
***
To read more about the Moroccan landscape, visit my Tangier Gardens book page on Amazon.
New fresh spring green blades of grass and then common primroses. We are past the beginning of spring into the warm Easter colors of spring.
Let me see–how many years have I been alive?
Has there ever been a year without a glorious spring?
Of course not.
Spring inspires me to write about that existential wonder we all share. Spring is medicine that soothes the political and media attempts to agitate us all.
I just go outside and take a walk.
The best of my spring inspirations has been my first book, Tangier Gardens.
In Tangier Gardens, I explore the curative effects that plants provide to ease human existential anxieties.
The Tangier Gardens eBook is FREE today for one day only.
Finally! After a long haul.
And as an Amazon Kindle, it is FREE for the next 3 days.
Please pick it up.
If you like gardens, plants, landscapes or…
The Mediterranean or Morocco–get it now!
Every spring is a joy! So let’s cheer the warmer sunny days, fresh spring greens, dancing flowers, sweet scents–everyone of those entrancing joys.
Celebrate the first day of spring with an additional joyful special–a FREE OFFER.
For five days only around the first day of spring, I offer for FREE my debut eBook novel, Tangier Gardens. On the mesmerizing Mediterranean coast, the story revels in the discoveries of Med landscapes, gardens and plants.
On March 19, 20, 21, 22, 23–pick up a FREE copy here on Amazon.
The story?
…coming of age…
FUN READING
for students and
aficionados of landscape architecture, the Med and Morocco.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In this bildungsroman, Christopher Janus, his friends call him CJ, needs a break. He has been busting his hump full time six years at university with one more class till graduation.
CJ’s studying landscape architecture, into pedestrian towns and warm sandy beaches. For his last class, a term abroad design study, he’s on his way to Tangier, a town coincidently with sandy beaches on the Med and a historical pedestrian district, the medina.
In Tangier Gardens, the author draws upon his years of extensive experiences in the Middle East and North Africa to weave a fascinating tale of intrigue.
Just released, this fast moving novel is on a ‘Spring Joy Special’, the eBook is regularly $3.99 but to celebrate the coming of spring 19-23 March, I offer it for FREE.
What about the Berbers? Where did they come from? And how many Berber differences between the Mediterranean and the Sahara?
CJ was looking in the landscape for cultural roots.
Where do cultures originate? As CJ, Christopher Janus, encountered the diverse variety of north west Africa cultures woven through Morocco, he was mystified. He was uncertain. He lost all clarity.
What had seemed to CJ to be a simple check-the-box term-abroad design study in Morocco became dark and darker. CJ did not know where to turn. The labyrinthine medinas became his metaphoric state of mind.
A fog of failure overwhelmed him. His life was in danger. His project was down the tubes. And his graduation was in question. CJ’s dreams of the future had gone down in flames.
Then he discovered portals–plant portals. What are plant portals?
Let CJ describe them in his fictional autobiography, Tangier Gardens, set at the outset of the 21st century. His is the story of fascination and intrigue. It asks more questions than it answers. Get into it. CJ did.
In a limited time Spring Joy offer on Amazon, 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23 March 2022, the Tangier Gardens eBook, normally $3.99 is FREE. Buy it on the first day of spring! Grab Spring Joy while you can.
If you would like to be kept up to date about discounts on CJ’s portal adventures in the Middle East and North Africa as he becomes an expatriate landscape architect, sign up here on CJ’s mailing list.
Not too long ago I wrote, ‘Becoming a landscape architect is like walking an unknown path in a strange forest. You know someone has walked it before, so you have some confidence. Then the path disappears. You have to make your own path and you don’t really know where you are going. You must decide—forge ahead or go back.’
In one way or another, it is something we all face…
…a real life mystery that can be solved only with the passage of time and the taking of hard decisions.
Sixty years later, not in the Casablanca of French Morocco–but in Tangier, the international heart of Morocco–we are in Tangier Gardens.
In Tangier Gardens, CJ is immersed in an enthralling saga. He is lost in a place non-different from the haunts of Claude Rains and Humphrey Bogart; and he is disoriented. To keep his appointment with destiny, he has to take some hard decisions.
That’s just one of his many challenges. In this foreign landscape, CJ finds a culture whose roots run deep into West Africa, North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.
He wants to become a landscape architect. He has to make his own path. And the medinas? CJ, trapped in the Tangier medina, finds those labyrinthine paths full of adventure…and despair. The excitement and danger confuse what CJ had thought was a certain destiny.
Who would have thought that the only existential clarity that CJ finds in Tangier would come from the plants and gardens of eccentric British and Russian horticulturists?
So, is it Casablanca? No, it’s Tangier Gardens!
If you’re looking for CJ’s adventure and hard decisions in Morocco…in Tangier–visit my Tangier Gardens book page on Amazon.
Looking for something? First job? New job? The last time I was looking for a job…
I had an open field. I had a level playing field. But…no job.
No result. In the distance I saw a forest—a well-known forest, everyone knows it, it’s the forest known as the ‘can’t tell the forest from the trees’ forest. I’d been there many times. But I needed a job, so I walked toward it.
