The Healing Art of Nature

Nature Bound, small collage by Donna Watson

Recently, some Japanese researchers set out to discover whether something special... and clinically therapeutic... happens when people spend time in nature.  In the early 1980"s the Forest Agency of Japan advised people to take a stroll in the woods for better health.  This practice was called forest bathing, or shinrin-yoku... and it was believed to lower stress.  Since then, a large body of evidence has shown that spending time in nature causes beneficial changes in the body.

I live on a cliff over looking a large body of water... and there are wooded trails around my home that lead down to the beach down below.  I also have created beautiful Japanese gardens that surround my home.

Studies have found that the quiet atmosphere, beautiful scenery, good smells and fresh, clean air in forests all contribute to lower stress, lower anxiety, and help symptoms like depression, heart disease and even cancer.

This is part of my moss garden...  there is a circular path around this moss garden where one can walk and meditate.  Plants and trees release compounds that protect them from pests; when humans inhale those compounds, it promotes healthy -- and measurable-- biological changes.

When I walk through my woods around my home, I love to forage and collect moss covered sticks,

fallen leaves, weathered wood, lichen...  and take to my greenhouse (Zen House).  This is where I also keep my fossil collection, rock collection, driftwood collection, bird nest collection....  and small bonsai collection.

Inside my Zen House

This is where I keep my moss covered sticks with a small bird's nest and ferns.  Research has shown that bringing bits of nature inside can also be very beneficial... even a plant in your room or just looking at trees through a window.

Here are some ferns with my crystal rock collection.

I planted bee balm in my herb garden this year, not realizing I would get these beautiful flowers.

Jizo, the protector of women, children and travelers

"The way we see the world shapes the way we treat it.  If a mountain is a deity, not a pile of ore; if a river is one of the veins of the land, not potential irrigation water; if a forest is a sacred grove, not timber; if other species are our biological kin, not resources; or if the planet is our mother, not an opportunity -- then we will treat each one with greater respect.  That is the challenge, to look at the world from a different perspective."  David Suzuki

The One Taste of Truth

 MEMOIR,  Donna Watson,  cold wax, oil paints, collage, scroll

NOTE:  4 day workshop:  PERSONAL EXPRESSION:  A DESIGN APPROACH.  SEPT. 14-17

INSTRUCTOR:  Donna Watson.  At Matzke Fine Art Gallery, on beautiful Camano Island, WA.

For more information contact Karla Matzke at:  matzke@camano.net OR 360-387-2759.

(All mediums and all styles of painting are welcome as this workshop delves into each unique, creative participant as they find their way along their artistic journey.)

The tea ceremony incorporates the mindfulness, quiet and simplicity required for Zen study and meditation.   Most important in both is the awareness that each and every moment in unique, and is to be valued and savored.  

Over the centuries that both Zen and Tea evolved, literature developed in the forms of poems, phrases, fragments of Zen stories, and concepts.

THE BOOK OF TEA,  collage by Donna Watson

Displayed on hanging scrolls in the alcove (tokonoma)  of temples, homes or tea rooms, these phrases or fragments, or quotes provided contemplation that would encourage the right feeling for the drinking of tea or meditation.

TOKONOMA or small alcove, image source:  bonsaisur.mejorforo.net  

There are hundreds of these phrases or ichigyomomo - in Japanese - written on these scrolls.

They allow free and easy wandering among the ideas and emotions that the words on the scrolls suggest.  When one is drinking tea, one can read the phrases or poems, and contemplate the meanings of the words on the scroll.

Small scrolls created by Donna Watson

One of the most famous tea masters, Sen no Rikyu, called the scroll the most important implement of Tea.

Seth Apter,  wonderful blog here.

It is quiet and tranquil, empty and at rest.

It stands on its own, and cannot be altered;

Manifests itself in all things, and is never idle.

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, about the ungraspable

OLD SCROLL,  by Donna Watson,  cold wax, oil paints, collage, scroll

The body is like a bodhi tree;

The mind is like a standing mirror.

Always try to wipe it clean;

Do not let it gather dust.

Shen-hsiu

ANCIENT SCROLL - detail,  by Donna Watson, acrylic, collage, stone

MU:  "emptiness" is no doubt the best-known character in Zen literature and calligraphy and found on many scrolls.  When one empties one mind while drinking tea or meditating, one's mind opens up to new ideas, and possibilities which can lead to creativity.

Zen Habits

Zen Poetry, collage, 10"x10", by Donna Watson

Breathe.

Breathing can transform your life.

So breathe.

Enjoy each moment of this life.

Be still.

