SEA SHELL ARCH

                                                                                   by

                                                                       Frank La Rosa

                                                              

   I've taken as the model or image for my my clay sculpture a small remnant of a seashell. That piece of shell must have broken off the main shell many years ago, and the sea tumbled and polished it for who knows how long--hundreds even thousands of years--rolled and caressed by the waves until one day it was cast up on the beach,  I saw it and picked it up. 

   This tiny remnant is the opening to the shell where the mollusk or sea creature goes out and comes back into its home. This passageway is long and spiral-ribbed like the rest of the shell, but it is polished like smooth porcelain.  The opening forms a kind of elongated arch  that leads out from inner security, a home, to the outer world of the sea which is the creature's outer home. All of our lives exist in and through arches.

   This creature's body is composed  mostly of water and some minerals, but in spite of this its somewhat amorphous, flaccid body has the intelligence to have created a very hard protective shell, a doorway, and even a door. This sea creature, like its fresh water cousins, created a smooth entryway, shiny and slippery, and of the right proportions for egress and reentry. It has also made its own hinged door called an operculum, a fitted lid that the soft bodied mollusk can open and close as it feels fit and that is appropriate to all occasions; to keep itself safely enclosed and keep out dangers of all kinds, except possibly that of mankind. The operculum is a finely made valve, if you think about it that way,  that the creature both shuts out and keeps closed securing it being. It can "Then- close the Valves of her attention- /Like Stone", to quote Emily Dickinson.

The soul selects its own society,  Emily Dickinson

    

                                                            A  GARDEN of REMEMBRANCE

                                                                       PLANT MEMORIES

                                                                             

   It is of significance to me that I live on a cul-de-sac named Recuerdo Cove. The word Recuerdo is 'ricordi'  in Italian and means the same thing--memories. Ricordi di Napoli and all that.

   Once many years ago,I mentioned to my clarinet teacher that we had recently moved to a new  house on a street called Recuerdo Cove. He mused for a long moment in his silent Icelandic way, held his chin, had a distant gaze in his eyes, and  said, "What a very fascinating name". I have never forgotten that. Only an imaginative artist musician would make a comment like that. In fact, I have never heard any persons who live here in this cul-de-sac say anything at all about the name 'Recuerdo'. This Cove is a magical place. I wonder if they feel that way also about it?   We have lived here for forty three years, within sight of the blue Pacific, on the rim of a canyon that is filled with animals and plants of many kinds. Sometimes these animals come up into our back garden: raccoons, opossums, rabbits, ground squirrels, foxes, snakes, many different and beautiful birds, and butterflies. Our garden is a sanctuary of the living.

   I have always thought that Recuerdo is a name holding a deep symbolic meaning. After reading Proust's great creative testament to life and memory I feel even more the power of Recuerdo-Ricordi. I often wonder what it would be like to live without a memory. Proust's life was almost all memory.

   My garden is inhabited with with many presences, people that I have known and loved. I encounter them every day as I work in my garden, tend to the plants, and think about the givers of numerous plants. This evocation of memory is not a conscious or deliberate thing. It simply occurs as I see what each particular plant needs for its care and continued existence, as it stimulates and evokes memory almost unconsciously, I would suggest. 

   This consideration about memory is not mere sentimentality. And, some observers would say that the experiencing of memory is an actual living of sorts in the past. I do not think that memories  are only a regressive. Actually when we have memories we are experiencing a very powerful occurrence in our present lives, and this in turn stimulates and informs our present lives. So, memory in this sense is alive and in the present. When we read Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past", we are experiencing his memories raised to the level of art that stimulates our imaginations in the present.

   Botanically speaking, all plants carry with them a kind of plant memory. Botanic reference books tell us a great deal of information about each plant's history. Each plant has a genus and species, and we are given its place of origin, climate needs, growing conditions, and innate habits. This is a plant memory: a kind of collective memory similar to the collective or group memory of animals.

   The plants in my garden have all of that, but they have much more because they evoke something transcendent to the labeling of genus and species. In the 'Hortus Conclusus', our 'protected garden', plants evoke feelings and memories.

