By Phil Pochoda

The theme for the NAJGA August regional meeting at the Anderson Japanese Garden was Kokoro & the Gardener: Health for Spirit, Body, & Community. To be honest, I had initially discounted that title as, at best, aspirational; the kind of conference hype that pretends a coherence or, in this case, a therapeutic unity among disparate and disconnected presentations. My decade-old Japanese garden in New Hampshire and I seem to have flourished together without my knowing much about kokoro as a concept (generally defined as an amalgam of mind, heart and spirit) much less as a unifier of diverse subjective and objective practices, or even as the link between gardening and many dissimilar but related arts: more grandiosely, between gardening and self-fashioning. That all changed for me during this unexpectedly revelatory meeting.

Fortunately for me, on Wednesday, August 3 I decided to brave the forecasted and then the reality of airline flight delays and cancellations, and fly from Boston to Milwaukee, primarily, I thought, to finally view the celebrated Anderson JG, and to meet up with some NAJGA folks whom I had met only digitally through several pandemic-era zoom webinars, meetings, and a task force. Those explicit intentions were well-rewarded by the conference, but only touched the surface of what turned out to be a much deeper set of experiences. So, when days after the conference, the NAJGA manager — the indefatigable, unflappable, Marisa Rodriguez — asked me whether I would submit some impressions of the meeting for this e-newsletter, even though I hadn’t participated at the time with any writerly expectations nor with the comprehensive attention that such prior commitment might have produced, after some hesitation I agreed because the conference itself had proven so pleasurable, so provocative, and especially, so enlightening. What follows below is my attempt to provide at least some abbreviated, selective, and somewhat disjointed first “impressions” (likely including several misinterpretations!) of this meeting.

The airline issues had proven at least as bad as predicted, so I wound up spending an unplanned night near the Milwaukee airport. As a result, I missed some of the inviting “pre-conference” events the following day. The most upsetting of these losses was a much anticipated visit to the Rosecrance Japanese Gardens designed by Hoichi Kurisu (who also designed the Anderson Gardens – and many other major Gardens nationwide) specifically to be part of a recovery program for adolescents and young adults.

But later that day, I was able to visit the lovely Gallini Garden owned by NAJGA member Duane Wingate. That garden was designed in large part by John Powell who was on hand to guide us through its grounds and its impressive stone and water features whose construction he had supervised. On the same block of the same street, I also had a chance to visit one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s modest but elegant Usonian houses, the Laurent House. I found it one of the few Wright houses I fully admired, primarily, I think, because it was so clearly designed with a specific occupant in mind: — in this case a disabled person who effectively was able to make his own wishes and needs clear to Wright, and so the house avoided at least some of Wright’s usual relentless imposition of his own sensibility and preferences on the interior as well as the exterior. The sukiya-like layout of the house and garden – common to the other Usonian houses I have seen – also testified to the strong Japanese influence on Wright’s work.

In his brief opening talk and in his later remarks, Tim Gruner conveyed the underlying ideals of the Anderson Garden for which he has so superbly served as Garden Supervisor for almost thirty years. I was particularly struck by Tim’s generous concern for all the garden staff and visitors — and for all the NAJGA conference speakers and attendees – further examples of the Garden’s whole-hearted commitment of service to others; or, as David Anderson (son of founder John Anderson) put it in his warm welcome, to touching the soul of others. That collaborative, beneficent spirit was clearly shared by Gruner’s staff of gardeners who later in the conference provided illuminating and personal interpretations of the evolution of the garden as we toured its various sections. The gardeners and the docents pointed out the intricacies of what designer Hoichi Kurisu had called its many “positive diversions”: features, particularly on the path through the more traditional section of the Garden, that often appeared suddenly or almost magically after rounding a bend (the “reveals” after the “hides”).  Of course, they weren’t diversions at all, but rather the planned nodes of a magnificent Path that we were privileged to traverse.

The overall plan as well as the details, the “positive diversions,” the kokoro, of Anderson Gardens as it emerged and evolved, were/are primarily the responsibility of the justly renowned and still active master garden designer, Hoichi Kurisu, (himself trained in Japan by legendary garden designer Kenzo Ogata). As I walked the Garden with increasing awe and admiration, it was obvious to me that Kurisu had brilliantly implemented the advice of the 11th century Garden manual, Sakuteiki, to “follow the request of the stones.” He had surely listened carefully to the distinctive individual voices of each of the many rocks, large and small, as he organized and placed them, and orchestrated the harmonies, the overtones, the counterpoint, of the stone ensembles; considered which sort of adjacent water they would best complement visually and sonically; with which flora they should be associated, etc. Altogether, what sort of kokoro they conveyed: for example, whether as supporting and framing the high and low waterfalls or acting percussively for the falling water; or set as an exquisite pebble beach; or as the strong retaining wall by a bridge; or constituting the diverse environments of the stream beds. As a result, if we also listened intensely while in the Garden, we NAJGA visitors might overhear these powerful, coherent spirits of rocks and of place and resonate with their embedded kokoro – and, in small measure at least, discover that in these intensive engagements with inorganic and organic objects, our own kokoro was affected and altered as well.