That’s when something strange happened. I was pushing my way through a shrub thicket between the field and the forest when I heard… it wasn’t a voice; it wasn’t music… but something in between. I paused and examined the surrounding shrubs. One caught my attention.
It was still winter, but this shrub had flowers. I had heard of it before in my horticulture classes. In Latin I learned its name—Hamamelis virginiana. But it’s common name intrigued—witch hazel. I looked deeply into the bright yellow spindly flowers. Woody citric scent that had a floating sweetness with rusty tinges. The strange sweetness pulled me closer to one flower—as I examined—I heard what I should do to get my job; but I didn’t know it yet.
Flower fragrances—can they hypnotize? That’s how I felt as I walked home. I went online to do some research. Hamamelis sp. — a lot of them—virginiana, vernalis, intermedia and a slew of hybrids in the US. And the common name—witch hazel. Witch hazel? I did more research and learned that this plant had a long history of medicinal uses—the leaves, the stems, the seeds, the bark—the list of uses was too long to follow.
That was before I saw a cross reference, a link to… I never thought about it—Druidry! The native Americans and the European Celtics—the druids—had another range of uses. Uses that never were covered in my university horticulture studies.
Before I knew it, I was deep into reading about the Hamamelis sacred tree profile and its magic, medicine, and mythology. Deep. I was in deep! Liniments, poultices, teas… and other uses smoking, dowsing, water witching and way-finding.
Way-finding caught my attention because I was looking for a way to find my next job. Was I on some kind of BS coincidence or was I really on the threshold of a new path—a new journey?
That is what I was thinking while I read more. ‘Witch hazel brings light and hope into dark places and dark times. Witch hazels help find things.’ My research told me that this shrub is important to work with if I am on a journey, seeking a new path, or trying to find my way through uncertain times.
‘Work with’ a plant? What the hell does that mean? Should I even take that seriously?
I went back outside and walked once again through the thicket of witch hazel on the edge of the forest. Without trying, I found myself next to the Hamamelis flower that, if I was to use my new language, the flower that tried to work with me.
What did I sense… something touching my heart? Time for a new path, a new job.
Writing—writing? There is a lot of time and space and energy between landscape architecture and druidry, yet both work daily with plants. As I mulled through the differences, as I examined the gulf, I saw they well equipped me to write about it.
Then I wrote Tangier Gardens. I set up CJ as a traditional landscape architecture university student who had a fondness for plants. But when he went to Tangier for his term abroad design study, he encountered experiences in the north west African landscape that caused him to re-evaluate what was the essence of landscape architecture.
CJ had to re-think the relations between human culture and the landscape. He had to rethink the existential realities that linked humans and plants.
Was CJ a landscape architect or a druid? That is for readers to decide as they follow CJ’s Tangier experience. Learn more about Tangier Gardens and CJ on my Amazon book page.
Find out about discounted ebooks by signing up here.
The inspiration that enables us to reach our goals and higher?
Tolkien started a walk that changed his life and our lives.
In 1911, when John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was 19, he travelled on foot from Interlaken to Zermatt with a group of 11 companions, and saw the Lauterbrunnen waterfalls, the Swiss Alpine peaks and the Aletsch glacier, all of which were reproduced in his own drawings in his books.
But what really started his creative fire? And what could start your creative fire?
It can’t be a package tour itinerary, can it?
It can’t be a must see bucket list can it?
If it isn’t the overwhelming beauty of the landscape.
If it isn’t the peaceful quiet of the landscape.
If it isn’t the rich bounty of the landscape.
Then what is it?
All the senses at once consumed—the path to the pineal—and then what? Inspired? How did that happen? not photos, not movies, not virtual reality—but in real life something happened to Tolkien and something can happen to any of us.
Then what was, what is it? Not only was it what he saw. But he felt something—something that inspired him to a masterful effort. We can all see it; but just seeing is not enough.
We can access that spark—but the process is mysterious. How to find that door of inspiration in the landscape—that portal to exceptional effort, exceptional achievement.
Some say the harder we look the more difficult to encounter the reveal. The reveal that refreshes.
In Tangier Gardens, protagonist CJ defined that moment of inspiration in the garden, in the landscape as a portal. A portal.
I am certain Tolkien crossed a portal in the Jungfrau landscape. After which he was never the same. He took the portal experience and over years elaborated on it and shared it through his books and illustrations.
That originating experience remains in these Jungfrau Region mountain landscapes—but not everyone finds that magic portal. Some say it is the work of the pineal gland.
Drive it? Fly it? Take the train? Ride a bike?
Walk it. In the quiet of walk the portal may more easily reveal itself. When that light shines, there is no mistaking it. Can’t be seen, can’t be heard; but communication happens—like instant trance—beyond meditation.
Read how CJ discovers portals in Tangier Gardens. Find the portals for yourself.
Take your part in one of life’s greatest mysteries.
Credits:
Multimedia–Apple Music, Photos, Motion; Affinity Photo; Wonderdraft.
Photos–by author.