   As I make my early morning rounds through my garden, it is impossible for me to separate each plant's botany, new growth, condition, and blossoming from those who gifted the plant to me. There are so many plants that do this in my garden. Each plant in the truest sense is a Blossoming of Memory.". Each plant has a being, an emotional aura, a special palpable presence. Some writers would call this being an astral presence, but for me the plants are that presence and simply great stimulators of imagination and memory. I try not to think about it all too much--it simply happens.

   One of the most indelible plant memories in my garden is the Mermaid rose which is an offspring of Rosa Bracteata and the Macartney rose. The Mermaid is an extremely vigorous rose and even grew for many years in the hottest weather in Denton, Texas where my father-in-law once had it. He brought the Mermaid as a cutting wrapped in wet paper in his boot in the trunk of his car. Therefore, he claimed that he "bootlegged" it to our home in Del Mar, California. I think of this when I see the Mermaid.

   The Mermaid is one of the most beautiful of roses; large blossoms with yellow centers, creamy edges, and yellow stamens, and  the scent is fruity and the breath of springtime. And like the mermaids or sirens of ancient mythology,  this rose has a powerful dark side or shadow. "She" can grow to twenty feet high or more (mine is almost up to the second story), and "She" has backward curved lethal, protective thorns that will not release from skin or clothing, and they really hurt! 

   I have made many cuttings and air layers of this rose as we have moved from one home to another, and now on Recuerdo Cove I have two large specimens of this memory plant which is appropriately within view of the Pacific Ocean.  The sea breezes are to her liking, and she reminds me of my father-in-law's gifting every time I care for it. 

   Memory is an energy that resides where it wishes, but there is a dual energy in a living plant; that of  the plant itself and that of the name-energy that went into the gifting of the plant. The name is a residual memory of the giver and grows along side  the gardener as he or she cares for and remembers the person who gifted the plant. As the ancient Egyptians said, as long as the name is uttered, the person and the soul live.  In this case, the giver-the plant-the gardener- and the remembrance are united. For me they cannot be cleaved into separate parts in my consciousness, nor should they be. Remembrance.

   Seeds sent in the mail in envelopes from one person to another are veritable sparks of light. They scintillate with life. And, they will not acquiesce, nor will they be repressed. The seed will not deny itself! It rejects omnipotence in all other beings because each seed in itself is potentia. The very same can be said for tiny plantlets or sprig of plants, such as those of Spanish moss--Tillandsia usneoides.

   Many years ago, my father sent me in a letter from my childhood home in Miami a tiny sprig of Spanish moss. I remember Spanish moss and other air plants festooning the massive live oaks that surrounded our house.  This sprig refused to be overcome by the long journey in a dry envelope. The power of the Life Force! I placed this partially withered sprig onto the branch of one our trees, and it quickly sprang into life,  reproduced, and encircled the twigs and branches tenaciously. Now Spanish moss is a vibrant tenant growing in several trees of my garden, and so much so that I have to remove some of it from time to time.

   The trick to growing it is in placing  the Tillandsia spriglets on trees that receive moderate sunlight. But even more important, is to have a lower story or bedding of plants that are watered frequently and emit moisture upward into the trees and the Spanish moss.  The moss is caught between the moisture of the earthy plants and the leafy canopy of trees, and as I look up into the branches and moss, I have images of my father who wanted me to have the ambiance of his own Florida garden.

   These seeds and sprigs of tiny plants are living, orant vessels of life, and they carry with themselves the places and persons from which they have been given.

Frank La Rosa

September 10, 202

 

 

  

 

                                                                 AUCTORITAS


Auctoritas is the first of the nine Roman virtues. The others are Comitas, Firmitas, Dignitas, Gravitas, Humanitas, Liberalitas, Potentia,  and Severitas.


    From the Latin words themselves it is relatively easy to understand what they mean. But if one wants to go into their deeper meaning or significance, there are plenty of sources available, on or off the internet. Or, in books.

   So what does Auctoritas have to do with gardening? It has to do with authority or approval. We don't need anyone's approval as to how to grow our own garden! As Voltaire said in Candide. It is our garden, even if it is a windowsill row of African Violets, which I have, or a several acre plot. For most of us it's the housing development sized lot. Some are small or large. Mine is large.  This is purely luck or fortune, from the Latin "fortunas". I love that word.