The formal part of the regional conference had been opened the night before by a lecture by distinguished art and Japanese Garden historian, Professor Kendall Brown. I have long admired his splendid book, Quiet Beauty, in which he chronicled and interpreted the great public Japanese gardens in the U.S, and another, Visionary Landscapes, focused on the major designers of Japanese garden in this country. His own presentations on these topics have invariably been articulate, witty, and elegant, so I was much looking forward to his lecture with the enigmatic but intriguing title, Inside Out/Outside In: Architecture in Gardens/Gardens in Architecture.

Nor did he disappoint. The lecture – that Professor Brown himself characterized as a new theme for himself, one that he was presenting for the first time publicly –primarily utilized the image of the guest house in the Anderson Garden to examine the various ways that “architecture” (i.e. a human designed and crafted structure) could be shown (from the “outside” in)  to variously complement, contrast, or “cook” the adjacent, relatively “raw” nature by influencing the visual, practical, or symbolic functions of the garden. Conversely, viewed from the “inside” out, this same architecture could be interpreted as itself much derived from organic materials, or utilizing processes and images from the adjacent garden or from more remote nature to re-interpret nature, perhaps even to transform nature into art.

This adventurous talk would have been a virtuoso performance in any case, but, in retrospect, after hearing several other presentations even more explicitly connected to the kokoro theme, I appreciated how perfect a lead-in Brown’s contribution had been to the more general theme of the conference; to the interplay and synthesis of inside and outside, perhaps viewed as two “sides” of the same kokoro; the kokoro that is essential to the four-fold outcomes of peace, purity, respect, and tranquility that we learned were at the core of so many Japanese arts. This common core derived, I suspect, not just from the powerful hold of tradition despite substantial transformations, but also specifically because of a common derivation of all these arts, at least in part, from a Zen Buddhist sensibility and history (though, somewhat surprisingly to me, that common origin was not much addressed in the presentations).

Japanese Gardens in North America NAJGA

The theme of kokoro for the conference primarily emanated from the passion and the promptings of the eminent Kimiko Gunji, now Professor Emeritus of Japanese Arts and Culture and former director of Japan House at the University of Illinois in Champagne Urbana. She has long been associated with the Anderson Gardens, particularly in teaching about and leading the tea ceremonies; also ink brush calligraphy; and other Japanese arts as well, not least as the author of The Art of Wagashi, the major book in English on the making of authentic Japanese confections.

At this conference, happily for us, Professor Gunji seemed omnipresent on the program, and her own, much refined kokoro was distributed to us widely: she lead tea ceremonies for the group on both days; presided over an ink-brush calligraphy session at the end of each day; presented an orientation to Japanese food culture prior to the first lunch and an illuminating discussion of the cultural significance of chopsticks before the second; all of which she reinforced by several presentations on the meaning of kokoro in general and, in particular, on its concrete connection to the Way of Gardens, to the Way of Tea, to the Way of Calligraphy, and to Japanese arts, in general. Her passion, versatility, authority, and accessibility transformed kokoro from an abstract, categorical notion into a linked set of dynamic personal trajectories or Ways, each requiring disciplined practice, aiming towards self-mastery. That is, a training of self premised on the four principles of Tea – we, kei, sei, and jaku — the same foursome of virtues and objectives that we learned from Kendall Brown are also the fundamental components of the Way of the Garden.  Even more  broadly, as Gunji sensei made clear, this quartet of principles produces the underlying unity of all the disciplined Ways, such as: Budo , comprising many different Ways of the Warrior including Aikido (closely related to the Chinese originated, Tai-Chi  — the latter a practice brilliantly introduced to us at the conference by traditional martial arts expert, Craig Westland) and Geido, the assorted Ways of the Arts that include, among many others, Chado, the Way of Tea, and Shodo the Way of Calligraphy. All of which involve specific paths (do), disciplined personal journeys both in body and spirit, of kokoro, that converge, in principle, upon the same distant goal but only through sustained and rigorous practice.

