“Ah, holy Jesus, how hast Thou offended, that man to judge Thee hath in hate pretended?  By foes derided, by Thine own rejected, O most afflicted.”  Johann Heermann, 1585-1647   http://www.hymnsite.com/lyrics/umh289.sht

Fromagination leaves nothing to the imagination when it comes to presenting native Wisconsin cheeses

This week we enter the season of Lent.  Again.  There will be riotous celebrations in honor of the French Mardi Gras.  To truly celebrate Fat Tuesday one must believe in the sacredness of Ash Wednesday.  One must believe that several miracles occurred to have the man we call Jesus be born of the Virgin and become quick and risen from the dead after his crucifixion on Easter Sunday. 

I have been disowned by the Quaker Friends Meeting in Darby because I deny the miracles of Christmas and Easter.  I deny Christ’s divinity.  There is one God.  And that God is singular–not triune.

And God truly knows what he is about when he allows mortal souls to sample and savor His holey cheeses. 

This week God revealed a true apotheosis to me.  His creation of cheese is revelatory.  I now regard Wisconsin as a state of pilgrimage.  It is no less a shrine to divinity than the Catholics view Lourdes, the Protestants appreciate Wittenberg, followers of Islam register Mecca, and aging Rock-and-Roll fans visit Graceland.

The storefront, Fromagination, is directly across the street from the State Capitol building in Madison Wisconsin

Holy Cheeses!  Many hundreds of them greet the supplicant entering the doors of Fromagination.  http://fromagination.com/ They are like lighted votives on an altar consecrated to Vacca.  Vacca is Latin for cow.  The owners could also have called this stop on my Wisconsin itinerary “Vaccation!”

All of the cheeses are fresh-from-the-farm and taste of the grass on which the animals feed.  Many are not pasteurized.  Most are not homogenized.  It’s the timing of any cheese older than 60 days that allows it to be germ-free and safe for consumption.  Most of the cheeses that I sampled were considerably older.

And I sampled an incredible variety.  God doesn’t provide just cheese alone.  He also provides artisanal crackers, condiments, and complements like teas, savouries, and chocolates.  I did a lot of fiscal damage avec fromage.

In addition to cheese, Fromagination also has a full selection of condiments, crispy crackers, and complements.

But the best is reserved by the staff and they speak eloquently about the curing and the caring.  It’s the holes that create the sparkle.  Cheeses exude a liquor that collects in the holes.  This liquid condenses and evaporates, leaving behind a crystalline salt.  The crunch found in many of the most mature are these crystals bursting as they are bitten in the soft creamy matrix.

Ah!  Holey Cheeses.  Some of the staff recommendations that I brought home include:  Bleu Mont Dairy Reserve Bandaged Cheddar http://www.eatwisconsincheese.com/wisconsin/artisans/Results.aspx?artisan=7, Buttermilk Blue Roth Kase  http://www.emmirothusa.com/?id=1672, Pleasant Ridge Reserve Uplands Cheesehttp://www.uplandscheese.com/, Chalet Cheese Swiss Wheel Aged http://www.eatwisconsincheese.com/wisconsin/artisans/Results.aspx?artisan=16 , andAlpine Renegade.

Even more cheeses are available not from the state of pilgrimage: Wisconsin

It was a fattening experience.  But that’s what Mardi Gras is all about.  Since my return from this travel experience, my wife agreed that we needed to share our bounty and host a cheese tasting.  We will have a dinner and it will, most assuredly, be a wholly holey religious experience.

A jewel from Thailand viewed through the winter bones of Olbrich Botanic Garden in Madison Wisconsin

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes…”  Marcel Proust

John Bartram observes the Thai Pavillion at the Olbrich Botanical Garden Madison WI

I traveled to Madison Wisconsin.  I anticipated the trip as a view to their deepest winter landscapes.  I anticipated desiccated, dry botanic bones and horticultural sculpture.  I wanted to collect evergreens and acknowledge structural habit.  I wanted to see how temperature and snow-cover impact survival and hardiness. 

I wasn’t imagining urban;  seeking an international experience;  or requiring sophistication.  I wasn’t thinking oriental.

This Thai gable end is mortise and tenon construction. Gold leaf is hand applied and the roof shingles are high gloss, fire-glazed terra cotta.

