I did a quick walkabout in Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden a couple of days ago. I'm looking for a place that's peaceful, colorful, and grounding...a thinking place, a feeling place. I'd had that at Burke Lake in NOVA and I'm sure there's a place like that in RVA. I only saw a tiny bit of the entire Garden; I spent most of my time in the Asian Valley and Flagler Garden sections. Beautiful! And, calm. Many of the images I found were complex, a great deal of landscape in a tiny little sensor. Most of the "complexity" however, was impermanent, flowers or shrubs or fallen flower petals that would slowly morph into nature's nothingness. And that reminded me of Wabi-Sabi, a concept I had tried to discover and describe some years ago but was left wanting on both fronts. I don't know if you can call the gardens "imperfect" because they certainly are not. Or maybe...is this nature or man? And if man, it cannot be perfect. Wabi-Sabi.

Asian GardenAt Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden Looking into FlaglerAt Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden looking into the Flagler section Lewis Ginter ConservatoryThe conservatory taken from Luck Garden The Lotus BridgeThe Lotus Bridge overlooking part of Sydnor Lake in Lewis Ginter Garden