This is the last of 6 essays about the work I have been doing on the Halls Hill Labyrinth on Bainbridge Island.  Its a good idea to read the others first.

"Nature is a labyrinth in which the very haste you move with will make you lose your way."
Francis Bacon Sr."

A natural color photograph of Saturn taking by the spacecraft Cassini in 2004

The 6th circuit of the Labyrinth is dedicated to the 6th Planet in the Solar System, Saturn.  This is the second largest of the planets, after Jupiter.  Known best for its rings which are made up mostly of ice crystals, this gaseous planet is 95 times larger than Earth.  The pale yellow color of the surface is caused by a layer of ammonia crystals.  Saturn has 62 known moons orbiting it, the largest of which is greater in size than the planet Mercury.    It was the most distant of the 5 known planets besides Earth in ancient times, and takes about 29 1/2 years to orbit the sun.

Astrologically, the Saturn return is a significant event that occurs when the planet returns to the point in its orbit where it was located at the moment of one's birth.  This period signifies the crossing of a major threshold in life's development.  The first return at the age of 28 signifies the passage from youth to adulthood.  The second is passage in to maturity.  That is coming up for me.  I will finally be mature!  The third return represents the passage in to old age and hopefully wisdom, and is usually the last to occur in one's lifespan.

Saturn was named after the Roman God Saturnus, the God of Agriculture, who was derived from the Greek God Cronos.  The day Saturday is named after this deity as well.  It is the planet of Capricorns.  Saturn is an ancient deity with connections to the early Vedic Gods of the Indus region of Pakistan and India.  He is the God of generation (Brahma), dissolution (Shiva) and plenty (Lakshmi), wealth, agriculture (the main source of wealth at the time), and periodic renewal and liberation.  He also represents Time.  He is often depicted as a mature man with a flowing beard and a scythe, used for reaping grain.  This became the prototype for Father Time.

Cronus, or Saturn

Saturn devouring his children

In Greek mythology, Cronus, or Kronos, castrated his father at the request of his Mother, Gaia, Goddess of the Earth to put an end to her having to sire more terrible children.  It was prophesied that he too would be deposed by one of his own children and therefore ate them all at birth.  Being a God is not all lounging around on clouds...  This was famously depicted in one of the 'Black Paintings' by the Spanish painter Francisco Goya, believed to be an allegory for the strife that was occurring in Spain at that time.  The painting, which hangs in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, is disturbing and impressionable.

Saturn's wife, Os, or Rhea eventually deceived him by handing him a stone swaddled in cloth, thus sparing the life of Zeus, who's Roman incarnation is Jupiter after which the 5th Planet is named.  As the prophesy implied, Zeus overthrew his Father to become the King of Gods.

As a God of Plenty, Saturn's rule was depicted as a Golden Age of prosperity.  The Roman treasury in the Forum in Rome was located in the prominently placed Temple of Saturn.  Tall columns mark a remnant of its former glory.  Saturnalia was the most important of Roman holidays and was celebrated for a week around the Winter Solstice in December with wild, decadent abandon.  In the 4th century, in order to entice people to convert to Christianity, the birth of Jesus was celebrated on December 25 to supplant Saturnalia.

The Temple of Saturn in the Foro Romano

Saturn was later considered the God of Time as well.  For some reason that stuck in my mind and I started to research Mayan calendars.  But I couldn't visualize a way to convey the ideas in the mosaic work.  The calendar itself is breathtaking to behold and is worth researching on your own to learn more.  There is a lot of simple math involved, and marvelous cosmology, and with its concentric rings and radiating lines has many aspects of a Labyrinth.

The Mayan Calendar

So I looked at clocks.  They are much more familiar to me and it seems like I could mark the numbers with lance shaped stones.  So that is what I started doing, but that pattern was eventually abandoned as it didn't read well.  I also wanted to incorporate symbols of prosperity and agriculture with the goal that it be compatible with the health of the planet.

So basically I went to work with no idea of what I was about to create.  Before I left that morning I heard that my friends Sia and Kurt became the proud parents of a twins, a boy and a girl.  So the first thing I did was commemorate this beautiful event by making two little interlocking starfish in the section of the yellow stone path that parallels the entry that will connect to the 6th circuit when I reach the other end.


This part of the path is centered on the East-West axis parallel to the entrance path, in line with the Budding Trees Moon and the Ducks Fly Moon.  This is between the points where Spring and Autumnal equinoxes of the yearly calendar cycle occur in the Medicine Wheel of the design.  Joy's memorial stone, that I would like to dedicate to all Mothers lies in the West and the flat granite slab that is the threshold for the entrance lies in the East.  The two little starfish lie intertwined where this yellow stone path crosses the arc of the 8th Neptune circuit, and passes the 7th circuit to turn in to the 6th.  It will loop up to the North, then turn back to the East-West axis and turn West to run to the center of the Labyrinth, the Sun.  I'll build that part next year.  Best to look at the plan in the first essay to figure out what I am talking about.

It was Veterans day with marvelous unseasonal warm autumn weather, so a steady stream of people came by.  Most of them were told they had to come see the project by others who've visited.  They all wanted to talk so I didn't get very much mosaic work done.  I spread some gravel in the gaps between the paths where I am working so I wont have to fall in the holes anymore or have to tell people what is going in there.  I moved the forms and bent 2-20 foot pieces of rebar to shape.  I'm glad nobody was here for that part as it is a ridiculous thing to do by yourself, but I manage to get it to fit in an irregular way.  There are always two strips in the path and I think I've gone through about 600 feet so far.

Niel and Hilaria

It was hard to decide on a way to start the mosaic so I just did it, framing the edges with larger stones and then filling in the interior like I always do.  I marked where 7 o'clock would be if the entrance was 6 o'clock, using a lance shaped stone.  I also made a little compass like flower which I dedicated to a girl named Eassen who came with her Dad and watched me work for some time.