New eyes.  Different landscape.  In turning a corner of a wondrous wintry collection of grasses and structural shapes, the botanic garden’s path led to a distant pavilion of gilded and graceful arches with winged pediments.  http://www.olbrich.org/

Where in the world was I?  What powerful King and craftsmen transposed the warmth of this art into such a cold clime?  It was the magic of theatrical artifice.  The view conjured dancers amid palms;  spotted leopards hunting in tangled jungles;  elephants spouting fountains of murky river water;  and people conducting their business and managing their lives in glinting rainbow of colored silk and shimmer of beaten gold.

In short, everything that a Quaker gentleman from Philadelphia should most resent, despise and condemn.

Instead, I was struck dumb.  My wife would say that it was a natural reaction.

The skin of the Naga was represented by the scales of paving along the sinuous path

The path became a sinuous curve of Naga-hide.  The Hindu representation of this snake god plays well within our Christian context of being reborn within a new skin.  For me, especially, it connects with the elemental forces at work in nature.  I carry my snake stick as a talisman and also as a reminder of the interconnectedness of all things.

The Naga guards the entrance to the Asian jungle recreation

Here I found myself an heretical Christian, walking a Hindi snake-skin path to a pavilion dedicated by a 95% Buddhist-worshipping culture.  I didn’t have time to consider the horticultural implications.

The Thai pavilion has a platform for dancing, ceremonial services and parties.

Then I turned around and walked back by the way I’d come.  It was obvious that a great many people had worked a great many hours to bring us to this understanding.  And nature connects us all.  It was a revelation.

Olbrich Botanic Garden boardwalk over the dry pond.

Like a tree in winter, I have been lean and drawn out.

“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day-to-day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”      Shakespeare Macbeth Act 5 , scene 5, 19-28

Home is where the dreams lead you at the end of the journey

I have been away too long and missed the connection with HOME.  In the olde days, I would anticipate Ann on the porch with outstretched arms and a shout down the path of, “Welcome home to Bartram’s Garden…”

"Welcome home to Bartram's Garden!" always greeted me as I walked up the path to the house.

So all month I’ve said that I will post tomorrow.  And tomorrow.  and tomorrow.  Because of this month of travel that I have survived, I never reached the tomorrow of my dreams. 

I’ve seen sights and dreamed dreams.  I am an olde man, after all.  I have traveled to new worlds, met new friends and gathered a great many experiences about which I need to write.  And then I never preserved a moment to reflect on all of the opportunities that I passed. 

John is caught in a frozen moment in Madison Wisconsin

Where are the reminders of the sights?  What are the addresses of the friends?  How were the experiences praised or relived or examined? 

I have traveled many roads in the last month

How many were the times that I said I needed to note this thought?  How much was the value of the moment?  How many plants did I touch that I could not name?  What was the nature of the mission and what did I bring back to the safety and security of HOME?

The value of the plants that I discover is only as much as they survive the trip.  They need to be brought home alive.  So if it doesn’t survive the trip, did it actually ever exist?  Talk to the Franklinia alatamaha.  I never answered the question about that plant.  It ceased to exist in nature. 

Franklinia alatamaha captured in a painting. Extinct in the wild.

It’s time to post.  It’s now a moment in the history of the world to capture the thoughts that were bright and sparkly in their passage.

Pater noster.  Our father. 

Paterno…

It is a papist sentiment and I never thought myself capable of one.  But here I am and here is the sentiment.  Staring me in the face of all that I consider to be sacrosanct.  Another papist thought.

They collect around me this morning in a dim and frosty light.  Anathema.  Now there is a religious sentiment with which I have some familiarity.  Outcast and pariah all carry the same meaning and weight.

There was a man who claimed much of his life’s inspiration came from this first reading in Latin of Virgil’s epic poem.  This man claimed as his most esteemed mentor the priest who unlocked the door to the magical reading room.

The Aeneid begins as quoted above.  It is the story of band of men in search of country…home…and ultimately God.  It is a tale of hardships shared, trials survived, and treacheries overcome.  It was a world much like our current one where heroes are made on a patch of turf 100 yards long.

Much the same as today’s tale, the Aeneid is a great love story.  A passionate affair of man to woman and hero to nation. 

Unlike our current tale, the Aeneid ends in triumph as Aeneas vanquishes his enemy and achieves his destiny.

Life rarely imitates art.  In this cold and bitter morning our tale’s would-be hero rests not on laurels but on criticisms from those who would be like Cassius:

“Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus, and we petty men walk under his huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonorable graves.  Men at some time are masters of their fates:  The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”  Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare

I come not to bury Caesar, but to praise him.  My Pater Noster will dwell on recognition of goodness and valor, humor and strength.  It will speak to the legions of followers who like their dramas large and heroes free from stain.  And to the smaller numbers of those who believe that common humanity binds us all into forgiving frailty and imperfection.

