online: 20 november 2010 modified: 19, 20 november 2010 19 november 2010 sun at noon
in the Hill Garden
...i pause in an ornamental garden to eat apple cake and to write this...
...a tall woman pauses to photograph a water plant (or fallen leaves) in a rectangular pond...
...then a tall man (who walks beautifully) walks several times around the pond (about 30 metres long) and then departs...
...a beech leaf falls on the lawn at my feet... already perhaps thousands of leaves have fallen nearby
...and i can detect the odour of a shrub i can't identify... it reminds me of lavender...
...this scene, in still air and distant mist towards the horizon and long shadows from the low winter sun, with a bumble bee buzzing and another insect visiting my face, and bare branches of birch trees reflected in the glass-like water surface... all these combine to be a garden speaking beauty to anyone or to no one... the thoughtful work of people no longer here... devoted to an old but good idea... despite its artificial and enclosed nature...
...as i wrote that another woman came to photograph the same water plants... and a couple who earlier were sitting by the pond returned to sit there again on the same seat as before...
...and now i am alone and ready to wait for words or people or changes in the clouds and shadows... or else to walk myself and to look more closely at what was being photographed... and at other things...
14:29
...after walking the zigzag of a vast pergola... and plunging through a prickly sea of dead blackberry bushes outside the garden gates... i've returned to continue writing in this place that i usually avoid (it's not wild enough for me... but today i like it)...
...but now a squirrel runs past... to me it looks out of place on this unnatural terrace (composed of rectangular pavement slabs)
...last night i stayed awake till 3 am viewing videos by or about David Bohm and the last lecture of Jiddu Krishnamurti... about the beauty of death... previously i'd studied and liked the thoughts of David Bohm but knew little of Krishnamurti... but now i feel attracted to both... (despite doubts perhaps implanted by opponents?)...
...is that why previously i've disliked gardens... too reminiscent of death...
...death... which is (in Krishnamurti's view) a beautiful and fearless letting go of all one's attachments... which can continue throughout one's life...
14:55
...the air is getting warmer and clearer as we enter late afternoon... a few clouds in a pale blue misty sky (fog is forecast for most of Britain for the next few days, with light winds from the north east)... just now everything is still... the terrace and pond and distant view before me continue to speak of stillness and peace imposed on growing plants and trees... and on shifting cracking outdoor brickwork... recently repaired...
...a squirrel runs past... is it the return of the one i saw running in the other direction?... this seems to be a day for repetitions and returns... to life and death as one...
...the writer pauses...
...but to attempt theories of the whole may be unwise... (or spiritually dangerous?)
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