Eassen and her Dad

Eassen's Clock Flower

My cousin Libby came to help me pick stone on South Beach as It will soon be time to do another pink/red/purple arc, Rockaway Beach is pretty picked over now for those colors.  So we drove over Toe Jam Road (ewe, that name) and parked on one of the precarious little lawn strips at the top of tall bulkhead walls above the beach.  I've only been here once before.  Its a beautiful setting and Mt. Rainier was visible across the water.  Libby barked expertly at the three sea lions that swam by as we scoured the rubbly beach for red rocks.  A lot of them are weathered bricks, but I am desperate for material in that color range so I am including brick pieces that have character.  My desire for a good selection led to the heaping of 6 buckets that I had to lug up to the road.  I'm guessing they weighed up to 100 pounds each.

My cousin Libby walks amongst giant pebbles on South Beach

The street is very narrow and some of the older houses are special along this stretch of coastline, and the precarious water front terraces are sometimes nicely appointed with artifacts from the beach.


It was dark by the time we got back to the park.  I unloaded the rock, cleaned up and ate dinner, and went to get a much needed hour and half massage.

It was much quieter at the site the next day, and the weather was nice, so I made good progress on the 6th circuit, building the two loops connecting to the 7th circuit in the direction of the Southern Cardinal Point.  I'm back to making flowers that are in a way like little clocks or compasses.  It will be good to take a break from the project as I am getting weary of going round and round through the color wheel.  Pink and red are hard because they don't come abundantly in great shapes and the mosaics are not as well composed as I would like, although the colors are beautiful to the eye.

Building the loops from the 7th circuit to the 6th at the Southern Cardinal Point

When it got dark I hauled buckets of gravel down the slope in my trusty, squeaky old wheelbarrow, to fill in more of the spaces between the paths.  Having them filled makes it much easier to walk on the Labyrinth without stumbling in to the gaps.  Safety first...eventually.

I'm sleeping better again and made it to the site an hour earlier than normal the next day, so I was able to move the forms and set enough stone to make my way around to the Western Cardinal Point, passing through red and purple and in to the brown area of the color wheel.  Early on I had a number of visitors who were entranced with the project and stayed for a long time.

Morning visitors

I made clock flowers for them all.  The weather continues to be mild and dry, unusual for this time of year.  Global warming is definitely happening.  This must be the warmest and driest Autumn in history for this region.

Three Clock Flowers for three Labyrinth Lovers

Then I drove over to Manitou Beach and collected 4 buckets of stone, mostly black, white and silver colors for those sections.

Manitou Beach

After that I drove to the building materials store and bought enough rebar and mortar to supplement what I have to finish the 6th circuit by the coming weekend.  After that I got another massage.  I made a nice Flower-Clock for Mishabae, the excellent masseuse who has been counteracting the abuse I have been inflicting on my body during this project.  It is in line with the Western axis and the Stone dedicated to Mothers.  She has 3 daughters.

Mishabae's Flower-Clock

It was raining lightly in the morning.  I've been so lucky with the weather but it is mid November so I'll bear with it.  I left the frame for my shelter up so I can clamp a big tarp on it.  I knew if I took it down it would start raining again so I left it in place out of superstition.  Its getting pretty cold out so took a bucket of hot water to the site with me to dip my waterproof gloves in to warm up my hands.  Winter is coming.

The Terry's came to visit again and shoot some more video but light rain shortened our visit.  It gets dark so early so we bade farewell for the year.  I'll be visiting their beloved Crete this winter!  I worked my way in to the white stones of the north where I left a gap for the loops that will happen there to that connect to 5th circuit that I'll build in the Spring.  I made flowers for my good Eric and his Mother Marion, and brother Colin who passed away one year ago today.  The clouds of Heaven are filled with Angels.

Flowers for Colin, Marion, and Eric

A beautiful Baroque marble Angel in a church in Rome

Barb's Flower-Clock

The next day I finished the circuit using up the very last of the mortar with just enough to make the turn in to the path that runs parallel to the entrance.    A visitor stepped in the wet mosaic after I repeatedly said not to walk in that area.  The fresh work looks so solid to the eye and there seems to be something so irresistible about it.  She seemed bewildered by what happened so I made her a flower clock after I fixed the squished section.  I hope she doesn't feel bad!  I'm done setting stone for the year!

In the morning I removed the forms and used a pick to rough up the space between the paths to improve the drainage and filled it with gravel.  Then I separated the loose stones in the center to give a rough idea of what the rest of the labyrinth will look like.  Then I washed the mosaic work in the outer 5 rings with Muriatic Acid to remove the mortar film so that the colors shine through.  Then I walked the path to make sure it works.  Most of the beginning of the walk happens in the inner circuits that I haven't built yet.  Its quite a journey, walking over all the stories and special moments that have come with building this.

Dividing the loose stones to create the form of the path for the inner 5 circuits

I washed the mosaic work in the outer 5 rings with Muriatic Acid to remove the mortar film so that the colors shine through.

View of the Labyrinth from the East at the entrance

I rolled up the hose and loaded all of my tools in to the truck and visited with some people who have become friends who came by to see me before I left the island.  If the Gods are willing I'll be back again next year just before the Spring equinox to finish the project.  Blessed be.  It has been an amazing experience to create this rather daunting project.  My body has held up remarkably well for its age with hopefully no irreparable damage.  The work has been an act of penance and I am deeply moved by it.

