Every farm, every pasture, often on the edge of town, in this Jungfrau region has a walnut tree, almost as ubiquitous as apple trees. That should tell you something about regional climate and history of local scale life and agriculture.
…spring frolic…a young light yellow mustard swaying in the breeze and an airy, sweet walnut green…together they dance and sing. Can you feel it? If not, go out in your own neighborhood and discover it.
I can’t deny how much this scene enlivened me. And I can’t deny that I share that enlivenment with my character, CJ, in Tangier Gardens.
In Tangier Gardens, CJ discovers for the first time, the enlivenment emanating from plants. Unfortunately, the landscape about him, assaults him, challenges him. How do these opposing forces re-align CJ and his goals?
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.
Credit this marabout photo to JeanClaudeLatombe. latombe@cs.stanford.edu
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:
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.
We all have to take hard decisions in our lifetime.
1943 or 2001?
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?
Looking for something? First job? New job? The last time I was looking for a job…
Looking for something? Need to put food on the table?
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.
Did I hear something?
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.
Botany–the ethnobotanical threshold.
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.
CJ was coming of age and he was lost. He had wanted to get absorbed in a different culture. The labyrinth had captured him. In his despair he turned to his oldest friend, a girl with whom he had been growing for the past six years. And she became his strength. Though separated from CJ by thousands of miles, she lit his path to clarity.
Tangier Gardens. Launching March 2022. Notification of details and discounts here.
CJ had visited Morocco once before. A long time ago . He was with his Mom. And he was only six. They spent three months on the beaches of Essaouira; but they never visited Tangier.
Now 20 years later he was on his way to Tangier. He thought he knew Morocco.
Geographic information science says life is raster and even if you make it vector, the closer you examine the more it becomes raster–so we do our best.
Can you see it on the images? Snow is white, forest is black. Where is the ‘snow line‘?
We don’t have those North American attention grabbing sugar maples or even their cousins around here.
Rising out of the butterscotch sea. From the lower valley pastures to the mid mountain mixed deciduous and evergreen up to the near mountain summit pure coniferous forests. Autumn calls.Some might say how drab! Yellows and browns. C’mon man. But honestly…these yellows and browns in our landscape offer something more…a flavor…a sweetness. A pleasurable sweetness. A lasting enjoyment that comes…from a flavor to a taste…to become softly in our ear…a kind word. Extrasensual.I like it–like a butterscotch candy…the flavor lasts and lasts.