   The point is that we don't need any approval to work in or to enjoy our garden. No one is there to judge or criticize or to say that what we are doing is right or wrong. As one writer in the Penguin Book of Garden Writing states it, we can do what we want, or as we please.  What we do matters only to us and not to anyone else. We are the true practitioners of Auctoritas. There is no right or wrong, correct or incorrect. Whatever we like or enjoy doing is our business.  For me, doing it my way, the way I want to, is refreshing, empowering and deeply pleasing.

   This appears to be simplistic. But it isn't when one considers popular taste, community approval, status, what so-called experts dictate,  what the books tell us or anything else that comes from external authority, which is different from Auctoritas.

   The art and act of gardening comes from within. And, to be a good gardener, one has to be an artist, and that is why so many people love gardening and gardens. All gardeners are artists.  It proceeds from the personal center or core of one's essential being--thus Auctoritas.

    Also, the creation of ones own garden takes a very long time to achieve, like the inside of  ones own home: the colors, furnishings, collected objects, framed photos, paintings and drawings.  It is not something that the landscapers and garden designers tell us that can be  "popped right in". If you pay the money and we do the job. No. This is the antithesis of true gardening because the garden is a creative act and grows out from the Soul. Yes,  designers can possibly help, but they also must have Soul, and they have to work with the Soul of the person (if he or she can) who is asking for their help and expertise, and paying them for advice.

   On a practical level, it has taken me a very long time to understand the characteristics of my little piece of land; how it sits in relation to my house. How and where the winds blows on it or the sun shines on it, or even to know how my neighbors have neglected to care for or properly trim their own  trees. Somehow they think cared for trees are not a part of a garden.  For instance, nothing that enjoys sun and breezes will grow in the deep cold shade created by the neighbors' trees to my south.  These are no longer urban garden trees: huge sycamores, ficus nitidas,  out of control ash trees,  tall pittosporums,  rampant Brazilian peppers. They have run wild and are beyond being garden trees at thirty to forty feet tall, very dense all the year. They do not belong in an urban garden setting unless regularly trimmed by good tree workers.

  The same for the neighbor trees to the East and the West of my plot. For six months in my back garden bed there is cold shade because of their neglected trees--no roses or gardenias will grow there. They had those trees  "popped in" thirty years ago, and then they forgot them. They consider them utilitarian for privacy. So, these monster trees suck up your water, nutrients, and life giving sun. There was neither gardening intentionality nor planning in their being planted. Some garden-center clerk told them what to do! So, I,  have had to plant my rose garden in the center of my garden  plot. As my father told me,  "Keep the center of the garden open from large overwhelming trees and shrubs," and this is good advice. Many true gardeners have agreed with me. Openness in some part of the garden is one way to create a feeling of expansiveness. Monty Don talks about this all the time. Psychologists tell us that people feel better when they can see outwardly. You don't feel hemmed in when you look out the window into the garden. There is a sense of freedom, even of hope, I would say.
   So, attention to the lay of the land and the position of the house (home) is essential, and that has taken me 45 years to understand. This, year as every year, I am growing seven or eight varieties of tomatoes in fifteen gallon black plastic cans. They are placed where the sun is constant, dependable and very bright. Up against the south wall. They love it there. That's the way I do it, and do you think that some know-it-all dillitante "professional" is going to tell me what to do and where to grow my tomatoes? Forget it! Growing tomatoes requires skill derived from personal experience, knowledge, and what I want for myself and my family.
   But most off all a garden acquires a special spirit or Soul with age. Age is a Soul maker. It has taken my garden years to get that layering, that patina of having lived; mossy places, twisted and gnarled tree trunks, falling leaves in fall, footsteps worn in places where I walk every day. I see this patina of love and age in European gardens mostly. Except for a few old gardens, America is too young. I often worry about what will happen to my garden when I leave this earth--will somebody improve it, build a condo, rebuild,  by doing  "a scrape"? Most of all there are memories of so many people in my heart who have given me plants. My garden is "peopled" with plants. They are growing in my garden  "in absentia", and always will be present as long as I am here to acknowledge their plant gifts, their gardening advice, the lovely specimen-plants that have matured over the years. You can't just "pop that in"--no way.
   Auctoritas means as the ancient Romans conceived it,  that which one does with ones  intentionality. It is the same in speech, playing music, good cooking,  love, hate, a teaching, voice in writing, or anything else worth doing well.  Where there is no Auctoritas there is no true intentionality, and a  Garden of Soul possesses Auctoritas.