6 completed circuits

Before I left a went around and captured images of some of the more memorable parts.  The path is so rich with special moments and implied meaning, a stone painting of time and space.  Now its time to go home.  Thanks for reading, Jeffrey

The Ducks Fly Moon, dedicated to my Mother

Blue Green stones in the Northeastern part of the Neptune circuit

The flower dedicated to Suzinne Weiss's Mother

Circuits transitioning from black to white in the North

The Clouds of Heaven and the Earth Renewal Moon

Orange stones in the direction of the Freeze up Moon in the Northwest

An orange flower sprinkled with Douglas Fir Needles

A typical detail in an Ottoman wall in Molyvos, with raised pointing

Each winter I travel for 3 months to different parts of the world.  I have been focusing on the Mediterranean region for the last 6 winters.  This time I am exploring the beautiful islands of Greece.

I have two adventurous English friends that I met over 10 years ago in South America who travel extensively on epic journeys usually spanning years rather than months.  We are kindred spirits in that regard, although my explorations are broken up in to shorter periods of the year than theirs.  They are currently cycling across Europe and Asia, having started in Norway above the Arctic Circle, with their ultimate destination being Japan.  This journey will take over 3 years to complete.  Last year I met up with them in Palermo, Sicily, and when they told me they would be spending the fall of the next year in Greece, I decided to meet them again before they moved on to Turkey.  They have been cycling in Greece now for 3 months and the island of Lesvos will be their departing point from the country since it is a short ferry ride to Ayvalik in Turkey, from where they will be cycling to Istanbul.

John and Gayle on hewn rock steps in the town of Petra

I spent a marvelous and far too brief week in Paris, stopping off as my Air France flight to Athens had a connection there.  It was my second time to Paris and I have fallen in love with the city.  I went to the Louvre on a quiet day for the first time and nearly wept in the Italian painting galleries.  I was amazed that they actually let you photograph the art so I catalogued everything that moved me.  I also spent a spectacular afternoon at Versailles and visited the wonderful Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, all deserving of their own essays.  The light in late fall is so magical and the crowds of tourists are smaller so it is a great time to visit the city.

Leonardo Da Vinci's stunning painting Madonna of the Rocks

In order to meet up with my friends I booked another flight from Athens to Mytilini on the island of Lesvos rather than staying in Athens, which I visited 4 years ago.  I'll spend more time there before I return home in March.  Gayle and John had based themselves in the beautiful town of Molyvos on the northern coast of the island, so I took a bus there the next day and met them at the bus stop.

Molyvos from the road to Petra

It is always wonderful to connect with them.  We can talk endlessly of travel and the many experiences we have had throughout the world.  All in all I have spent over 8 years of my life exploring foreign countries, almost always in the months of December through March.  These adventures have immensely enriched my life.  As an designer and artist I doubt that my work as a builder of gardens would be anything like it is without the profound influences of the places I've visited.

Lesvos is the third largest island in Greece, and was the home of the famed poet Sappho, who lived during the 7th Century BC.  She was one of the first women to attain fame as a lyricist, writing poetry that would be performed with the accompaniment of a Lyre.  Her poetry was considered to be so beautiful that Plato elevated her to the status of a Muse.  Her writings are best known as odes to other women.  The loving bond between the same sexes was believed to have been common and accepted at the time.  The words Lesbian and Sapphic are derived from the island and the poet.  "If you forget me, think of our gifts to Aphrodite and all the loveliness that we shared…all the violet tiaras, braided rosebuds, dial and crocus twined around your young neck…myrrh poured on your head and on soft mats girls with all that they most wished for beside them…while no voices chanted choruses without ours, no woodlot bloomed in Spring without song."

A statue of Sappho in the city of Mytilini on Lesvos

Molyvos is an ancient town that has been inhabited for many centuries.  The name has been changed back to the old one, Mythymna, but the locals still call it Molymos.  Just by the bus stop is an excavated area that dates from the 8th Century BC, with remnants of stone foundations and sarcophagi.

8th Century BC ruins in Molyvos

The town's hill is dominated by a fortress that takes much of its present form from the time of the Byzantine empire, which was centered in Constantinople, now the city of Istanbul in Turkey.  In the 12th Century it passed in to the hands of the Venetians who ruled maritime commerce in the region during Venice's golden era.  The island was then transferred to the control of a Genoese Lord after an arranged political marriage with the sister of a Byzantine ruler in the 14th Century.  Lesvos is known for its fine olive oil, considered to be the best in Greece, and Molyvos was an important port for exporting the product for at least 2,500 years.   Today the Island is known for the production the the Anise flavored liquor Ouzo, which we have taken to drinking nightly before dinner.

Inside the Fortress at Molyvos

A view of the Olive Press from the Fortress

A crenelated wall on the fortress

When the Ottoman Turks took control of the island the fortress underwent further expansion in the 15th Century for a period of more than 200 years.  The town on the slopes of the hill below the fortress is predominantly Ottoman in style, with handsome stone houses with red tile roofs and shuttered windows, which are often painted a wonderful shade of dark purplish red.

This shade of red is the predominant color of paint in Lesvos

An estimated 500,000 Muslim Turks were expelled from Greece in the population exchange that occurred after the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 while 1,500,000 Orthodox Christians were forced to leave Turkey.  It was one of the largest population exchanges in history.

Ottoman houses spilling down to the sea in Molyvos

Red Shutters on fine Ottoman building by the harbor

Much of the stonework in the buildings here is very handsome and artfully composed.  My favorite walls are those built with a mix of the pastel shades of volcanic stone found on the island's beaches.  There are pinks and greens and grays, with a rough texture that can be easily shaped.

A lovely wall in the nearby beach town of Petra

In America stone work is usually used as a decorative feature.  But in Europe and Asia stone and brick have always been the preferred material if you overlook the ugly concrete buildings that have become so much more common in modern times.  There is still a workforce of masons that build with stone.  Some of them are talented artisans with high standards.  One of the reasons we based ourselves in Molyvos for a over a week is because the town is so beautiful, and one of the main reasons the town is beautiful is because of its stone work.  There must be a building ordinance because new construction tends to blend fairly well with the older town.

