Jun 19, 2023·edited Jun 19, 2023Liked by Tanya Meeson
I had a similar thought as you did about mountains being mountains before and after this journey. I thought about Paulo Coelo's The Alchemist and how the treasure was hidden where he started.
I am so grateful to you for persevering and inspiring me to as well. I hope our conversation here can be useful to someone else someday.
***
Morning Pages, 20 May 2023
I remember a significant moment, at my mom's house on the farm at about 19, standing on the stoep outside my room, beneath the stars, looking out over the valley and realizing:
I want to occupy myself with Sanctuary. I went to be it, provide it, create it, facilitate it.
And so I said my magic words, which were,
I surrender, I surrender. I surrender,
which meant I surrender my will to God's will. I wish to be a hollow flute for the song to be played upon, this particular song of grace, which can only be played through me … and I'm here for it.
For a time, sanctuary was my NorthStar, albeit often clouded over. Sanctuary landscape was my business name for a while. It eventually became too passive on its own, and since 2017 when I started my current practice, it has evolved to Thrive Landscaping. There's magic in words… power. Words are the arrowheads of thought, intent, of mobilization.
I woke up yesterday on the final day of a three-week garden installation in a state of joy. I have prepared the land around my clients home to be a place where she and her family will thrive. Her garden will thrive, including some species which would have naturally once occurred there. Which also means that small animals will thrive there. They will visit and some will move in, adding the valued company of their precious lives to the life of this place.
When I began The Artists Way journey, I truly believed that art was something other than what I did. I believed it was something I had negated in favour of landscaping, which was something I felt I could engage to make a living for myself.
I have seen that I was wrong. I was limited in my perception, limited by other people's ideas which I've picked up and internalized along the way. How limited to imagine that art is something one makes with brushes and paint on a canvas to be hung on a wall and admired.
My art is made with spades and pics and steel rakes and rough, hardworking hands and sweat. The medium is plants and rocks and paving stones and humus and time. The canvas is the Earth. Admiration is wonderful. But inhabitation is the goal - immersion. As with other arts, I hope that it will evoke things for you. I hope it will inspire, that it reminds you of the happy aspects of childhood or helps you cultivate new versions. I hope it surprises and lingers in your mind like a good wine. I hope it is a good receptacle for your children's memories, that it is a place of respite, of sanctuary, but perhaps also ignition. I hope it causes you in some small way to thrive.
… because that is my Northstar now and my measure for success: To Thrive.
My client and I settle into her joyously restored canary yellow garden furniture and simultaneously break into Afrikaans, because there's simply no English for how lekker it is to sit there in the new garden after all the chaos of construction.
“Look at that bird!” she says
“Oh, a kwiksertjie! Hello!”.
“I've never seen one before. Look at how it's looking for a place to get onto the pool pipe. It's exploring… just like a child”, she says.
I had a similar thought as you did about mountains being mountains before and after this journey. I thought about Paulo Coelo's The Alchemist and how the treasure was hidden where he started.
I am so grateful to you for persevering and inspiring me to as well. I hope our conversation here can be useful to someone else someday.
***
Morning Pages, 20 May 2023
I remember a significant moment, at my mom's house on the farm at about 19, standing on the stoep outside my room, beneath the stars, looking out over the valley and realizing:
I want to occupy myself with Sanctuary. I went to be it, provide it, create it, facilitate it.
And so I said my magic words, which were,
I surrender, I surrender. I surrender,
which meant I surrender my will to God's will. I wish to be a hollow flute for the song to be played upon, this particular song of grace, which can only be played through me … and I'm here for it.
For a time, sanctuary was my NorthStar, albeit often clouded over. Sanctuary landscape was my business name for a while. It eventually became too passive on its own, and since 2017 when I started my current practice, it has evolved to Thrive Landscaping. There's magic in words… power. Words are the arrowheads of thought, intent, of mobilization.
I woke up yesterday on the final day of a three-week garden installation in a state of joy. I have prepared the land around my clients home to be a place where she and her family will thrive. Her garden will thrive, including some species which would have naturally once occurred there. Which also means that small animals will thrive there. They will visit and some will move in, adding the valued company of their precious lives to the life of this place.
When I began The Artists Way journey, I truly believed that art was something other than what I did. I believed it was something I had negated in favour of landscaping, which was something I felt I could engage to make a living for myself.
I have seen that I was wrong. I was limited in my perception, limited by other people's ideas which I've picked up and internalized along the way. How limited to imagine that art is something one makes with brushes and paint on a canvas to be hung on a wall and admired.
My art is made with spades and pics and steel rakes and rough, hardworking hands and sweat. The medium is plants and rocks and paving stones and humus and time. The canvas is the Earth. Admiration is wonderful. But inhabitation is the goal - immersion. As with other arts, I hope that it will evoke things for you. I hope it will inspire, that it reminds you of the happy aspects of childhood or helps you cultivate new versions. I hope it surprises and lingers in your mind like a good wine. I hope it is a good receptacle for your children's memories, that it is a place of respite, of sanctuary, but perhaps also ignition. I hope it causes you in some small way to thrive.
… because that is my Northstar now and my measure for success: To Thrive.
My client and I settle into her joyously restored canary yellow garden furniture and simultaneously break into Afrikaans, because there's simply no English for how lekker it is to sit there in the new garden after all the chaos of construction.
“Look at that bird!” she says
“Oh, a kwiksertjie! Hello!”.
“I've never seen one before. Look at how it's looking for a place to get onto the pool pipe. It's exploring… just like a child”, she says.
And I smile. My heart is full.
Love, Annwen