Tiny Houses

Yesterday I bought a bonsai. I’ve been waiting years to have one–nearly since I have heard of them. My bonsai is not one long cultivated by a master gardener and sold for hundreds of dollars. Mine came in a little porcelain dish from my local Lowe’s store for $22.98. The 20-something woman watering all the plants said she had always wanted one too. The checkout lady admired it thinking it was a gift.

“No,” I said. “It is for me.”

Like the genuine and respectable Enneagram 5 personality type that I am, the Investigator or Analyzer, over time I’ve studied the art of bonsai thoroughly. I’ve checked out books from the library, visited several Japanese gardens, drooled over these intricate shapes at numerous horticultural events and landscape stores. I even took a bonsai class and purchased bonsai pruning shears–but alas–no bonsai for me…until yesterday.

It’s likely my Enneagram 4-wing, the Romantic, that draws me to these little miniature windswept masterpieces–kind of in the way that I am fascinated with Tiny Houses, and have spent many hours watching shows on designing and building them…and yet do not own one.

To me, a bonsai is a metaphor for life– the Master Gardener trimming and twisting, pruning and shaping, bending and supporting–hence strengthening,

the plant:

me–

us–

makes us into lovely masterpieces.

I’m going through the Ignatian Exercises for a second time in my life. I am doing the longer version and one that follows the Liturgical Calendar. We are headed toward Lent–the time when, like my bonsai, we bend down–to receive ashes and remember that we are dust. We trust Hands to our roots and branches–even in the valley of the shadow of death. We know that we are a beautiful creation with the training eyes and touch of our Master Gardener.

To prepare for the exercises, the book I’m following invited me to pray a prayer by Thomas Merton:

My Lord, God, I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,

and the fact that I think I am following your will

does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,

though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always

though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me,

and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

(The Ignatian Adventure: Experiencing the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius in Daily Life, Kevin O’Brien, SJ, Loyola Press, Chicago, 2011, page 37)

After reading Merton’s prayer, I wrote my own–and my new bonsai reminds me of my prayer during this time of spiritual cultivation and training:

God,

I want to do this for us–

for our relationship to grow.

I feel like a kindergartener*:

I the kinder

You the Teacher;

I the branch

You the Gardener.

I am wild,

and prone to return to the wild

whenever I look away

or leave your training twine.

Handle me.

Touch me, O Gardener.

Apply me to your training espalier.

Help me stay pliable–

not to stiffen up in my “knowing”

but to remain supple;

not to resist your twists

upward and outward.

*https://www.etymonline.com/word/kindergarten

When we first acquired our Jessamine farmstead, the house, shed, and fences could all have been marketed as being in “as is” condition. This is typically realtor-speak meaning “somewhat run down and probably lots of things will need to be repaired or replaced.”

We were not daunted. Our thrill was with the land and location. When friends and family came to visit they often commented on the shack–a leaning structure with bowed out barn wood on the sides and two small low-slung entrances on front and side. Indeed we discovered in the first winter that snow was easily blown through the boards so that its contents were only slightly protected from the elements.

All this is reality and yet I’m enchanted by the beauty of this little deteriorating historic structure in our backyard. It serves as trellis to vines of colored leaves in the fall and supports pink peonies likely planted about the time of its construction every spring. In the winter it shelters stacks of wood that Hule splits in just the right size for our wood stove and in the summer it holds our mowers, garden tools, and a bird nest or two.

A few years ago I was introduced to a series of words that are conjectured by some as “untranslatable” from other languages into English. So many of these words intrigue me and challenge me to appreciate the cultures that nurtured and created them. One such word is wabi-sabi from the Japanese. Wabi-sabi is said to refer to an appreciation of a beauty inherent in objects of transience and a respect of imperfection and admiration toward an essentially natural cycle of decay or deterioration. While I believe that one must study a culture more thoroughly to truly know the full meaning of such words, what I read of this concept reminds me of how I feel about our little lean-to. In fact I have now named it our wabi-sabi shed.

Maybe it is our stage or season of life that gives me this perspective. In my 2nd half of life I am choosing to focus on the value of an unfading beauty of the inner spirit rather than the fleeting beauty of my outer form. A few years ago when at the beach I looked down at my hands and hardly recognized them…age spots, crinkled skin, protruding veins…these were not the hands of my youth.

When I was dating my Mississippi boyfriend (later to become my husband, Hule) and he held my hand for the first time he said, “Wooo! Your skin is softer than a catfish’s belly!” At first, this Illinois girl wondered if that was a slam, but pretty quickly I discovered it was indeed high praise. Remembering that, I considered the history that each scar and spot and rough patch represented. A new perspective valued my hands’ natural decay to reveal a sort of beauty.

With this perspective, which now I might call a wabi-sabi perspective, I wrote this poem to my husband:

Take my hand, my love

“Softer than a catfish’s belly!”

Held

Caressed

Joined

Bejeweled

Writing, underlining, studying,

Washing dishes and laundry

Changing diapers

Planting herbs

Days on the beach

Sun-leathered

Still held–

but now

Constellations of pigment

Calloused from work

And years from wearing your ring

I still choose to put my hand in yours

Our Jessamine Farm

Contemplative writings from Jessamine County KY

Bonsai

Our Wabi-sabi Shed