Stepped stone lanes meander past handsome stone Ottoman era houses and shops

A cobbled street reflect light in the late afternoon

Molyvos is volcanic in origin and is quite rocky, but the soil is rich and fertile.  The beach between the comfortable Michaela's Apartments where we stayed and the town is made up of a variety of colors of stones.  Whenever I walk on it I catch myself scanning the stones for shapes and colors since I was doing this almost daily while I worked on the Labyrinth project on Bainbridge Island for the two months preceding this trip.

Pastel volcanic beach stones in the clear waters of the Aegean in Molyvos

Eventually I would give in to inspiration and compose a mosaic on a patch of sand on the beach by the apartments, just because I couldn't help myself.  It only took an hour to compose and I didn't aim for perfection, but the stones are so lovely that it turned out to be quite beautiful.

The mosaic I created using beach stone

As I become intimately engaged with the beach, I couldn't help but want to make it a better place by picking up the trash that had washed up along the shore line.  Greece is not a particularly clean country and there is garbage everywhere.  Plastic in our seas is one of the great environmental problems we face today.  I made a very small impact but I cleaned a good quarter mile of the beach near where I am staying and it looks all the more lovely as a result.  I encourage everyone to do the same on a regular basis and to teach your children to do the same.  Giving back to the gorgeous planet is the greatest gift we can give to ourselves and the environment we inhabit.

One colder day we were walking the four kilometers to the Eftalou hot spring, one of many on the island.  The baths at most of the springs date from the Ottoman era and this one is quite charming, being by the sea.  Just on the edge of town there is a large garden with stone terraces and tiled patios that were obviously built by an artisan with a great love for patterns and fine composition.  There is a bench near that road that I found to be extraordinarily beautiful in the way stone and brick were combined.

The back side of a wonderful stone and brick bench

One of the nicest stone benches I've ever seen

Passing lush green fields and well tended olive groves, the road follows the shore line and is collapsing in many places in to the sea as water levels rise and erode the coast.  So this charming old bath house may not be around in 100 years, but we spent a divine afternoon soaking in water that has chloride and radium in it (which makes it somewhat radioactive).  The springs on the island have been used curatively for many centuries and this one is believed to relieve a number of ailments ranging from arthritis and rheumatism to skin diseases.

Eftalou Hot Springs

Gayle and John and the resident cat at Eftalou Hot Spring

The interior of the simple whitewashed masonry vaulted enclosure has pierced holes in the ceiling to allow light to penetrate, and a nice stone ledge around the perimeter of the rectangular pool who's floor is covered in smooth black pebbles that feel lovely to wriggle your feet in.  The very kind old Greek sailor who was attending the place for his wife that day lit candles to set in the niches and a stick of incense which made the room atmospheric and rather idyllic.

The pierced vaulted ceiling allows atmospheric illumination of the room

A cat who loves to be petted kept us company while we soaked, and we did cold plunges in the sea, which is still relatively warm even though it is the middle of December.  It was a wonderful way to spend the day and we were so relaxed we wound up going to bed early that evening.

Even though Molyvos is very quiet in the winter and many of its inhabitants have gone to Athens for the winter I never seemed to tire of walking through the town.  The light is always changing.  Sometimes it is blustery and windy.  Other days are sunny and calm.  It must get quite hot and busy with tourists in the summer, but the streets in the center are covered with pipe trellises tangled in Wisteria, Parthenocissus, and grapes forming a shady canopy.  It must be extraordinarily beautiful in the Spring when the Wisteria is in bloom.

Twisted old Wisteria vines line a street in the town center.

Parthenocissus quincifolia with rich red fall color trailing over a wall

But in the mid December there are still brilliant red leaves on some of the Parthenocissus and clusters of grapes on the vine.   The streets are paved in stone cobbles, sloping toward the center to keep water away from the buildings.  On the steeper slopes the lanes turn to quiet steps devoid of scooters and cars.

Rustic stone steps climb the slopes between houses

The lanes twist and turn in the Medieval style, which made it harder for invaders to navigate if they were to raid the town during times when the population would retreat to the fortress for protection.

If a path is seldom used then lush growth may fill it like a garden, blending the man made with the wild.

An unused flight of steps becomes a garden

I love old towns where houses are sometimes abandoned.  If the roof collapses then a stone house becomes something like rock formations harboring an ecosystem of colonizing plants.  A view through a window can frame a wild garden that has taken over inside.  The town of Ragusa in Sicily is like that.  You can read about Ragusa in my essay from last year at: http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.gr/2013/03/ragusa-sicily.html

An abandoned house and garden turning in to a thicket of trees

Remnants of an old house wall

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When buildings are very old they often undergo many incarnations and changes.  Doorways and windows are sometimes filled in leaving a footprint of what was once there.  If the mason is talented the results can be interesting.

An old doorway is filled in creating a work of stone art

Old walls take on the character of the skill used by a variety of masons

The old Ottoman Mosque in the center of town is now an auditorium.  The minaret has been taken down and only the base remains.  On Saturday nights they show movies there, which in the winter seems to be the main social event.  We went to see "Lady Sings the Blues" this last weekend starring Diana Ross in a biopic of the singer Billie Holiday (a strange choice).  The building is large and the narrow street passes underneath it in an atmospheric tunnel that has windows piercing the outside wall that frames views of the sea.  It is artful details like this that add to the magic of the place.

The base is all that remains of the minaret of the old mosque

The street passes under the old Mosque in the town center

There are fine old Ottoman fountains scattered around the town that provided water to the houses before the advent of indoor plumbing.  They always have a pointed arch and a niche in the center and a basin for animals to drink from.

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The oldest known pebble mosaics in the world are found in Greece and I hope to see many fine examples while I am here.  They don't seem to be such a popular art form in Molyvos although there are a few to be found, usually a little vignette or pavement made by somebody who has the desire to try their hand at it.

