take steps along a path toward discovering the regenerative existential cures to be found in plant dominated environments such as gardens and landscape.
Or, on the way in?
CJ was trying to graduate but in Tangier Gardens, he didn’t know if he was on the way out or on the way in. Read a free Amazon sample of my novel via a safe, clean, secure and direct link @ https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv
Who weeps at the coming of spring?
Exploring plants, landscape, design and cultures… that is what CJ is all about. See how he got started in my novel, Tangier Gardens. Read a free sample @ https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv
Mysterious? What are you talking about?
Background:
I enjoy exploring the details of landscape and gardens.
Yesterday I was walking outdoors and discovered this Hamamelis mollis hybrid in glorious winter flower. I checked for a scent and enjoyed a light but gently intoxicating fragrance. Hamamelis? Common name = witch hazel.
Why witch and why hazel? Answers online and in books inconclusive and vague. Not a hazel and nothing to do with witches.
And the fragrance, nobody in the home-grown-health, medical or perfume communities could define or replicate that witch hazel scent. Check it yourself.
So where do I turn?
I, a novelist, have created a protagonist in my image—obsessed with landscape, gardens and plants. In my novel, Tangier Gardens, the protagonist, CJ, explores in Morocco the landscape of northwest Africa as well as the gardens and plants of Tangier.
You can sample his story for free @ https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv
When the fog and clouds are getting to be… too much…
That is exactly what happened to CJ in Tangier Gardens, he sought clarity. He needed a little sunshine.
Buy my book @ https://amzn.to/3HLrtyv
Winter tree model for paper-cutting, scherenschnitt
Ice: winter cold
CJ spent so much time on the Tropic of Cancer in Arabia that he desired the cold of winter; but as a youth in Tangier Gardens, he didn’t know that was in store for him.
Buy the book and find out how it came about @ https://bit.ly/3SIAfma
An apple a day keeps who away?
The doctor?
That pesky author of Tangier Gardens?
If you want to keep that author away, buy Tangier Gardens @ https://bit.ly/3SIAfma
By the way, that image? The mature apple tree in winter. There is always hope.
Promises not kept.
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?
Dreams by the author of Tangier Gardens, buy the book @ Smashwords: https://bit.ly/3SIAfma
Had your fill of 2023??
Brighten up. Re-charge!
Find the most efficient, accessible and best way to re-charge in 2024.
That is what CJ discovered in my book Tangier Gardens. The ebook is on sale, 75% off!!
TODAY ONLY @ Smashwords, here: https://bit.ly/3SIAfma
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.
As did CJ in Tangier Gardens, on sale, 75% off, til 2023 year’s end. Buy it @ Smashwords: https://bit.ly/3SIAfma
Landscape Architecture makes the benefits of nature’s prescription accessible to all, regardless of belief, politics, sociology, economics, sensual deprivation, age or gender. Take a walk with me in this snowy forest path image, or in Tangier Gardens where a student, CJ, first realizes the essence of landscape architecture.
