O-Bon, the Spirit Festival at the Portland Japanese Garden

One of the key reasons I annually renew my membership to the Portland Japanese Garden is so that I can attend this members only event each August. During this time of year in Japan, for 3 days each summer, there is a spirit festival which is considered a homecoming of sorts to welcome back the spirits of ancestors into your home and life. Ever since my first visit to this festival, back when I was still a teenager, the Rev. Kodachi has led the Buddhist ceremony. I am honored to know both he and his wife. (I used to work with Mr. Kodachi during the summer for a week-long Japanese exchange program he created and Mrs. Kodachi just so happens to be my ikebana sensei.)

Before the ceremony, guests gather for Bon Odori. Of the 3 dances performed last night, this is the one I'm most familiar with since I learned it years ago. It is the dance of the Tankō Bushi or "coal mining song."

Guests enter the garden after the performance, and as the Rev. Kodachi chants, we are handed candles that are later lit and are floated on the pond en masse. 

Guests continue on and gather on the Moon Bridge. They can be seen to the left. 

Sadly my Grandmother Virginia's name was not read, but when my candle was sent out, I thought a lot about her. 

To my great surprise, for the first time, I heard much more weeping around me from the other guests and it made me smile.

I looked up at the night sky through the pine needles above and I thought about how she and I used to cry together so often. This would make us turn to laughing eventually and giggling about being such sensitive women. Grandma called us crybabies and she used to apologize that I'd inherited her traits but I'd comfort her by telling her that my sensitivity made me strong by making me vulnerable and honest. 

We both knew we had the horrible fate of being born with the hearts and souls of poetesses. Those around us did not understand this, and in my case, they still don't, but it's ok. Grandma feared others really knowing her, and knowing this weakness she had, but I am so proud she gave it to me too and I thanked her last night since it's what has made my life so unique and special. She gave me my heart and soul. This is a beautiful thing to give a woman and I am grateful above all else to her. 

The alter. 

After the event was over, I spent additional time speaking with the Rev. Kodachi, Mrs. Kodachi, and their son—whom I haven't seen in years. I met two of their granddaughters and I was filled with that happiness I so often have when I see small little women. We spoke of my divorce, my health, my plans for the future, and then I promised to return to ikebana classes next month.

I have my spirit back now and I very much look forward to moving on in my floral arranging studies. Ikebana is my art form and poetry and I really hope to keep doing it for many years to come.

The lights collecting, reflecting in the water, the koi sleep beneath. 

Portland Japanese Garden

Wordless Wednesday: To Flora, May Day 2011

Rhodies kicked to the curb

For some strange reason, whenever I turn my back, another great rhododendron is being removed from a garden or yard. Offered for free online almost every day of the week, the long line of them never seems to cease. If the owners aren't into back-breaking labor, they gleefully will let you dig the beasts up on your own. I have never accepted this kind of torture, but my husband and I did help a neighbor with one that he needed moved because it was huge and in a tiny bed. This seemed like a fun job though because it is amazing in bloom, but I would never ask a stranger to do that kind of work in exchange for a free shrub! Some folks just risk it and will simply leave them on a curb with a cardboard sign reading "free,"but the worst is when old specimens aren't even saved. Ripped apart limb by limb they too are left on the curb, but this time they are destined for a compost heap. Ah! The circle of life...
It saddens me to see a plant once so beloved by countless homeowners all over the NW as being painfully out of fashion with a new generation of homeowners. Sure, many of them are pink or rose, but what about those red azaleas? Did you happen to notice the yellow ones or maybe some of the deep purple? Does anyone care that they finally made one that is almost black? I really care about all of them and sometimes even the pink.
My feelings by now must be transparent. As a child, I was surrounded by many gardeners, of many different genders and generations, and they all loved rhodies and azaleas. Mom was fond of the red ones, and even today, she still has them all over her yard and they are amazing in bloom. In the beginning though, when I was quite small, and she had only just begun her rhododendron collection, she would stop and ask strangers about which ones they had in their yards if she saw something she liked. At my Catholic school each year we would fill (and cover) the alter on the Virgin Mary's feast day with a rainbow of trusses and I recall that colored carpet so vividly even today. On May Day I would also make paper baskets for our neighbors Essie and Clyde on May Day. I would fill them with rhododendron blooms, ring their doorbell, and run away. They never said anything to me, but of course they knew I had done it.
Now younger folks and transplants to Portland just don't seem to have the same sentimental attachment to these beauties that I obviously do. And I, the most non-romantic romantic I know, cannot get them out of my mind. Maybe tomorrow I'll order another, or maybe I will go rescue one that someone else no longer wants.