To be fair, it really was quite an excellent garden path. It was an orchid garden, where people go to admire orchids. I fancy myself a lady who would fit in the Heian court (I conveniently ignore the misogyny and lack of plumbing of the era) and who should sit around and do things like admire orchids and write haiku on beautiful paper. The orchids were not in bloom. There is a reason Rumi said to come to the orchid in spring. (Then again, he may have actually said "come to the orchard in spring. Either way, it's not spring.) Also, outside the park, a dog with a large amount of hair manged away to scabby skin was lying motionless and panting its last. I walked by a dying dog to enter an orchid garden.
Garden without blooms,
At its door, a dying wretch
Abandoned by all.
All the gates through the garden paths have this bump to prevent spirits from crossing, because spirits can't step or levitate over small obstacles? For all the fearsomeness of spirits, it seems remarkably easy to foil them.
 |
With sometimes other amusing signs.
We are a garden
With plants and birdsong
Moving through us like rain.
~Rumi
 |
| Banana trees! It's like Tanzania. |
The garden has restaurants tucked into various corners, including a tea house. With traditional teas! And people playing go! We drank tea and ate flower pastries and discussed life. It was lovely.
Flower tea jelly like pastry cake things!
 |
| Chrysanthemum tea cakes. |
 |
| Rose tea cakes. |
 |
| Orchid tea. I admired the orchid. I WILL admire an orchid here. |
Sheltered from suffering
An exquisite interval
With talk, tea, and cakes.
No comments:
Post a Comment