Oil jars set in masonry are a common way to create a planter in a paved area

The logo for a Hotel Molymos is set in pebble mosaic at the entrance

There is a beautiful old house that has been turned in to a branch of the Athens School of Fine Arts which has an entry done in the classic white pebble mosaic with black details.  These pebbles were imported from another island where white marble pebbles are common.

The entrance to Molyvos' Athens School of Fine Arts

Greece is known for its cats.  They are everywhere, in every color and personality.  Sometimes they are wild and wary, or affectionate and wanting to be petted depending on how much kindness is bestowed on them.  They often cluster around the garbage bins waiting for appealing discards.  People often feed them so the majority aren't too dreadfully mangy although the population is huge.  Sometimes they want to follow you home if you indulge them with petting.  I like to interact with them but have never wanted to have one as a pet.

Cats with collars are relatively rare

Every day I go for a walk up in to the labyrinth of streets and always discover something new.  The views across to Turkey and to the north are beautiful and the Autumn skies in the late afternoon often have a divine quality to them, with Angel ladders descending from the heavens.  It will be hard to leave this wonderful place, but I have many islands to explore this winter.  Chios, to the south is my next destination.

One of a number of breathtaking skies that make it understandable why Greece is the home of so many Gods

Thanks for reading always, Jeffrey

I'm on beautiful island of Naxos now, the largest of the Cyclades group of islands in Greece.  This is the island where the King of the ancient Greek Gods Zeus was raised, in a cave on a mountain bearing his name.   Naxos is also where his son Dionysos, the God of Wine was born.  Dionysos later married Ariadne, the Princess of Crete here after she was abandoned by Theseus, who she helped escape the Labyrinth at Knossos on Crete after slaying the half man/half bull Minotaur.

It is the myth of the Labyrinth at Knossos that is a primary reason for my coming to Greece this winter after working on the Halls Hill Labyrinth Project for two months this fall on Bainbridge Island in Washington.  I am dedicating the inner 9 circuits of the Labyrinth I'm building to the 9 planets in our solar system, which are named after Roman and Greek Gods.  The 5th circuit, which I will be building when I get back in March, is dedicated to the planet and God Jupiter, who is the Roman incarnation of Zeus.  You can read earlier essays I've written about the 6 circuits I've already completed by scrolling down past this and the previous essay about stonework in the town of Molyvos.

The Labyrinth I am building on Bainbridge Island, Washington State

Chora, the capital of Naxos is dominated by the Portara, a massive gateway to what was once the Temple of the Delian Apollo.  Apollo, the God of the Sun was born on the sacred island of Delos, which I visited a week before.  Delos was a center of political and religious power in Greece for centuries and this temple was dedicated to Apollo's home there.

The Temple of the Delian Apollo

There is a pebble beach which stretches perpendicular to the harbor of the town from the peninsula where the ruins of the temple stand.  It is covered with the most marvelous pebbles, some of which I will be incorporating in to the Labyrinth mosaics when I return to my project.

A buried marble column from an ancient building on the beach of the Delian Apollo

The beach sadly is also covered in trash, as are most of the beaches throughout the beautiful Aegean Sea.

Trash on the beach of the Delian Apollo

We are ruining our oceans because we consume massive amounts of plastic in our daily lives.  The Greeks drink most of their water from disposable plastic bottles, and take away most of their purchases in plastic bags.  These are the two most prominent forms of garbage on the beaches, along with wads of  plastic fishing nets.

Even when technically "properly" disposed of, the volume of trash generated on the islands of Greece is overwhelming

The caps of bottles number in the thousands on the beach of the Temple of the Delian Apollo.  There are disposable cigarette lighters, plastic cups, disposable razors, tooth brushes, boxes, detergent bottles, popped balloons, potato chip bags, cans, bottles, tampons, cue tips, every kind of wrapper, and thousands of cigarette butts.

Bottle caps nearly equal the number of stones on the beach in places

So today I went to the beach because I have been making mosaics using the beautiful stones I've been finding on beaches on many of the islands I have visited on this trip.  I'll post an essay with photos of the mosaics at the end of my journey.  These mosaics are dedicated to the Greek Gods, or to friends I am invoking, and I cannot justifiably do this work on a beach strewn with trash.  It is not in my nature as a lover of the environment.

Pieces of fishing nets that have washed up on the beach

So I have been spending a great deal of time cleaning up the beaches I have been on.  This can be a daunting task, especially on the beaches that face north, where the winds blow in the largest quantities of trash.  Plastic pollution is a disastrous consequence of the convenient lifestyles we have all grown accustomed to.  What washes up on beaches is estimated to be only 1% of what is in our oceans.  Every fish in the sea now contains tiny bits of plastic, and millions of sea birds have died from ingesting plastics that they mistake for food, even feeding it to their chicks.   If we are to survive with any integrity on this planet we need to make drastic changes in the way we live.  Unfortunately I don't see any sign of that happening on a level that does any good.  But it doesn't stop me from trying to do something.

We consume too much plastic.  Even as stewards of the Earth, garden clubs on tours to my garden have shown up with cases of individual water bottles, so handy and common and taken for granted today.  Individual servings of water dispensed in throw away bottles is a huge generator of garbage.  We think we can recycle them, but are they really recycled?  It is estimated that only a third of the plastic consumed in the United States gets recycled.  A third is burned in incinerators and a third goes in to landfills.  So I guess the gyre of plastic the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean came from Canada?  The less we consume, the less we have to throw away, and this by far is the most proactive solution.  I travel with a back packing water filter, so I will have bought maybe 3 disposable bottles of water in 3 months of travel this winter, rather than the 120 or so I would have bought if I was not filtering my drinking water in to reusable bottles.  I take bags to the store when I buy things.  I went to a Carrefour grocery store on the island of Ios recently and pulled out my bags.  The cashier said "Those are old, let me give you new ones, they are free." I told her "No, thats OK, I want to reuse these." She then said "This has a hole in the bottom, it will break." So I said "I'll carry it carefully, I really don't want to use more plastic bags because I am always picking them up off the beach." She said in a matter of fact way "They're everywhere." So I said "Maybe I'm a little bit crazy, but I really like to reuse my bags because I am an environmentalist." She smiled in acknowledgment to my insanity and let me reuse my bags.  Virtually every person I saw the rest of the day was carrying disposable plastic bags that they would use one time.  I don't think it was like this 20 years ago, but we have changed the way we live, and the consequences are obvious.

