Tag Archives: Culture

Morocco–cultural influences

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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.

Morocco–where cultures of the Berbers, Africa, Arabia and Europe collide.

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. 

Tree

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Every so often something makes me take a photo–something?

Walnut tree–Juglans nigra

Is it my eyes, is it my heart, is it paranormal?

I don’t know. But Alfred Joyce Kilmer wrote, in his poem ‘Trees’:

I think that I shall never see 

A poem as lovely as a tree.

My photos may not be technically the best but they do have my heart in them. And I love living in the Swiss Highlands because such simple things as the beauty of a tree have become embedded in their culture for all to appreciate.

A few years back, I posted a story here entitled ‘Landscapeyness’. The title was not so accurate related to its content about trees and culture in the Swiss Highlands. The following image shares the flavor.

Forest, animals, people, nurture, rest, music, landscape…

The artwork is called Schnerenschnit.