How wonderful!
…After years of confusion, thinking I am scattered/focussed; intense/frivolous; nutty/sane; intrepid/fearful; cool/excitable; blunt/subtle; honest/dishonest; imaginative; conservative/ lateral; dancing to distraction/introspective; flexible/stubborn; and Overly Fascinated with — the meaning of gardens, irony, alliteration. With history, mystery, strange dark Finnish films, chocolate scrabble, idle and not-so-idle chat……..
Kevin at Nitty Gritty Dirt Man has solved the mystery, and set my mind at rest…..
………………….apparently I am VERSATILE!
Thanks Kevin for being on his list of those nominated for the Versatile Bloggers Award. I don’t know if this nomination had Capitals, but for here, I have chosen to give it some.
Anyway, here are some of the many things that I find Overly Fascinating, just on the verge of full moon early in February 2012……
The Language of Flowers….Once there were no Texts or emails and people relied on letters and words to stuff up communication between the sexes. Before that, writers claim, would-be lovers communicated their feelings with bouquets of flowers, with each flower having a specific meaning.
These bouquets were called Tussie Mussies. I can only imagine the monumental miscommunications these must have caused! A peony posy and a few dandelions misinterpreted and you could have found yourself married to the wrong man…or a woman! Or two men! Or celibate for life! Gosh! …Makes my love life seem tame really……
What inspired these thoughts? A book by Vanessa Diffenbaugh ‘The Language of Flowers’ …about love and fear and flowers. Vanessa wrote “My skin lifted under his gaze as if the surface of my body were reaching toward him without the permission of my mind.’ How I wish I’d written that!
A fine way to begin the weekend with The History of Madness in Brisbane a local history session at Brisbane Square library this Saturday…
Hmmm, I’m thinking of differing historical views of madness….
Friends Hospital in Philadelphia described madness as ‘people deprived of the use of their reason’, and treated patients with active therapeutic gardening.
Yet Sam Harris, after publication of ‘The End of Faith’, received tens of thousands of emails and letters from people of all faiths and doubt, ‘who believe that the most important moral questions facing humanity today are not able to be answered by reason.’
What about the passion of Luang Pu Boung Leua Souriat who depicted his unique vision of spiritual life in an astonishing giant size cement statue garden near Nong Khai in Thailand. Do you find this reasonable? And what of his devotees who continue to maintain his vision after his death?
And Edward Wilson’s Biophilia Hypothesis described our affinity with nature as innate, essential, part of our biology.
So maybe those who don’t regularly go into nature are in danger of madness?
Richard Louv, author of “Last Child in The Woods’, describes children who don’t spend time in nature as having Nature Deficit Disorder…
And Gardeners….what of our madness? We lose sense of time and probably reason, as we give ourselves over to the passion of gardening. We believe our plants communicate with us. We fall in love with plants, wonder where and how l they’ll fit in our gardens? But we love them, find a place, learn their needs.
Sometimes gardens have their way. They create a living work of art. This one’s at Ayutthaya in Thailand, the head of a statue enclosed within the roots of a Ficus tree.
Gardeners are taken with strange ambitious projects that consume us and make our friends smile fondly (mostly…) and maybe wonder just a little, as we confess our sudden inspiration to grow a…
Frangipani Forest ! Yes indeed. I had many frangipani cuttings, and a sudden vision overtook me! Of a colour wave of frangipanis, kept to 2 and a half metres high, a perfect canopy of fragrance and colour, their deciduousness to remind me of cooler climates, and maybe my Grandmother who grew them…. Madness? Memory? Inspiration? …Sometimes inexplicably linked.
And People with Passion ….inspire us to lateral or amused thoughts, to keep us mainly sane….
Think of visionary gleam, one of my fav bloggers, who honours plants and flowers that look like football teams. Oh, have a look at that one! Fabulously nutty!
And me so thorny……now he ‘s a funny one! But is he mad? Not in blogging world…maybe blogging is therapeutic? And if therapy is needed, is blogging madness? Oh I can see where this is heading….
Then appreciation of delicious, a blog by a Filmmaker, of things pleasing to her eye. Some quirky, amazing finds from creative talents in art, photography, fashion. Keep an eye on the progress of the author’s films, too. Think on ‘The Storymaker” and latest ‘Campers’ – Art that ‘has the capacity to generate different meanings without ever being completely consumed.’ (Umberto Eco.)
Now over the last few months, I have come to appreciate the concept that neighbours may potentially become confused when aspects of adjoining lives are glimpsed in cosy moonlit backyard…chocolate scrabble playing, idle and not-so-idle chat, pumpkin picking rituals, memorial ceremonies for my Companion Animal, practicing Modern Jive, other such fanciful-ness.
So, to avoid neighbourly confusion, I have become Overly Fascinated with…
Garden Rooms, the concept of creating private, enclosed spaces within a garden..using hedges, vines, green walls. Now I believe I read that in Germany and Switzerland it’s mandatory for all roofs that are flat to be Green Roofs, now that’s just sensible, and lovely.
My Garden Room is to be purple Honeysuckle climbing sides of a pergola, with a golden Duranta hedge on other side.
Another has begun to be walled with jasmine and passionfruit, completely climbing over this immovable
children’s fort that came with my new bare backyard. My very own Folly, complete with Ship’s Wheel.
And as there are other things in life than gardening….
I am also Overly Fascinated with…..
Becoming a versatile, playful Ceroc dancer..maybe even sultry if I can be bothered going to any workshops.
And swimming in a tidal swimming pool to cool this Summer Heat.
And making Alzira’s Russian Salad
mix together: 1 cup beetroot, cooked & sliced. 1 kipfler potato, cooked & cubed. 2 hardboiled eggs, cubed. 2 tablespoons pickled cucumber. few drops of lemon juice. approx 2 tablespoons salad cream.
and reading ‘Damned’ by Chuck Palahniuk, which begins ‘Are you there Satan? It’s me, Madison. I’m just now arrived here, in Hell……’. Hilarious, contentious. And he wrote ‘Fight Club’ too, among many others.
This has reached the tipping point of versatility…..I hope you enjoy this in several readings and tell me what you think……
The Eloquent Garden 