So today I arrived at the beach.  It was liberally sprinkled with trash.  A dead sea bird lay by the rocks, surrounded by plastic bags half buried in the sand, and the brightly colored caps of hundreds of water bottles and bits of rope.

A dead sea bird on the beach

I pulled the most durable bags from the sand to use to collect the garbage and went to work.  It took me all afternoon.  People would walk by and give me glances like I was some crazy eccentric, never imagining actually picking any of it up themselves.  This really pisses me off.  Nobody seems to be teaching their children the importance of the proper disposal of trash.  I see people leave the cup they just drained on a bench a few feet from a trash can.  Dumpsters usually have trash spread all around them.

Two bags of trash I collected at the beginning of the beach

Fishermen are huge contributors to the problem, throwing their trash overboard as if they owed the sea nothing for providing them with a livelihood.  Their reward is that there are few fish to catch anymore.  The fisheries have been devastated by commercial trawling, ignoring regulations relating to spawning periods, and lazy ignorance.  How many people have I seen flick a cigarette butt in the sea in front of their children on this trip?  Its appalling.

Cigarette butts on a beach on the island of Paros

So here I am, an American, picking up thousands upon thousands of pieces of trash in a country I am not native too, out of desperation to do something.  I came here to walk on the beautiful beaches that fringe the Aegean, not garbage dumps.  But I have yet to find one that isn't.

Trash on a north facing beach on the sacred island of Delos, a UNESCO World Heritage Site

I wish I could make a proposal to the European Union.  There needs to be a change in the way plastics are distributed.  Water can come in large reusable jugs and dispensed in washable glasses in restaurants.    Carrefour should sell and promote reusable bags, and charge for disposable ones so people are less likely to want them.  People used to bring shopping bags to the market.  It is finally becoming popular where I live in the United States and Portland and San Francisco and Los Angeles have instigated bans on plastic bags.  It is estimated that between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are given out every year on the planet, more than half of those in the United States, and most of them are used a single time.  This doesn't need to happen if you bring reusable bags with you.  I estimate that I consume 5% as many bags as the average American because of the way I shop.  I don't lead a life deprived of convenience, I just make an effort to limit my consumption.  While traveling I bring bags to the store when I shop every time.  I doesn't do much good if you forget to bring them.  Good intentions are entirely worthless without acting on them.

Santa Maria Beach on the Island of Paros

A beach on the island of Paros near Paraiki

Plastic bags on another beach in Chora on Naxos

I had covered a good quarter kilometer of the beach and hauled three large bags of trash to a dumpster a considerable distance away, and was working my way to the second half of the beach.  By now I was getting angry.  I've been doing this every time I go to the beach, and it is starting to feel entirely futile.  Nobody else seems to care.  There are times when I don't honestly believe that we deserve to live on this planet.  Our disregard is absolutely disgusting.  People just walk by.  Only once has somebody said thank you.  And only once did I see a boy take a hook during a ceremony celebrating the holy day of Epiphany on the Island of Tinos to pull a large plastic bag from the water on to a boat.  It brought me a glimmer of hope and joy to see a rare moment of consciousness.

Debris in Naxos Harbor

So I bitterly plucked up hundreds of pieces of garbage off a beach in a town I only just arrived in yesterday, for the benefit of people who I will probably never know and who will never care.  Just then a boy came down the beach towards me, and he was picking up garbage.  He brought it to me and put it in my bag.  I thanked him in Greek, since that is one of the few phrases I've learned.  He didn't speak English.  I told him I was American as tears came to my eyes.

The best kid on Naxos

He then headed down the beach and started filling a plastic fruit crate he found with plastic bottles.  He came back with a heap of garbage half his own size.  When he wasn't looking I started to cry.
I carried the crate full up to the dumpsters for him.  When we got there he gestured that we needed to sort out the plastic bottles to put in the plastics recycling bin in the row of containers.  This kid is awesome!  I feel like I have met a true Bodhisattva.

My new friend carrying as much garbage as he could up the beach

Eventually his mother came along carrying an arm load of plastic bottles.  I thanked her and asked her if I could take her picture.  She said "I should take a picture of you, my son started picking up garbage when he saw you doing it."

The Mother of a very special young Man taking plastic bottles to the recycling bin

I told her about how frustrated I have been seeing so much garbage on the beaches of Greece and she said what I'd heard before, that beaches that face north collect the most debris.  She left her son with me, who I would guess is 10 years old, and we worked diligently cleaning up the beach for about an hour.


He even found a two liter bottle full of dirty motor oil that we carefully moved to the dumpsters so it wouldn't break.  We managed to fill a dumpster half way, and recycled about 50 plastic bottles.  It was hard work and he gasped under the burden of the heaped bin, but didn't complain.  He was happy to do it.

All of this was on the beach today

His Mother came back in a car later to pick him up.  He waved and said "Bye!" from the parking lot.  I carried on, deeply moved by the quiet and gentle and gracious gift the boy had given to the Earth.  I wasn't angry any more.  I even have a little hope for the world, although I'm sure that will be short lived.  Its just good to know there are people in the world that really care, and actually do something about it.  We can all do better to make the planet we live on a healthier more beautiful place to live.  I believe it is my duty, not just an option to consider.

