Tag Archives: Interlaken

Mysterious Witch…

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Mysterious? What are you talking about?

Background:

I enjoy exploring the details of landscape and gardens. 

Hamamelis mollis = witch hazel is now in bloom everywhere in the colder areas of the northern hemisphere.

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

Xmas lingers…

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Christmas doesn’t.

Xmas tree labyrinth–don’t they know it’s February!

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

2024

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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

THE ESSENCE OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

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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.

My Secret Pleasure

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My secret pleasure? I find it when I see clouds forming and escaping from the mountains.

  • clouds

When the temperature, humidity and barometric pressure are amenable, I can see the mountains breathing.

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This pleasure from nature, the landscape, the topography, the plants…that is the heart of CJ’s discoveries in my novel, Tangier Gardens, where the student becomes mesmerized by the northwest Africa landscape and Tangier gardens. Interested? Buy the book.

Want to know more? Join my email list–discounts and more.

Thank you

Butterscotch–once again

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It is that time of year.

It’s here. There is no doubt.

What’s this?

It’s the autumn.

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.

Awed

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I can not turn away from my evergreen source of inspiration. It is a landscape that continuously surprises me with its overwhelming awe, its raw power and a beauty that leaves me speechless —harmonic beauty. And it always makes me ask questions–about transportation infrastructure, water resources, land management. I love it. Refreshing it is.

The big, broad spreading beech. These are very uncomfortable times. Do I fight or become a medical experiment? We all have that choice, or do we? I take walks–and I find shelter–like this beech tree on a river bank. It says shelter. Relief. Relief? Relief from what? Why do I need shelter? Twenty months of health statistics anomalies. And I haven’t seen anyone collapse on the street since that Wuhan play actor almost two years ago. Yet everything I read or see on TV says I should be part of big pharma/political experiments. Yeah, I need relief. And yeah, that beech tree offered it. I looked long, hard and lovingly at that strong beech and its broad spreading protective canopy. I felt the shelter; and for a long moment I felt relief from the non-stop tyrannical tensions.
I pushed on. I walked further and further and became awestruck. A landscape vista worked its magic on me. The beauty so overwhelmed that I needed to sit. Dizzy with beauty I had become. More relief–this time with inspiration.

Romantic landscape? Definitely. Evergreen inspiration. Evergreen succour.

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.