EnlightenmentAcross The Street

Copyright Phyllis Odessey.  No usage without permission.

Copyright Peter Mauss.  No usage without permission.

For over 1000 years people in the East have been meditating, just not across the street from me. 

When a scientific institution, like The Museum of Natural History, thinks it worth developing an "exhibition" around meditation, I get my butt out of bed; grab my mat and see what's happening.

 Copyright Peter Mauss.  No usage without permission.

Before I sit in full lotus position,  I want to be convinced that meditation can change the way I deal.     Turns out the proof is in the brain.

Sand and tools to make the mandala.  Copyright Peter Mauss.  No usage without permission.

Khen Rinpoche Geshe Kachen Lobzang Tsetan conducting a meditation session at the Museum.
Copyright Peter Mauss.  No usage without permission.

Living in America: 
Brain and the Tibetan Creative Mind

Meditation of Neuroscience

"Meditation produces changes in brain function that promote well-being, foster positive affect and virtuous dispositions and impact physical health and illness.

Copyright Jeff Miller/University of Wisconsin.  Richard J. Davidson with monk.

...Researchers have also found that some of the Tibetan meditation practices alter peripheral biological responses in ways that may be beneficial to physical health.  Collectively this new body of research suggests that the brain can be changed through transformation of the mind."
from the brochure accompanying  Living In America:  Brain and The Tibetan Creative Mind.

Richard J. Davidson gave the only lecture at the Museum as part of the Brain and Creative Mind exhibition.  Davidson, a Harvard-educated scientist recounted his meeting with the Dali Lama in 1992: "You study depression, anxiety, and stress, why not compassion?

For the past 15 years, Davidson has worked with long-time practitioners (those with at least 10,000 hours of formal practice) to examine changes in brain function when meditating.

Davidson talked about a study he conducted over the internet with those who practice only 30 minutes a day in a totally secular way:

1.   Focus on SELF: visual a time in your life when you were suffering. Cultivate a wish to be free from that suffering.
2.   Focus on a STRANGER (perhaps a bus driver, doorman, etc.) imagine a time when they suffered and cultivate a wish that they be free of suffering.
3.   Focus on on ALL BEINGS and wish that they be free from suffering

CONCLUSION:  After two weeks, people behaved more altruistically and scientists could detect brain changes. 

Part of the exhibition:  64 Tibetan medical paintings. 
These are hand-painted reproductions of traditional scroll paintings,
which provide a history of early medical knowledge and procedures in Tibet. 
They are believed to be among only a handful of such sets in existence. 
They were created in the late 1990's by Romio Shrestha, a Nepalee artist and his students.

Medicinal Plants

Snow Leopard part of the Cham Performance
performed by the monks from the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in Tibet.
Copyright Peter Mauss.  No usage without permission.

THE CLOSING CEREMONY A week of events, centered around meditation and the making of a medicine mandala ended on Sunday.  It was time for the mandala's next incarnation. Spending 8 hours a day, 7 days creating a meticulously crafted art form and in a matter of minutes,  sweeping up millions of grains of sand takes some doing.

The penguins looked on 

 Copyright Peter Mauss.  No usage without permission.
The Director of the program was busy tapping on her iphone.
(There must be an iphone app = icompassion).

 Copyright Peter Mauss.  No usage without permission.
Sweeping the sands

Copyright Peter Mauss.  NO usage without permission.
Distributing the grains of sand to all who watched. 
According to the monks the sand contains medicinal healing properties.  As New Yorkers, we all pushed our way to get a little plastic bag.  The monks knew more than we did.  There was plenty for all.*

The grains of sand at my altar!

As a gardener, impermanence is something I am very  familiar with.  Nature is my teacher.  I experience "death"  in the garden,  through disease, extreme, unexpected weather, but rarely by my own hand.  I have been known to occasionally rip a plant out of the ground.  Usually I try to pawn it off on friend or foe. 

To  watch the willful destruction of the mandala took fortitude.  The monks were smiling, I was horrified...still very much of a Western mind.

Khen Rinpoche thanked everyone for coming and said, "Enjoy Your Life." 

FOR MORE INFORMATION about Davidson's Work:

www.investigatinghealthyminds.org

"A human being is part of a whole, 

called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space.  He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.  This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us.  Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

Albert Einstein

 *In a previous blog "Wallflower" I discussed how everywhere I go, the rose seems to play a part in the scene.  Today, was no different.  A rose was put in the middle of the mandala, before the sands were swept.