There are still a lot of bottle caps and bits of plastic on the beach but if you don't look too closely it looks like a pretty beach instead of a garbage dump.  It was now late afternoon and I decided, even though I hadn't eaten since breakfast, that I would make the mosaic I had come to the beach to build.  I dedicated it to the boy and to the Delian Apollo.  Most of the mosaics I've been making on beaches in Greece are sunbursts.  I used all white marble pebbles since that is what the remains of the temple at the other end of the beach is made of.

I thought about Apollo's father Zeus as well, although I would like to make a mosaic specifically for him as well at some point while I'm here.  I'll have to make one for Dionysos too, since he is my favorite immortal of all…the hedonistic bisexual God of grapes and wine, and the protector of those who do not belong to conventional society, like me.

Lying next to the giant 7th Century BC Kouros statue, believed to be an image of Dionysos

And then I'll have to make one for the Princess Ariadne, who gave the magical thread, or 'klew' to Theseus so he could find his way out of the Labyrinth after slaying the Minotaur.  There is an organic garden two blocks from my house named for her where I get most of my vegetables from for several months of the year.


A couple and their two children came along as I was finishing for the day.  We had a lovely conversation about the things that seemed to make this Sunday special, caring for the Earth, creating beauty, and being compassionate.  Then they carried on down a beach that looked entirely different than it did before, and that made me happy.

Don't just walk by and ignore the world.  Make it better place.

Thanks for reading, Jeffrey

A beach on Mykonos Island before I picked up all the trash

A half hour later….

Postscript:  The next day I rented a car to explore the island.  I headed up the coast and just a few kilometers out of town I came upon something that put me in my place, the island's landfill.  Perched on a bluff directly above the sea is the massive pile of garbage where everything on the island winds up that is properly discarded, eventually including what we picked up yesterday on the beach.  The garbage dump spills over the sides of the hill directly in to the sea to the north of the Beach of the Delian Apollo.  Plastic bags were blowing around in the coastal winds, and some of them will wash up on the shore that we worked so hard to clean up yesterday.

The Naxos Island landfill

There is a sign stating that this facility is a joint project between the country of Greece and the European Union.  There is a shed with hogs in it that I assume they feed organic waste.  What is incredible to me is the siting of the landfill, not that there is a good place for such facilities anywhere on this lovely planet we are sullying as rapidly as we can.  We produce a lot of garbage and it has to go somewhere.  Out of sight, out of mind.  The land must have been available and far enough away from land owners with enough clout to halt such a project.  So there you go.  I went in to the survival mode I learned from a year of traveling in India, that of detachment.  It is a way to circumnavigate despair.

Like the mosaics I have been creating on the beaches of Greece, the work that incredible young man and I did with the hope of making something better is only temporary.  The mosaics wash away, and the garbage washes back in.  And so it goes.  My heartfelt apologies to the deities of this beautiful island.

The sea reclaiming a mosaic on the Beach of the Delian Apollo

Since then:
The family I met on the beach of the Delian Apollo wrote to me to say that they are doing a workshop with children on the island of Paros to teach them about plastic and how it pollutes the sea, and they are actively cleaning up the beach when they go for walks now.

Tzamaria Beach on the island of Ios

What I collected on Tsamaria Beach

Tsamaria Beach after I cleaned it

Reusable bags are no longer a part of European culture

Half of what I collected from Agia Theadoti Beach on the island of Ios

Agia Theadoti Beach after I cleaned it.  The pile of sand to the left was inside a large garbage bag washed up in the surf

A variety of beautiful beach stones combined to make a sunburst mosaic

This winter I am spending 3 incredible months in Greece, island hopping from north to south.   I started on the beautiful island of Lesvos, home to the Muse Sappho, and worked my way down to largest and most breathtaking of them all, Crete via 10 other islands.  Each of them has a different character, varying in their geology, climate, flora, culture, style of architecture, and cuisine.  And there is an ancient tradition of pebble mosaic dating back 4,000 years to the time of Alexander the Great in Greece.

A pebble mosaic of Dionysos riding a panther at Pella, in Macedonia, Greece

The tradition continues to this day, having been influenced by cultures covering several millennium.

An ornate Ottoman mosaic at the entrance to a mansion in Mytilini, Lesvos

As I made my way from island to island I would visit various beaches for which Greece is justly famous.  Many are made up of fabulous pebbles.  Some even have tumbled remnants of ancient civilizations, tossed by the waves of the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean in to smaller and smaller pieces.  There are bits of Minoan palaces dating back 5,000 years on Crete, mixed with Mycenaean, Dorian, Delian, Ionian, Genovese, Venetian, and Ottoman structures that have toppled in to the sea over the ages.   I've been collecting handfuls of special stones from historic and sacred places to incorporate in to the the mosaics of the Labyrinth that I am building at Halls Hill Park on Bainbridge Island in Washington.  I'll be completing that project when I get home this Spring.

Rain and autumn light enhances the colors of the completed circuits of the Halls Hill Labyrinth

This has been one of the most wonderful winter trips I have made out of the 30 or so in my life so far.  The weather has been decent, and there are virtually no tourists, so I have had incredible solitude in places that are mobbed in the summer season.

A mosaic I made on Komitos Beach on the Island of Syros, deserted on the day I visited

Lesvos has a geologic past and the stones I found on the beach in the beautiful Ottoman town of Molyvos are lovely pastel colors in a variety of nice shapes.  It was here that I started the first of what has become a series of temporary beach mosaics, mostly in circular designs dedicated to the idea of Apollo, the God of the Sun.  Others I've made are dedicated to different Greek Gods and to people I know or have met along the way.

