Walking Counter Clockwise Around Nitobe Garden
Today we went to the Nitobe Memorial Garden at UBC. It is best to walk around the garden in a
counter clockwise direction. If you do,
then you walk the path of your entire life.
First, you awaken to a new world –
you enter the garden through the Nitobe Memorial Gate. Close to the entrance, and the beginning of
your life, you encounter a large concrete lantern which, which as your father, guides
you to two possible paths of early childhood.
The first leads you on level ground, is easy to navigate, and smoothly
delivers you from infancy to childhood. The
second path is steep; requires you pay careful attention to stepping stones,
and passes by a waterfall. Being the
adventurous types, we teacher candidates took the latter of the two paths. I am happy to tell you that we all made it to
the later part of childhood: a strait path where mother (another lantern) stands
at a close, but not too close, distance.
She stands right across the water with a nurturing aura unlike father
who towered above you handing you your fate in the form of both zodiac and lotus
flower.
Next, the garden gives you another choice moment that
defines the rest of your adulthood up until you arrive at the reflective stage
of life: the tea house (old age). The
choice moment in adulthood is as follows: you either get married to young, or
you wait until the right moment when you are a little older. Importantly, a strait bridge symbolizes the poor
choice of getting married too young. On
the other hand, the zigzag bridge is the bridge of the wise who marry slightly
older. Here are two noteworthy
reflections about these bridges: First, demons
travel in strait lines and so can follow you over the bridge built for the foolish
(and too young). Second, the fool’s
bridge delivers a quicker root to the end of your life – the tea house. In contrast, the wise bridge presents the opposite:
a zig zag bridge across which demons can not travel, and a long path to the end
of your life. I took the symbolism here
to mean that the walk over the zig zag bridge is a path of purification that
leads you to a long life, and as a result, more to reflect on at the tea house
which provides a serene place for your final contemplation. The strait bridge may symbolize the opposite
interpretation, however the teas house is no less serene – life Afterall does
have a forgiving side.
Everything in the garden- father and mother, a dangerous encounter
with a waterfall, sculpturesque maples, seemingly glowing moss, rocks which stand
unnaturally upright, a serene gazebo, the tea house and even the coy fish seamed
intentionally sculpted and placed. So
too my attention felt equally meticulously called to both contemplative emersion
in the garden and to an awe of the natural elements. I felt as if I could be in a space alone with
any single garden feature I came across and then in the next moment seamlessly widen
my attention to take in the entire composition as if in front of a landscape
painting. Maybe, the parabolic walk
around Nitobe Garden not only presents us with the story of our life’s pivotal
architypes and fundamental dilemmas but also acts as a teacher who guides us in
the art of paying attention to our lives: be intimately close to each sacred personal
moment while taking in the larger painting of which we are only a small part. Oh ya, and make sure to stop once in a while
for some tea; sit back as if you were at the end of your life, and you had chosen
the wise path.
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