Wallflower

I don't know what's going on.

Will Ryman's site-specific sculpture, "Roses"  graces 10 blocks on the Park Avenue mall.

Downtown at the New Museum, "Hell, Yes" the iconic sculpture by Ugo Roninone

Photo by Peter Mauss. Copyright 2011 Peter Mauss.
No usage without permssion.

gives way to Isa Genzken's "Rose II," a twenty-eight foot tall sculpture on the outside of the museum building.

"Yes, I like to look up.

All my life.

I don't like to look down.

I look up to the sky."ISA GENZKEN

Photo by Peter Mauss. Copyright 2011 Peter Mauss.
No usage without permssion.

I love the New Museum building designed by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa.  The stacked white boxes take up space, on the Bowery, in the same way a cloud takes up space in the sky; it has great presence, but fits seamlessly into its environment.  It's only when you enter the building that you feel its volume. 

Photo by Peter Mauss. Copyright 2011 Peter Mauss.
No usage without permssion.

It's the exact opposite with Genzken's sculpture.  It's the fact that it is out of scale that makes it interesting, especially when covered with snow.  

In addition, Jennifer Potter's new book, The Rose, has just been published.  Potter gives us an explanation for the title of  Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. Riffing on Gertrude Stein's, "Rose is a rose is a rose,"  Eco's title references the rose as a symbol so rich in meaning that it now means everything and nothing. Jennifer Potter might disagree. In The Rose, she has found over 500 pages of meaning.

Photo by Peter Mauss. Copyright 2011 Peter Mauss.
No usage without permssion.

AND A FOOTNOTE...
Openhouse Gallery on Mulberry Street, has created a commercial space called Park Here. It's a good walk by. If you like astro-turf, plasticine trees, facsimile picnic tables, fake rocks, you may enjoy getting in from the cold at the pop-up park.  I prefer being out in the snow.

"As many vowelsas a New York cab driver"

is how Tony Advent of Plants Delights Nursery
described Callirhoe involucrata v. tenuissima
and that was only the beginning.

Tony was the headliner at this year's Plant-O-Rama.  His opening remarks set the tone for the day:

"I consider every plant hardy,
until I kill it myself, at least three times."
(I am going for four times myself)

Owners of nurseries have a different way of talking about plants.  It's not just the new introductions, but the knowledge about a particular species gained through growing, tissue culture or grafting. Tony discussed the weaknesses of many Eichinaceas on the market and showed us some of the ones he likes:   Eichinacea 'Fatal Attraction,'  Eichinacea 'Hot Papaya' and Eichinacea 'Fragrant Angel,' the only Ecihinacea with a strong scent. 

Here are some selections from Plants Delights Nursery that interested me:

Phlox 'Minnie Pearl'
is mildew free.

Baptisia australis var. minor 
 only 1-2 ft. tall

Allium 'Millenium'
 doesnt self-seed.

And the list goes on and on.  After 108 slides and 108 new plants, I was ready for a break.  Tony Advent had done his job:  he was a plants person's delight.


Adam R. Wheeler was less entertainer, more plant fanatic.  He is the Plant Development Manager at Broken Arrow Nursery.  Concentrating on unusual trees and shrubs for the urban environment, Adam went through a host of new introductions (at least to me). 

Koelreuteria paniculata 'Coral Sun'

Small Tree with coral pink spring leaves.

OR HOW ABOUT

Ginkgo biloba 'Markien'
  2-3 Ft. tall and still a Ginkgo

OR FOR THOSE OF US WITH
A PASSION FOR PURPLE IN THE GARDEN


Rhus Coppalina 'Lanhams Purple'
Purple leaves in the Spring
turn brillant red in the Fall.

Bob Hyland of Loomis Creek Nursery delivered his swan song both to MetroHort and his nursery.  After 8 years in the business, he is moving to Portland, Oregon and selling his nursery.  His talk should have been called, "You Want To Buy A Nursery... Are You Crazy!"  Bob took us through all the steps, looking for a property, buying the property, making it into a nursery, experimenting with plant stock, changing the mix from mostly perennials to perennials, grasses, annuals, tropicals, and pottery. 

