Unlike many of the attendees at the NAJGA Midwest Regional Meeting at the Anderson Gardens in Rockford, IL this last August, my husband and I are not professional gardeners—indeed, barely gardeners at all. But we are deeply appreciative of the principles and aesthetics behind the design, construction, and maintenance of Japanese gardens, and see these practices as metaphors for how best to approach the stress and challenges of one’s day-to-day life.

This is perhaps why we found Kokoro and the Gardener: Health for Spirit, Body, and Community to be such a profound and captivating few days. Beautifully planned and gratifyingly well executed (even the weather cooperated…mostly), the conference schedule alternated between a traditional lecture format and experiential “breaks” that included walks through the garden, and not one but two graceful and illuminating tea ceremonies (chadō) with Professor Kimiko Gunji (who also took us through “Kokoro Reflection,” an engaging calligraphy-practice [shodō] session that encouraged attendees finally to produce amazingly accomplished-looking inked characters on gold-edged boards). We also loosened up, exercising our minds and our bodies—consistent with the conference’s thesis that “a healthy garden begins with a gardener’s good health” in both body and spirit—in three separate Tai Chi/Qi Gong sessions in an outdoor pavilion at the Gardens led by Sensei Craig Westlake, the gifted teacher in residence. (He is also an accomplished photographer; catch him and the gardens on Instagram [rockfordtraditionalmartialarts].)

Kokoro was a new concept to some of us, but it informed each lecture and experience as the speakers were careful to tie their presentations back to the theme, encouraging us to think about how Kokoro can be cultivated, and the role of the garden as a primary path to realizing it. Kokoro is an elusive concept—impossible to do justice to in a few words (how Japanese!)—but is defined as “the source of knowledge, feeling, will power, desire, motivation, drive, and strength of character. Kokoro represents spiritual power and indicates the essence and value of an object or person…the non-physical aspect of one’s identity, essence, and inner being—in other words, exactly the integration of mind, heart, and spirit with the locus genii of the garden that the invitation to the conference promised. We came to understand that cultivating Kokoro means opening ourselves to a richer relationship with those around us, and with the spaces we inhabit—all with the goal of advancing spiritual growth and enhancing our ability to contribute to a better world.

And of course all this took place in—and in the context of—an exceptional “space,” the Anderson Japanese Gardens. Who would have guessed that less than 100 miles northwest of Chicago, in the once-thriving City of Rockford, is one of the most exquisite and meticulously designed and cared-for Japanese gardens in the country! Tim Gruner, Garden Curator and Head of Horticulture (and a student of chadō, who helped us understand its relationship to garden design) stewards a twelve-acre landscape of gardens, paths, and water features that is most certainly vaut le détour (as the Michelin Guide would say)… but how much more exceptional the experience of having him and his remarkable staff lead us through it, and let us in on the process of carrying on and extending the vision of John Anderson, a Rockford businessman, and his family, who began to build the gardens in their “swampy backyard along Rockford’s Spring Creek” with the guidance of Master Craftsman Hoichi Kurisu in 1978.

Other speakers talked about a range of topics—from “Japanese Gardens as Therapeutic Spaces” (Professor Ken Brown) to “…Guiding Guests in Garden Etiquette” (John Powell) to some of the challenges of architectural restoration (David Sipos of Minka Woodwork). There were also two practica: one during the conference in which Ben Chu focused on the safety issues encountered in the course of pruning, and one post-conference (which we did not attend, but managed to visit briefly): the day-long Sekitei rock-setting workshop, meticulously conceived and managed by John Powell, we had the privilege of having a small taste of.

Finally (but first on the program, the night before the formal conference opening) was the important expectation-setting discussion of the art of the Japanese garden by Douglas Dawson, artist and collector, who made the case for “the garden as the ultimate art form as it integrates all those criteria by which art is judged.”

If you did not have the opportunity to attend this outstanding conference (we thought it the best of the handful of NAJGA conferences we have attended), by all means make your way to Rockford to experience the Gardens yourself; they are worth at least a full day’s visit. (And as a side note—and extra incentive—for Frank Lloyd Wright fans: Rockford also boasts the not-to-be-missed small gem of a house he designed for Kenneth and Phyllis Laurent in 1949, the only building that he created specifically for a client with a physical disability.) In the end, the conference was all it could have been, and more…and for three days, we all “lived” Kokoro, and came away enriched and enlightened.
– Stephani Cook