Garden Newsletter: Wabi Sabi – Flawed Beautiful
"Wabi Sabi Sunflower:
This imperfect flower… if given a voice, would care not a whit that it’s missing some petals. It’s still a flower, lovely in its imperfection."
~Coleman Alderson
According to the Old Testament, when the Lord created the heavens and the earth which would include (we presume) the Garden of Eden, then the Lord looked upon it and “saw that it was good.”
Note, there’s nothing in there about being “perfect”. So, the very first garden created by the very first Gardener was just. . . good. There’s a term for this: it’s wabi sabi.
The Japanese developed an entire philosophy about the “imperfect garden”. In this tradition, known as Wabi-sabi, we might see a perfectly manicured Zen gardener strew the “perfect” design with a randomly tossed handful of dead leaves.
The Wabi-sabi “way” encompasses the notion that, in reality, “nothing lasts, nothing is finished, nothing is perfect.” That sure sounds spot on given our gardening and landscaping experience.
Well, friends, one lesson this dirt jockey has learned is that no garden or gardener is perfect.
We’re interested in your take on the wabi sabi imperfect garden concept. You can post comments and/or photos up on our Facebook page, or send us an email. May your gardens flourish and your harvests be bountiful, and when you look upon your little Eden, may you see that it is good. Tally hoe!~ Coleman for GardensAll.com |