Frank La Rosa Mazza 19 June 2020



 

                       

                                                 

                                                        In Silence Is All Potentiality
                                                                          May  


   We perceive the silent center of the vortex in our own gardens, just as Orpheus did as he was

playing his harp to all the animals and plants of the  forest. The silences occur between the beats--

between the beats of music, between the beats of our hearts, between whatever is happening

in our own lives. All that we need to do , as Franz Kafka said,  is to wait in silence, to be still, and all

will come into us.

In the garden there are sacred, silent moments, like moments in a whirling vortex of being.

In my garden, and yours, the silences come and bring with them the buzz of bees and other insects,

the cricket's song between the pausings, the special spaces among the bird songs,  the waitings for the

the woodpecker to resume its staccato hammering; these are the sacred interstitial centers of all life,

and Orpheus heard and knew them all.




I think of the heart in its gracious, consistent beating. It does this all our lives, yet it has its silent

moments between the systolic and diastolic muscular actions (between the pulses), and in between

these two actions where are the silences?  They are there, between the systole and the diastole,

between the contracting and expansion of our heart. These silences are actually little deaths.

I often wonder if mystics can hear the sounds and the silences of growing seeds. I think that Orpheus

heard them ,and this is why the animals and plants listened in awe to his music.

                                           
                                                   SILENCES

                                            The bees whisper

                                             their musical humming

                                             through noon's sun washed

                                             susurration of soothing sound and light--

                                             eternal Orpheus moments--

                                             between their beating wings.

                                             These are the stillnesses--

                                             the silent pauses

                                              that wait and hide

                                              among the wings,

                                              like frightful voids separating

                                               the systolic and diastolic

                                               pausings of the heart,

                                               creating a necklace

                                               of golden threaded beads--

                                               intermittent moments

                                               of life and--

                                               little deaths


                                           
                                             
                                                                                                      Frank La Rosa Mazza
                                                                                                      May 2020
 

                                           

                                                   



       

                             

                                     


   

 

April is the Month of Openings

                                                 April is the Month of Openings
                                                         Evocations of Seeds
                                                                      by
                                                      Frank La Rosa Mazza


   I will spare you the many words written about April--"April is the cruelest month'' and all that stuff  academics adore. I am certain that you have heard many of these platitudinous intellectualizations  about April. So, I shall write of my own experience of April and Spring.  As I see it