{Submitted by Kirk R. Brown for J.B. approval.  Kansas City, Missouri.  Kauffman Center http://www.kauffmancenter.org/}

The green roof on the new Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

John, on the way back home, I had to stop at this new center for the arts in the heart of downtown Kansas City.  It was an amazing end to the journey to OZ and back.  There is a roof on the end of the building that is covered with trees and ornamental grass.  Just look at it!  Amazing technology.  Sustainable and beautiful all at the same time!  And GREEN.

The double shells of the exterior mask the opposing rings of the interior spaces.

The roof had several levels visible from the interior spaces.

Multi-level green roof.

At the core of this building are two fabulous performance spaces that allow artists their full range of musical and dramatic expression.  The close end houses the orchestral space.  The magnificent organ and unique pipe installation has yet to be voiced and played.

The Symphony side of the Arts Center is a flexible concert space.

The interior space is wood clad an offers perfect acoustics.  Beautiful organic surfaces.  Pins would drop noisily.

These arcs of wood oppose the exterior shells of the building.

The upper shell is home to the Kansas City Opera Company and all of the touring shows requiring a fully functional theatrical road house.

The fire curtain was down on the tour.

The interior grand tier is designed to give the audience an impression of being inside a chandelier.  The walls are back-lit crystal panels.  The halls a painted in large fields of color.

The Circle combines private boxes with grand tier seating.

It was a private tour on a very quick stop.  But I wanted to share with you the amazing sites that are changing the face of the way we look at and treat our landscapes.  This view of nature was supremely artistic.

The lobby expands out into the space between the performance venues.

And then on my way to the car in the parking garage, I heard strange music coming from a group of pipes glowing with the changing melodic patterns.  Wow.  This was a grand way to finish up an amazing experience.

The music and tonal coloration joined the spheres of art and performance.

The trip ended at the drive up from the garage.

The end of the Kansas City experience on the way to the airport.

“He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance;  one cannot fly into flying.”  Friedrich Nietzsche

My amanuensis, Kirk R. Brown, has scheduled some days apart from me in this winter season.  He is attending to his personal business on many fronts relating to the greening of America.  These days and in this particular season they have gatherings of our clans of fellow gardeners across this vast country of ours.  He loves what he does.  His connections are numerous and his ease on meeting strangers makes good friends of potential enemies.  He plays the fool well but does not easily suffer them.

This is a trade show rebranded from the original Western Nursery and Landscape Association

These clannish troupings of our tribal green color bring together all manner of possible combinations:  product endorsements, improvements, plants, equipment (a very mannish, clannish thing indeed!), educational opportunities, recognitions, reconnections, and escape from our everyday existence in an office or nursery or garden.  Kirk was farther afield last week than was in my awareness of time and space.

Ball Horticultural put out a colorful display of their new selections

He went to Kansas:  a place over the rainbow and a left turn at the North Star.  Great, green fields awaited his arrival.  Fertile oases of alluvial ground watered by a great river in the center of our continent.  In life’s travels we pass many streams but once.  You must make special note of passing a great watershed.  Kirk retells his experience in Kansas last week as the passing of a great watershed.

A trade show floor is full of the products from the world of nature. Evergreen!

This clan was rebranded within a twelve-month period.  It was an ancient root out of the west.  Its lands and nurseries were abundant and strong throughout it 125 plus year history.  As with many old things, changes come sometimes planned, sometimes by choice, and most times by need.  Take my own ancient life as an example!  They needed to view life in a new way.

The latest in equipment for garden illumination. How I wish it had been available in my youth!

The new clan is known as “The National Green Center!”  Isn’t that wonderful?  What a unique concept.  They believe themselves to be the center of this country’s green movement.  Isn’t that brazen?  My Darby Meeting would hardly approve, but then we know what they felt about my outrageousness.

Color abounded in Kansas City

But this group of wise and far-sighted leaders wished to fly into a new dawn.  Realizing that they had need for wings, they first thought to dance.  The analogy fits like a clogger’s shoe.  It is hard and dynamic–dramatic almost–in its use.  They decided to first refashion the style of production:

They renamed.  They refit.  They colorized.  They developed a sense of Fashion!  They thought to enlist the help of other clans.  They recognized strangers and invited fellow travelers.  They opened the doors in preparedness for the day when the feathers would be dry and flight could be achieved.

Networking opportunities were abundant. Michael Dirr confers with Reps from Bailey Nurseries and Ball Horticultural.