If you are moving too fast, breathe.

Listen to the world around you.

Be at peace with being still.

Be still.

Just for a moment.

Boro Series 2, collage, 8"x8", by Donna Watson

Savor the stillness.

Breathe.

lingering summer light pt. 1

Reflections, cold wax and oil paints, Donna Watson

September... a pause for summer to say an awkward and lingering good-by and for autumn, sitting on a hill top, a jug of cider in one hand and a bunch of wild purple asters in the other, waiting to say hello.  (NYTimes)  As summer comes to an end, it is that time of year for me to post images of my Zen gardens and my Zen greenhouse.  I have decided to divide my images into 3 posts because I have so many to share.  This first post is all about my Zen house... what I call my outdoor decor.

Torii gate entrance to my Zen House

"...to walk without destination and to see only to see..." 

--- Uta Barth

Follow the stone path

"Your sacred space is where you find yourself again and again."

--- Joseph Campbell

Some of my bonsai in front of my Zen House

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes"

--- Marcel Proust

One of the shelves inside my Zen House

"May my mind come alive today

to the invisible geography 

that invites me to new frontiers,

to break the dead shell of yesterdays, 

to risk being disturbed and changed."

---John O'Donohue, from a morning offer

A new birdcage, inside is a Japanese kokedama or moss ball with a Rabbit Fern

"Landscape consists in the multiple, overlapping intricacies and forms that exist in a given space at a moment in time."  Annie Dillard, Pilgrims at Tinker Creek

Kokedama or Japanese moss ball with Rabbit Fern

"Landscape is the texture of intricacy, and texture is my present subject... What do I make of all this texture?"  Annie Dillard

Another Kokedama, or moss ball with large wooden paddle

"The texture of the world, its filigree and scrollwork, means that there is the possibility for beauty here, a beauty as inexhaustible in its complexity, which opens to my knock, which answers in me a call I do not remember calling, and which trains me to the wild and extravagant nature of the spirit I seek."  Annie Dillard, Pilgrims at Tinker Creek

This is a Rose de Jericho, a type of desert moss,  which dries up into a tight ball without water.  When water is added, it will open up and burst into life, until the water dries up again.  

A water feature inside my Zen House

A corner of the Zen House

A round beach rock with a bee who passed away and has been sitting on this rock all summer

It doesn't have to be

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just 

pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try

to make them elaborate, this isn't 

a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which 

another voice may speak.  

Mary Oliver

The Zen of Creativity

FLIGHT, cold wax and oil, collage 16"x16", by Donna Watson

Note:  Upcoming Workshop.  There are some openings in my upcoming 4 day workshop, 

Sept. 15-18, 2014 in beautiful Coupeville, Whidbey Island, WA for the Pacific NW Art School.

Personal Expression:  A Design Approach is for all mediums and all styles of painting or art creation.

At their website here look for more information or contact me.

SANCTITY, cold wax and oil, collage  18"x18", by Donna Watson

I have read this book, THE ZEN OF CREATIVITY by John Daido Loori, 3 times.  This book taps into the principles of the Zen arts and aesthetic as a means to unlock creativity.  "Well written, wise, insightful...enhanced by fine Zen dialogues and stories, poems, koan, photographs and illustrations as well as apt, stimulating quotations from many writers and Zen teachers."  Peter Matthiessen

The creative process is intuitive, and based on our experiences.  It points us to our essential nature which should be reflected in our artistic work.  As artists, we should always be looking inward to discover our true expression.  To do that we need to quiet our minds, empty our minds, and only be

aware of each moment around us.  Once our minds are empty we are open to new ideas.

                              

All images here are by Donna Watson in her studio

How do you go straight ahead on a narrow mountain pass which has ninety-three curves?

An old Zen Koan

Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art.

Leonardo da Vinci

To study the Way is to study the self.

To study the self is to forget the self.

To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things.

Eihei Dogen

The inner ---- what is it?  if not intensified sky....

Rainer Maria Rilke

When you look, it is formless;  When you call, it echoes...

Fuyu

No muse appears when invoked, dire need 

Will not rouse her pity.  May Sarton

WHEN I MET MY MUSE by William Stafford

I glanced at her and took my glasses 

off -- they were still singing.  The buzzed

like a locust on the coffee table and then 

ceased.  Her voice belled forth, and the 

sunlight bent.  I felt the ceiling arch, and

knew that nails up there took a new grip 

on whatever they touched.  "I am your own

way of looking at things", she said.  "When

you allow me to live with you, every 

glance at the world around you will be

a sort of salvation."  And I took her hand.