   Yes, April is the month of openings, and the greatest of these is the Opening that comes into and out of ourselves. And,  it is also that marvelous Opening, inward and outward, into the dark silent rooms of the Soul that leads to the inner Self that occurs in our own  garden. When we are truly alive,  present in our own protected garden, called the hortus conclusus (the walled garden), the Self peers out to us from the fecund wet, spongy earth  through which the insistent spear-leaves pierce with audacious certitude; this leaf demanding display of lily blades and their flowers, the buzzing of bees and other insects, the sunning lizards, the feel of the sun on ones cheek--all of this is an Opening.
    The greatest of these Openings is that miracle of sprouting seeds.
     I spend my pre-April days looking at the pictures of flowers and fruits and plants in seed catalogs: the " Strictly Medicinal Seeds" catalog by Richo Cech and family and the "J. L. Hudson Seedsman Ethnobotanical Catalog of Seeds"  from La Honda, California. These are true seed catalogs prepared by people who dearly love seeds and plants and have devoted their lives to them. Both catalogs have a special voice and tone. These are qualities you don't get with the corporate world writing. Then, I order the seeds. I await them to arrive in the mail.  "Will they come today? Ah, they've come!"
    If you want to sprout the seeds early indoors, it is best to sterilize the earth that you plant the seeds in. This will prevent the gardener's bane called damping off. The most crucial and dangerous point in a seed's existence (or any birth) is immediately after it sprouts. This is when damping off can occur, and then one could feel so very bad. What had looked like a new beginning has died.  All you have for your efforts is a limp, seed stalk, two limp seed-leaves, and no hope for the future.
   To avoid all of this, wash out the seed growing containers in extremely hot even boiling water, or with chlorox water  (one teaspoon per gallon), or best of all, use a microwave proof dish to zap the earth you have placed in it.   Zap for five to seven minutes the earth that you will need, or even ten minutes if you are compulsive.  Do this zapping by microwave,  and the fungi, viruses,  weed seeds, and the other enemies of the sprouting seeds will be rendered inert. Now the seeds will sprout safely and healthily.
   I have a neat set up in my garage. I load the zapped earth into clean plastic pots and place them on electric seed sprouting heat mats. These electric mats keep the earth and the seeds at about 75-80F degrees, thus avoiding that cold, wet time of cool weather if the seeds are sprouted outdoors. Later, after two or more true leaves appear, I place these pots and their inhabitants out in the sun, gradually hardening them off to their new environment. I often bring the pots back indoors at night, especially if there is bad weather such as cold heavy, hard rain.
   In the garage set up, I have a controlled  seed sprouting situation that is safe and relatively easy. And, I can sleep easy at night. Yes, I am overly responsible
A soil thermometer (Ugh-'soil,' an ugly word at least to my mind) helps to make sure that the mats are working,  keeping the temperature right for germination. Granted,  'soil' is an acceptable word in some gardening contexts.
    What a gift, that after only three days you will see  lettuce seeds sprouting with their hypocotyls  (stems) heaving their bent over baby backs out of the damp earth, and the first seed leaves will be greeting you and this world of light. Everything seems right again when this sprouting birth happens.
    If there is anything that I believe in at all, it is this: seeds are always sprouting anywhere and somewhere in the world. Claire Leighton, the wonderful engraver artist, observed this and said that seeds are "beyond borders". They don't bow down to political regimes, dictators, repressive governments,  nasty people, or "their lonely betters." They love  cracks in sidewalks. In fact they can heave sidewalks. They will not be repressed. They are audacious!


                                                                                                                              FLR-M
                                                                                                                              18 April 2020


   

 

                                  Nature is a temple where the living pillars
                                  Permit, from time to time, confused words to escape . . . .

                                   "Correspondences"  by Charles Baudelaire
                                   William H. Crosby, translation


                                                MARCH  CORRESPONDENCES
                                                               by Frank La Rosa


   March is the month of the living Force of nature that the Romans named after the god Mars. This essential Force of nature is the life energy that flows through all plants and animals; the Romans observed it as a 'vis' or 'virtu', and it can also be seen as an 'elan vital'.  Being a living Force, the Romans also saw it manifested as an agricultural power to be propitiated with spring rites and rituals.
   Mars is the god of boundaries and limits. The Force marches inexorably to the climax of summer, the season of deep green leafiage, blossoms, fruits of all kinds, and intense growth. I see the Force marching in step like a Roman legion to its appointed destiny on the edges of the empire. The Italian province of Marche was once considered a borderland or frontier between two ancient kingdoms both facing the sea. It was the same in regard to Wales, the border of western England.
   For us as gardeners, March is that month of sun,  plants, and  bees infused with a primal, energy that proceeds  in a relentless march  to high summer.
   In my garden the plants and blossoms are burgeoning  announcing the end of winter; the roses are in leaf of rich red, above all, the citrus trees are in bud and blossom. The bees have taken notice of this scented citrus blossoming, and I see them hurrying, shuffling, and rushing into the hive with lovely white, yellow, and buttery rich yellow pollens sacks on their hind legs. All of their pollen gathering is proof that the Mother-queen bee is laying eggs and that the workers are feeding pupae that will grow into new workers; they bring in such large quantities of pollen that I see the remnants of it dusted like gold flecks on the landing board of the hive. And, as I place my ear right up to the wall of the hive box, I hear a marvelous gentle roar of the living Force that is called the Spirit of March.
   This powerful roar makes me think of another creative roar, that of the wonderful roar of my pottery kiln that is also in my garden. If at all possible, a living, growing garden should have a beehive for honey or a kiln for the firing of ceramics--pots and sculptures. I cannot conceive of it being any other way. The two are so merged in my psyche, that when I think of one I feel the other. I remember the Cardews who had a magnificent kiln and rich red roses growing up the wall of their county home in Saint Breward, Cornwall

