I knew a guy once who couldn’t figure out the difference between Christian months and Islamic months–and he damn near lost his life. I wrote a novel about it: Tangier Gardens, try it then buy it @ https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv
Every year in the Christmas season, I refresh with Nutcracker Suite—the more traditional librettos of Tchaikovsky’s great work. It takes me on a ride, a light and joyful ride.
That ride on the dancing, story and music is special. Music can by itself take us on a ride. And so can the landscape.
The greatest national parks in the US and around the world can take us on a ride. I’ll leave the definition of ’taking a ride’ to the readers. Clue: it has nothing to do with mechanical vehicles.
I’ve always felt that the landscape and garden work of landscape architects should be able to take the user on a ride. Like music, like dance, like poetry. Romantic poets, centuries ago, took that ride in nature. Why can’t the work of today’s landscape architects offer that ride to users? Am I dreaming?
Just for a moment… while you still have time… where does your knowledge come from?
Put aside your scientific understanding about the formation of clouds and fog… and consider this image.
Explore. The image is no clearer than your understanding of what you will find hiking into this valley. This was one of the Alpine experiences of Byron, Goethe, Tolkien and Franz Hartmann.
Who is Franz Hartmann? And why does it matter? He wrote “The Foundation of Christian Mysticism”.
Occult is an interesting throw-away domain. It is like a trash can in the science and philosophy labs where everything, that doesn’t quite fit the ‘accepted’ science or philosophy, is dumped.
Franz Hartmann wrote biographies of Jakob Böhme and Paracelsus. He drew links between the past and present.
He was of the day (b.1838, d.1912) when doctors were theologians because in medicine, doctors encounter the unexplainable. And theologians deal all the time with those things unexplainable. So we end up with a theosophical trash can of unexplainables. And those things, the unexplainables, become the reason why we have faith.
As 2024 begins, do not forget to question your sources of knowledge.
A curious geography, historically active with pirates, djinns and easy paths to drug use…
A strange place for an American college student to do his term abroad design study.
But Christopher Janus was fascinated with the Med, its sun, beaches and the Moroccan pedestrian towns and markets. CJ chose Tangier.
Read his flash fiction stories Thunderstruck, Steganophonic Streetlife and Cthulu 2000. Share his strange experiences in his series of 40 flash fiction stories entitled, Curious Tales.