Providing yet another enlightening perspective on these unexpected commonalities among these arts (including the Art of the Garden), Tim Gruner introduced Horichi Kurisu’s colorful metaphor illustrating the surprising similarities between preparing a Japanese garden and preparing a tea ceremony. According to Kurisu, they should each be controlled by a “bento box” aesthetic, which mandates that though each cell-like segment of the prepared box be beautiful as well as delicious in its own way (as each section of a JG or a tea ceremony must be beautiful and tranquil on its own terms), as a whole, as the aggregate of these diverse segments, the bento box (as also the garden or Chodo as a whole) must be unified and harmonious. Simple as this principle may seem, and as difficult as it may be, in practice, requiring long discipline to achieve fully, it seems to me to be far more appropriate for envisioning successful, complex bento boxes or gardens or tea ceremonies than do some more insistently reductive, formulaic, prescriptive theories and criteria.

So when I watched with admiration the surpassing grace with which Gunji sensei prepared the tea for the ceremony, in which every move was choreographed and long rehearsed (and stemmed back, in their present forms, some 450 years) and yet were so personal; or was struck by the simple but elegant manner in which she folded a napkin to clean the pot and the utensils; or when I was so moved by the humility and graciousness with which Tim Gruner and Professor Gunji’s wonderful assistants bowed deeply and served the tea to us one by one; enjoying my own pleasure even from my own exceedingly clumsy bowing and mumbling while asking forgiveness from a neighbor yet to be served, and basking in the gratitude of those who had, I could sense,  if dimly, how much I could learn, even so late in life, from this new and still for me, crude re-fashioning of attitudes and actions, of self. As a result of even this brief introduction to Chado, I was able to glimpse how much was communal in these activities; how large the universe, external and internal, that touched and was touched by this ceremony; and how multi-layered the kokoro in what might have appeared to be – and in fact was – a simple drink of tea.

I want to end these far too-murky musings by returning to all the people who participated in this conference: from top to bottom, the spirit, the kokoro, of this meeting derived heavily from the kokoro of the wide range of people involved. As alluded to earlier, having implemented the logistics of the conference and all the sessions almost flawlessly, Marisa Rodriguez, as always, seemed to be everywhere, in every venue, unobtrusively and invariably providing whatever unexpected material or digital assistance was suddenly required. Or if not Marisa, Catherine Marsh of the Anderson Garden was always there to assist and interpret.

However, the human kokoro circulating in the regional meeting was not just supplied from the named participants on the program; nor just from everyone connected with the Anderson Garden; but also emanated strongly from the attendees – a nice-sized group of thirty-one, many of them professionals or volunteers at various public gardens nation-wide, some others with a personal

Japanese garden; a few independent professional gardeners; as well as some Japanese garden aficionados. The enthusiasm for the conference was palpable and widespread throughout this heterogenous group, and new friends were made through shared meals both in and away from the Garden, and through the common experiences we shared at the planned as well as the unplanned events. Too many names to mention here, too much kokoro to attribute separately, but I do want to single out the musicians who performed so beautifully in the evenings, literally so in tune with the Garden surroundings.  Tatuya Hosono played a soulful shamisen; gardener Donovan Gruner (Tim’s son!) also played beautifully; and the duo of Graham Nelson and Yuxiao Wang entertained at length on the viewing deck. I imagine that the sounds of all of them reverberate still in the Garden as the sounds of the Garden reverberated in and through them.

The kokoro of some of my new acquaintances bode well for future regional meetings. Ben Schrepf and Jessica Barreras came from the Phoenix Friendship Garden that will be hosting the next regional meeting this winter. (Ben, by the way, has a wonderful video on YouTube with instructions on pruning pines, as also does Tim Gruner); while Sue Hughes and Mary Taylor represented the Gresham Japanese Garden of Gresham, Oregon that will host a regional meeting after Phoenix. After spending delightful time with all of them, I have no doubt that both of these future regional events will be a joy and add richness to our individual and collective kokoro.

So, when I flew to Boston on Sunday on the way back to my beloved New Hampshire, it was with some reluctance, not just because of fearing further airline turmoil, or, somewhat surprisingly to me, disappointed to skip the two post-conference days focused on erosion control, but because I was already missing the sublime Anderson Garden as well as new acquaintances. But I was, and am, fortified by my crude calligraphic shin symbol of kokoro, drawn with ink brush on colored paper (shikishi), that I had struggled to create under the patient tutelage of Gunji sensei (and it now, with all its defects, sits proudly on my desk). I was also heartened by the stirring of newly infused, internalized kokoro that I might relish and deploy in the days, months, perhaps years ahead in my garden and more generally. And especially grateful to all who had contributed to my understanding and appreciation of that mutation.

*Phil Pochoda is a NAJGA member from New Hampshire. To get in touch with him, email: [email protected]. Read more about his private garden. All photos in this article are of the Anderson Japanese Garden and were taken by Phil.