   The heart is both a beehive and a kiln. I do not add the word "like" because they are so very similar. Through great living heat or passion (one of the Force of nature, the other of man instigated flame-fire) magical transformation take place through heat and energy. The focus of heat and intentionality causes transformation to occur. A natural law of the Cosmos.
   Within a shield or containment barrier, (a refractory of firebrick in one case, or, the wooden walls of a beehive) the heart roars with life. There is a pulse of the fire as the kiln begins  its moment to moment climb to the required heat (to cone) to vitrify clay and melt glazes. My pots fire to about cone 5 to cone 7, requiring about eight hours of heat-work.
    The same is true of the heart pulse of blood as it flows on its course nourishing the life of the body and it organs; the energy which is not burnt" thoroughly is deposited on the heart just as in the kiln's unburnt energy (or carbon) deposits itsel as  black splotchings called "flashings" on the walls of pots. On the pots the flashings are quite beautiful, perhaps not so much so on the heart, for obvious reasons that anyone can understand.
   The very first time that I fired my kiln many years ago, I felt an excitement rising up in my chest and heart--a correspondence with the rising fire of the kiln. It was a marvelous simulacrum of my body corresponding to the soul of the rising flame and heat. After many years and numerous kiln firings I still feel the excitement at the surge of the heightening heat.
   The firing begins with a fluttering orange-yellow flame called a  "candling" to drive off water in the clay body. Then, the flame is gradually increased  until it takes on a blue, almost clear resonance. With this stage the kiln atmosphere is clear and hot (free of unburnt carbon) and  breathes so powerfully and  its  sound is a sweet susurration that purrs, or more aptly, buzzes like the core of bees working around the Mother in a hive. The kiln works its magic of permanence on the pots and the beauty of the glazes. Both the kiln and the hive have alchemically created out of earth, air, water and fire eternal forms and healing honey.
 
 
                                                       The Perfume of Poison
                                                                     By
                                                        Frank La Rosa Mazza

   The poison of a bee's stinger has the most intense, beautiful fragrance in the plant or animal world.
Only the alchemy of the bee's body and soul can create this magical scent. It is actually a scent that is expressed by the death of the bee. This fragrance is released when the bee stings and its entrails and stinger are torn from its body, thus killing it. The fragrance of this wounding is transitory, fugitive, pealing on the air for only a few seconds if that. It is a sweetness and pungency and colors of flower petals, stamens, pollen, and nectaries. The perfume of this sacrificial death is like Rilke's crystal bowl that rings as it is shattered.
   I wonder how many people (even beekeepers) have experienced or acknowledged this lovely, precious perfume? It is as a Wallace Stevens suggested--death is the mother of beauty. There resides in all this a poignancy the possibility  that we as human beings perceive something about which the bees seemingly know nothing (I wonder), I suppose.













                   

February the Get Ready Month

We are in the midst of February, the cleansing month,  and the roses should have been pruned by now.  It is not too late to do so, but that little chore should be done now. I Pruned about fifty roses at the Shiley Pavilion in La Jolla and they are already leafing out because they are so close to the profoundly beautiful Pacific Ocean within view. Now is also the time to feed them with a very light application of nitrogen, either chemical ammonium sulphate or steer manure. Water it in well. Then a little later in the season (about a month or so), give them an application of Baer Three in One Rose Care; this fertilizes, protects from fungi, and kills insects. This is a systemic product and does a good job of helping the roses along for the blooming season. You only have to apply it about twice per season,
   And, of course, as the roses bloom don,t forget to dead head the old and ragged blossoms; this saves plant energy that needs to go to the rose bush itself. Cut the blossoms off about 7 or 8 leaves down the stem, or where you think is best for the plant to put out new growth, or to where the bush looks balanced. In providing this care you are the best gardener to assess where the balance--new growth or aesthetic appeal should be. For me, gardening is always about good plant care and how beautifully pleasing the plants and garden look. These elements are what gardening is concerned with.
   Going back to the beginning of all this, February is the cleansing or purification month. February is the second month of the Gregorian calender, and the word February derives from the Latin 'februa' which means expiatory offerings, cleansing, or by  extension,  a kind of fever that heats up and makes for cleansing by some sort of excitement. In my conception of the word, February is that month latent with plant energy that is on the brink of Spring. It is Nature's ready to go month.