I heartily applaud the steps they’ve taken to ensure all of our collective and natural futures.  I congratulate them on their need to be sustainable:  in organization, in fiscal responsibility, and in connection.  With this green botanical nature that courses through all of us, we need to hold close and respect deeply those who choose to do battle with the angry gods of commerce and industry. 

{Submitted by Kirk R. Brown for J.B. approval.  Kansas City, Kansas.  National Green Center.    http://www.nationalgreencentre.org/index.php }

John!  There was a fashion show.  It’s a natural!  I mean, it’s of nature.  Listen:  the models paraded down a runway with plants.  It was a fashion show of lights, color, and beautiful models–with attitude.  The beautiful people were carrying pots of beautiful new plants.  Why didn’t you ever think of this? 

It was called “The Sweet Melissa Fashion Show” and it introduced 50–FIFTY–new plants to the trade.  That’s one quarter of all of the plants you introduced in your youth!

The experience was exhilarating.  The crowd was raucous.  The bars were open.  The lights were brilliant.  And the runway stretched a green mile.

I was just part of the crowd.  I was making notes in the program just like everyone else as the latest hort-couture designs paraded past.  There was a continuous buzz throughout the room.  Exhibitors, attendees, press, and nursery hybridizers hovered around the corridor of bright lights.

Many of the introductions were represented by colorful broadsides illustrating the plant at height of bloom or seasonal color.  Backstage, the fashion collection was lined up waiting for the show to proceed.

Both before and after the show, the runway became a focus of the trade show’s excitement.  People could meet and sit to discuss their business.  The carpet remained a colorful reminder of the show’s sparkle. 

I respectfully submit this news release for the pleasure it may provide and the knowledge of new plants it may tease you to investigate.  http://www.nationalgreencentre.org/2012_FashionShow.vp.html 

Kirk R. Brown

“A plague [on all] your houses!”    with apologies to Mercutio from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet Act 3, scene 1

My amanuensis has sent field notes back to me of a meeting of leaders in this botanical industry.  The gathering of minds had an intent to define a way through the shoals of troubled water in which we swim.  There were sharp minds at council tables. 

Two statements of purpose were attached to the gathering of horticultural tribes:

1.  Provide a venue for leaders of the industry’s organizations and associations to share insights regarding the future of the industry and the opportunities and challenges that are likely to emerge as they work to support their members and constituents.

2.  Initiate the first phase of an ongoing dialogue among these leaders to support their efforts to address and capitalize on these opportunities as they explore [what?] they may mean for the future of their organizations.

The foolscap newsprint was a image from my youth. These elephant folio sized sheets were the same that Ben Franklin would have used in his print shop.

This was a very heady agenda.  A lot of work was initiated by the brief confederation of horticultural colonies.  It was the first trumpet call to become a United Nation of Green. 

Unlike the First and Second Continental Congresses, there were women present at the heart of this discussion.  Wisdom AND beauty.  Age and the enthusiasm of youth.  Brilliance of mind and those still dazed by the glare from the noonday sun.  And there were writers of well-turned phrases.

Sarah Woody Bibens was in a leadership capacity as Executive Director of the Western Landscape and Nursery Association

The reporter on site took special note of the ease with which the discussions were facilitated.  I greatly respect the scientific method and the processes in place to develop a group dynamic.  Dr. David Renz was the professor in charge.  His degree is recognized and promoted by the Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership, The Henry W. Bloch School of Management, University of Missouri, Kansas City.

The good Doctor was praised for his professional and efficient staging of the Association Summit.

In the world of my youth, we could have used such well-studied and eminently qualified professionals.  In my youth, I only had the wits with which I was born.  Now we can rest more easily on the taller shoulders of those who write better sentences…or possess more credentials…or speak with louder voices.

As in my day of Quaker Meetings, this group’s consensus was reached after strenuous exercise and posturing.  There was no argument.  There also was no vote.  The congressional leaders concurred to leave the observations in an unedited form.

Notes were taken, collected, and preserved.  I am told that those in attendance wanted to, “build on this session’s info and take it forward.”

The delegates to this congress were urged:  “DON’T WASTE THIS INPUT.”  In future, it might be brought out and viewed through a darkened lens.  But if it is not to be used immediately, how shall it not be wasted?

What proof can be drawn that this meeting occurred?  What sound does a falling tree make if unheard by a passerby?  When does a natural confederation cease to be a group of individuals and become an individual group?

