Category Archives: travel

Casablanca?

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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?

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.

AREN’T WE ALL LOOKING FOR INSPIRATION?

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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.

Music–C418-Minecraft-Volume Alpha by permission.

3D Map of Jungfrau Region by permission. 

Olives and lemons in Tangier gardens

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Liking the markets full of fresh fruits and veg?

Morocco is the place.

But is that the whole story? Take a real landscape journey.

In Tangier Gardens, CJ finds out the rest of the story. He takes that landscape journey.

More about Tangier Gardens –>here.

Olives of infinite variety and preserved lemons to die for. That is Morocco. This is a real landscape journey!

Tangier–where are the gardens?

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Original 17th century Wenceslaus Hollar view of Tangier harbour post-processed by flahertylandscape.

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.

Urban Green…600 years ago?

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Who started it?

If you Google Tangier Gardens you will find books filled with fine photos of gentrified medina homes in Marrakech, Fes, Tangier, Rabat…

CJ’s head was spinning. His term abroad study landed him in Tangier. The cross-cultural stuff came at him fast and furious. He was on a landscape journey–without end.

CJ was born in the USA but Tangier was not the USA. Back home the suburbs were all green, every house had front and backyard gardens and downtowns, every street was lined with trees and city parks were aplenty. Frederick Law Olmsted’s legacy was as far as the eye could see. But that was home.

Tangier, the medina, the kasba a town for centuries and CJ could not find one tree or even one plant.

Here is what he found–nothing–classic hardscape-only urban realm–not even a weed pushing through paving cracks. Green AWOL. But population density as high as NY City. CJ wondered is it a muslim thing–from the Koran, the Hadith–or just local Cherifs? It was another of the cultural mysteries he encountered. They kept coming like address cards in a full rollodex.

But he did learn some history of public water delivery. And CJ did learn that the urban green was hidden in the private courtyards of every riad in the medina. He found a ’smart urban green’, a small urban green, a manageable urban green, protected, quiet, hidden from public noise, hidden from public view.

CJ’s journey to discovery. Discovery? Who is CJ?

But if you are really into Tangier Gardens, the book will be launched in early 2022, sign up today–> here for details and discounts.

Sun and fun

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…for millennia…Tangier has been a nexus of Mediterranean, African and European cultures…a classic melting pot that is still on the boil.

Christopher Janus, CJ, had visited Morocco once with his mom when he was only seven–he had memories. He remembered sun and fun. Now nearly two decades later he, studying landscape architecture at university, was planning a design study term abroad. This, however was to become a different journey. The Moroccan tourism advertising was for sun and fun. That’s what he hoped for.

He had been six years full time at university. He needed a break. Sun and fun on the Mediterranean in Morocco? Great Moroccan markets in the pedestrian-only medinas? What was not to like?

When CJ crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and arrived in Tangier, the cultural complexity…the mists of cultural history…the cultural reality fog overwhelmed him. His carefully planned design study disappeared into a thickly uncertain maze. In this journey, he was blinded. He couldn’t find any portals.

His attempts to work through that maze is the basis for my upcoming novel, Tangier Gardens.

Chocolate Gardens

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KingdomMorocco1of6

…for millennia…Tangier has been a nexus of Mediterranean, African and European cultures…a classic melting pot that is still on the boil.

Readers…by now you know that my blog, flahertylandscape, is all about plants and people–landscape journeys. Sounds fair and safe enough; but what I am about to share with you goes beyond strange.

Anyone who has worked in a garden–suffered blisters and callouses in a garden for fruit, vegetables, flowers, medicine–knows there is something more in those gardens. This is for you.

A short while ago, I prepared to record the revised draft of one of my novels to perform a sentence by sentence development edit. To my surprise, as I set up a folder for the audio, I found an old 30minute .aif file entitled Chocolate Gardens.

The Chocolate Gardens tells the story of a Tangier, Morocco garden, as recorded by Christopher (CJ) two decades ago. In order to visit the garden he was required by the garden’s owners, a Brit and a Ruskie, to undergo a special ordeal of chocolate and absinthe before walking at sunset in the garden. CJ first had to visit the land of the green fairies before he could enter their Oval Garden. This is that story.

I have attached a link to a 30 min. SoundCloud file that tells that story from the early days, back when I was developing the beta version. I am moving this story forward as Tangier Gardens–out of the classroom into real life…via plant portals. Click on the SoundCloud link immediately below and listen to Christopher tell his story. [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/235419640″ params=”color=#ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”100″ iframe=”true” /]

Tangier medina portal

…but the deeper Christopher (CJ) digs into Tangier, the stranger it becomes. He can’t tell one portal from another. Entangled almost beyond hope, he walks the Oval Garden at the Hibiscus House. His way out…his way home?

This is in part a freshly edited re-post of a 2015 post I made, entitled Chocolate, Gardens and Magic, which if I might say so, was well illustrated with Art Nouveau graphics. There you can read Christopher’s Tangier garden story–his journey in search of portals.

Dancing

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What is a nature prescription? Why do you need it? Political or health albatross around your neck? A walk out past the edge of town?…just like Dancing in the Moonlight. Take a break.

Should your ‘nature prescription’ be more like taking aspirin or Dancing in the Moonlight? Take a walk in a place like this–that’s a nature prescription. Aspirin? Dancing in the Moonlight? It’s both and more. You’ve got to go beyond the edge of town or village–outside that downtown buzz–and breathe deeply–let your walls down–open all your senses. And the portals will open.