Here’s a sneak peek at the gardens that will be featured in tomorrow’s Portland Garden Conservancy Open Gardens. For details, check out the article in the Oregonian and its blog.
If you take the “official tour,” you will start at our house and go to the Schmidt Family Farm — the last hold out in the Bonney Slope kluge that has become a nightmare of subdivisions. This farm is 30 acres set in the middle of all of it, but so hidden and quietly tucked away. Owners, Karl and Julie Schmidt built everything on the property, which includes the home!
Karl Schmidt carved the front door, and built the rest of the house himself!
Karl Schmidt next to a planter he made, pictured with Diana Lamb, whose garden is also on the tour.
The next garden was the Olson garden, and sadly, I was so enthralled by its Japanese sense of beauty that I forgot to take pictures!
Off we went to the Lamb garden, which Mike said felt like it took him back to his childhood — with its winding paths that go through many be-vined arbors. It was magical!
Mike lost in the Lamb garden
Finally, we saw the lovely Skyline Crest garden of the Jaffes — a tribute to Lucy Hardimann’s ability at color and texture combination.
the new frog at the Jaffe house
I didn't even know an enkianthius existed until I saw the amazing thing at the Jaffe garden.
Yummy double tulips grow in the mule trough outside the tractor house door.
Tons of stuff! This week, our yoga video “Tonal Yoga” goes into duplication and we expect to have it in our hot hands by June. We hope to have it here in time to share at the Garden Conservancy open garden event on June 5, which will be held here and at 5 other homes in Northwest Portland — call Hardy Plant Society of Oregon for details!
Meanwhile, I finished shooting and am currently editing “La Reve de Conts” or the revenge of the fairy tale characters. It’s a sordid tale of fairy tale wolves and their interaction with the real world — in french, of course! (and i don’t even SPEAK french!) That will show June 9 at Cinema 21.
This summer, we are hosting several charity fundraisers, including AFO’s dinner with an architect, Growing Gardens’ fundraising dinners with the chef from Blue Hour, Dinner at My House for Our House, and a dinner for the French American International School that raised $5k in an auction!
AND! We are in the May/June Issue of Garden Design Magazine!! We are discussed in the Living Green section — details soon for their web article.
Oh! And we are raising 7 baby quail, 4 pheasant chicks and hoping to hatch our 20 mountain quail eggs in mid-May. Whew!
Life is good and busy and the garden is beautiful, as Jean Ann Van Krevelen will attest from her recent flickr series.
On Sunday, Marci Anderson performed her soul healing ritual with me in the morning. It was an interesting event, full of very subtle symbols and sharing. Before the event, we had two animal symbols arrive — a merlin and a deer.
The merlin made a clever symbol for Marci’s guru — Kaleshwar — who she describes as a magician, one of those gurus who always has a sparkle in his eye and an impish grin. We were both enjoying that symbol and feeling his presence.I felt that the deer made another double entendre because Marci is a dear. She was interested in their direction of travel, and felt that their similar west to north movement was significant of spiritual improvement.
Marci had me lay with my head to the east, while she stood facing north, which apparently opens chakras to receiving the healing. Then she did about 20 minutes of mantras into energy centers of my body. The mantras were silent and she did not share with me the words because her personal mantra (which her guru says is private) was part of them. Head, feet, abdomen, under the knees, all received these mantras. As she worked, I felt those parts get quite light, and my knees even felt like they were floating.
I concentrated on my own mantra — receive — while she worked, because that was definitely my intent. As we both did our mantras, there were only 3 sounds to interrupt the quiet country day. A dog barked when she began (which she did not notice, and which is actually quite rare for us, given that our neighbors’ dogs don’t randomly bark as in some places). The dog bark, the plane going overhead, and the dishwasher kicking into rinse mode all served at appropriate times to help me return to my own mantra. Marci felt that they were wake up reminders from spirit to help us as well.
Afterward, we both sat down to discuss the experience, as a wave of peace washed over me, and I listened intently to Marci’s intentions for the healing. Her guru explained that this healing, which is only performed by those to whom he has given direct instruction and passing of the process, is very energizing in clearing that path toward peace and enlightenment. It is designed to open the individual to moving forward on their own path.
I reminded Marci that while the mantra she gave me did increase the peace in my life, it was tumultuous in its daily tests of peace — with small family disasters happening daily. This made me nervous, since we are already dealing with health issues with the children and I would hate to bring more in. She felt that rather, this session would help me to complete open projects and get them going in their movements toward completion. We both felt that Kaleshwar’s work helps us both to “surf” the daily problems and rise above them to invoke peace and love in all our interactions on the planet.
I will let you know how this unfolds, at this moment, I do feel as though I could surf just about any waves heading this way, while praying for ease in life so that that resolve is not tested too deeply.