This congress produced a set of Articles of Confederation.  Analysed in their pieces, they have a disparate and almost desperate need to grasp the roots and promote a horticultural revolution.  Again, Ben Franklin was there before us, ”for if we don’t hang together, we shall–most assuredly–all hang separately…” 

Truer words were never spoken.  Or written.  We shall see if they are a call to action.

I choose not to be original this week.  My amanuensis is engaged in a conference at some distance from me.  I would rather that he speaks for himself.  So, I have allowed him to post the following: 

{Submitted by Kirk R. Brown for J.B. approval.  Kansas City, Kansas.  National Green Center.}

Dr. Dirr stirred the audience when he appeared at the National Green Center Conference and Trade Show

John, you must put this venue on your schedule.  It is imperative that you get to network with the “YOU” of this age.  Michael Dirr represents everything that you would subscribe to in the present world of digital communication.

He met with us at the Garden Writers’ breakfast.  His words were confrontational.  He has seen, and tried, and written, and been, and experienced everything that this industry holds in esteem.  He would be pragmatic and tell us there is no chance for success if he weren’t so passionate about his topic.

There were many of us at breakfast.  We talked a blue streak and impressed everyone with our credentials.  It was a moment of solitary elegy.  As individuals, we can shine in the roomful of self-defined authors.  I love this group!

These writers gathered to be acknowledged for the wisdom they bring to the horticultural table. We had a wonderful breakfast.

Dr. Dirr has a horticultural glass which may be half empty, but it still brims with the sparkle of choice flowers.  His is a new world of COLOR.  It is loud and clear in his message.  He wants this world to be full of COLOR.

Botticelli was passionate about color and light. This was every bit of his Venus and the Birth of Spring. But she said she didn't come with shells.

Dr. Dirr doesn’t believe that we can correct our mistakes or overcome our history of failed attempts.  He does not easily sign on to passing trends and fancies.  It was a day of revelation. 

This is the New Testament Gospel.  We need to recreate who we are.  We need to rewind the image of who we become when we dream.  And we need to change the direction of where we want to go.  He is tired of doing the same thing the same way.  His challenge is to live up to our colorful promise.

It will shortly be spring.  We need to see the light of this spring and take steps to make it different from those other springs of our youth.  The light is still there.  We just need to see it through different glasses.

Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone.”   

Christina Rossetti  1872

I welcome yet another new year.  It feels good to shed the old skin and attempt to dress with relish in the tighter-fitting garments that holiday feasting have created.  I look about my world and think of the major events that shape it.  Now is a time that reflection should transition to action.

I will tell you that a Moon Garden is one planted with specimens that bloom only in white or have foliage in grey or mottled with creamy variegation.  It is a garden to be enjoyed in the moonlight.  It is the first of my many garden rooms that I see when approaching my house in the evening.  On All Hallow’s Eve this past year, the Moon Garden, the place of my dreamy reverie, was covered with eight inches of heavy wet snow.  Everything was stressed not the least of which was the owner.  These are my children and they were suffering!

The Moon Garden in a better season. The photograph was taken by a grand and glorious photographer, Karen Bussolini. She is a special friend and fellow communicator of sustainability.

I have been too long away from Philadelphia and its more genteel society to wish any one of them ill, but this should be the season to contemplate change.  Just as John Adams was pushing for the start of a revolution, I am also inclined to encourage revolutionary action.

It is a season to review lists, pay debts, collect outstanding balances that are due, and make resolutions.  These should include attempts to redress oversights and slights, receive inconvenienced or unreconciled relatives, improve one’s personal appearance, manners, station in life, or monetary situation and above all make more time for the things that are most fulfilling.  In short, it should be a time where dreams become reality.

Many of my dreams have come to fruition.  Most often that ripeness and maturity has been at a greater cost than I ever anticipated.  The cost has been in money, lost time, friendships, and pieces of my soul.  As yet another winter is passing, I take stock of my soul and find that it has a strength which for much I my life I thought it lacked.

So it is time to move forward with renewed strength and vigor into the wilds of nature and challenge the prevailing authority with news of change.  Nature will throw off whatever blanket it finds intolerable.  When nature becomes too hot, it will rid itself of even the most clinging garments.

I am on a path of collision with those who would not seek to preserve and protect the environment.  The colors and shades of belief are fast disappearing.  The issues become black and white.  They should be as white and clear as my Moon Garden! 

Narcissus bloom again in spring in the Moon Garden

Either we choose to welcome a vibrant budding spring or we shall certainly lie exposed in a permanent bleak mid winter.  My choice is to go out and see how my garden is growing!  Blessings on your house and health and prosperity to your person.