FOR SALE

He asked the question:  Is there a shelf life for connoisseur nurseries? After naming several nurseries that have gone out of business, he started to identify the problems related to running a nursery (perhaps not the best way for a seller to go).  In the end, he gave us some advice, "keep your focus."  That's good counsel for all, especially for us plant lovers.

a rose,AROSE

Photo by Phyllis Odessey.  Copyright 2011 Phyllis Odessey

"We don't copy the objects we use, we try to transform them and we hope they go on transforming as you look at them.  The idea of endless public diaglogue...visual dialogue...is very important to us."  Claes Oldenburg

Park Ave  from 67 street to 57 Street, Will Ryman site-specific art installatoin.
Photo by Phyllis Odessey.  Copyright 2011 Phyllis Odessey

"If you look at the stems, they're sort of dancing."  Will Ryman

Walking down Park Avenue is never comfortable for me.  The avenue is staid and stately, and I am not.  For the next three months, I can let myself go and have some FUN on the avenue.  Will Ryman's "Roses" installation is about humor, color and celebration.

Photo by Phyllis Odessey. Copyright 2011 Phyllis Odessey
The longest stems are 25 feet above street level.  1-2 ft. beetles, bees, ladybugs and aphids crawl up the stems.

Photo by Phyllis Odessey. Copyright 2011 Phyllis Odessey 

Photo by Phyllis Odessey. Copyright 2011 Phyllis Odessey

The Roman Emperor Nero showered his guests with rose petals, in the same vein, Ryman has sprinkled his petals up Park Avenue.  I especially like this touch:  deconstructing his own sculpture.

The view up Park Avenue
Photo by Phyllis Odessey. Copyright 2011 Phyllis Odessey

Oldenburg said "My monuments are obstructions, but so is the Arc De Triomphe...traffic has to go around it."  Ryman's "Roses," are not barriers, but ornaments on the fingers of Park Avenue.

There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted."  Henri Matisse

A few fun facts about the rose:
1.  The Rose is the official flower of New York State.
2.  French explorer Samuel de Champlain brought the first cultivated rose to North America
3.  The oldest representation of the rose:  a fresco in Crete 1450 B.C.
4.  The first patent ever registered for a plant was a hydridized rose.

All photos in this blog by Phyllis Odessey.  Copyright 2011 Phyllis Odessey.

"The way I workis the way I cook."Michael Van Valkenburgh

Plant Collage a la Michael Van Valkenburgh by Phyllis Odessey

Michael Van Valkenburgh
New York Botanical Garden
Annual Winter Lecture Series
January 20, 2011

 "I am going to reveal the inner plant geek
that lives in and has been part of my life." 
Michael Van Valkenburgh

I sat up and took notice.  Van Valkenburgh began by describing his childhood growing up on a diary farm in Upstate New York.  The importance of childhood memories no one can deny, but dividing the insiders from the outsiders was something new.  "What vibrates in my memory is the world outside." 

Van Valkenburgh started with Teardrop Park as a way of introducing his ideas about change and disturbance.  The client wanted to evoke the wild landscape of New York State within 2 acres of dark urban space.  The rock tunnel, a signature element in the park, was based on the arches designed by Olmsted in Central Park.  You actually have to go to Teardrop Park (if you can find it) to experience the different landscapes that are packed into this small space.

 "I once walked around Teardrop Park with my shrink,
he said the park looked exactly like the inside of my head." 

What I really enjoyed about Van Valenburgh's talk was his discussion of his working methods.  "The way I work is the way I cook.  A recipe is someone else's structure.   I put out a bunch of stuff, look at it and start combining ingredients based on what I feel works well together. "  

Bark Collage by Phyllis Odessey

The first photo in this blog, I created to give the reader an idea of kind of collages Van Valkenburgh showed us.  And it was through these collages that I gained an understanding of how the guy thinks.  In my own work, I often move plant images around on my computer to make combinations.   In a funny way, digitally we can mimic the changes of nature.

Putting together texture or growth patterns, creating a diagram of tree foliage by season, are a way of not sticking to the formula.  As Van Valkenburgh said they create a scaffolding for plant design.

"I love irregularity. 
I love a complicated landscape."

As an example, Van Valkenburgh, briefly mentioned The Highline, adored by all.  He remembered, what some of us can still recall, what the Highline was like before it was re-imagined.  The drain plugs brought birds; the birds dropped seeds;  native orchids and pitcher plants grew = an entire micro-ecology.  It was magic.  And magic is what Van Valkenburgh has.