My first beach mosaic in Molyvos on the Island of Lesvos

 This got me to obsessing on making mosaics whenever the opportunity arose.  If I was on a beach that had nice stones and I had the time and the inclination, I would set to work gathering and composing a mosaic, usually for Apollo, as I wanted to encourage as much sun as I could conjure in the winter months when I am able to travel for any amount of time.  It seemed to work, because when it rained it usually did so at night, and most days were dry or a brief drizzle.  If there was rain in the forecast it usually meant spectacular clouds in skies that could easily inspire the stuff of mythology.  I figure there is a reason all of these Gods chose to be born on these islands.

The sun framed by clouds on the island of Naxos, birthplace of Dionysos

The second island I visited was Chios, south of Lesvos within view of the Turkish mainland.  Chios is where the Mastic tree, Pistacia lentiscus grows so well and the first chewing gum was made from the resin of this tree.  It was a prized commodity that gave the people who harvested the resin a special status when invasions took place.  The production is still controlled by a consortium of Medieval villages which were fascinating to visit.  The most interesting of these is the fortress like town of Mesta, where I found the main church to be surrounded by pebble mosaic medallions and zigzag patterns.

Mosaic panels at the church in Mesta

I didn't make it to any beaches while I was on Chios and instead focused on the fantastic villages of hilly interior.  The last place I visited before catching the infrequent winter ferry south was the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Byzantine Nea Moni Monastery, known for the remnants of its fine religious mosaics.  Surrounding the restored chapel are bands of simple pebble mosaics probably dating from the 19th Century.

Crude pebble mosaics surround the Katholicon at Nea Moni Monastery on the island of Chios

From Chios I took a ferry to Samos, where I spent the Christmas holiday.  I was the only guest in the large hotel I stayed in there, but there was a party with a band every night in the bar downstairs, so it was socially the busiest place on the island.  The rest of the island was deserted and stunningly beautiful.  Samos was the birthplace of the Goddess Hera, the understandably jealous wife of Zeus.  She is an ancient Goddess and was worshipped at a magnificent temple near the town of Pythagorio that was 4 times that of the Parthenon, though practically nothing remains today.  A lot of pilfering has gone on over the centuries and everything gets recycled in to something else.

All that remains of the Temple of Hera on Samos Island

The cost of a rental car runs half in winter what it does in summer and the roads tend to be empty, so it is a joy to drive around and discover the beauty that lies in the countryside.  There is lush greenery and the ravines are flowing with water in winter, and the light is gentle and dramatic.  Samos is a popular beach destination and I was frequently asked why I was there in the winter when I had it all to myself.  I'm a hardy Northwesterner so I was able to sunbathe while Greeks don their winter attire.  And since the beaches were empty, it was entertaining for me to beach comb and gather stones and create mosaic medallions.  The stones on Gagou Beach near the main town of Vathy are so beautiful, in soft shades of grey and buff with lines indicating their sedimentary limestone origins.

The Gagou Beach Mosaic is more than a meter across, Samos Island

Detail of the stones in the Gagou Beach Mosaic, Samos Island

The Gagou Beach Mosaic, Samos Island

Because the limestone is flat I also made an interesting twisting form inspired by the action of waves on the shore and the shapes of fishing nets I've seen around Greek fishing boat harbors.

An undulating line of flat limestone rocks on Gagou Beach, Samos Island

A twisted seam in a net cover at the harbor of Naoussa on the Island of Paros

I made a second small mosaic before I caught the ferry to Syros, on a thick mat of dead beach grass on a beach near the old port.  This one I dedicated to the Goddess Hera because of its moody location.

A small Hera mosaic on thick mat of beach grass, Samos Island

The fourth island I visited is called Syros.  Ermoupolis, the main town, is the capital of the Cyclades group of islands.  Some of Greece's most famous islands lie in the Cyclades group, including Mykonos and Santorini.  The capital town of Ermoupolis, being an administrative and transport hub, has some life in the winter, and I came here hoping there would be a festive atmosphere to start the New Year.  Except for the arrival of a midnight ferry, Syros passed quietly in to 2014.  I had a drink in a lovely bar with half a dozen other people and toasted the New Year with a drunk former sailor, of which there are many in Greece.  Ermoupolis has the largest and most impressive pebble mosaic I have seen so far in the islands.  Two large 150 year old patios and a wide walkway at the Church of Metamorfosis are paved in the finest black and white pebbles with small red/brown accents in a bold variety of crisply executed patterns.

A compass and geometric shapes in a section of the pebble mosaics at the Church of Metamorfosis, Ermoupolis, Syros

The island is not large but it is exceptionally beautiful.  I was able to cover most of it in a day in a car.  In the south of the island on a pretty beach called Komitos I gathered an array of pebbles and made a large mosaic by laying the stones flat.  It isn't my favorite as it was built rather hastily, with the stones laid flat because of their angular shapes.

The Komitos Beach mosaic is more than one meter in diameter

Before I left the island I created a much lovelier green stone mosaic on a tiny beach surrounded by cliffs that I dedicated to the English pebble mosaic artist Maggie Howarth who I had recently been in contact with, wishing her good health in the coming year.

Maggy's Mosaic, made from green stones dislodged from the beautiful surrounding rock formations

Maggy's Mosaic, Syros Island

On the ferry from Samos to Syros I met a young man named Alexandros who recommended that I visit the Island of Tinos, as it is known for its marble quarries and a stone carving tradition that continues to this day.  It is a short distance from Syros so I went over for 4 days.  The island is known as a holy pilgrimage destination because of a revered icon of the Virgin Mary that resides in the splendid Church of Panagia Evangelistria.  I stayed in a tiny apartment in a complex that was otherwise deserted in the main town within walking distance of the church.  The owner's 106 year old grandfather, the oldest man on Tinos Island passed away the day after I arrived and I was left to man the place solo during my stay.  The holy day of Epiphany occurred while I was there and perhaps 1,000 people arrived for the day to watch a priest throw a golden crucifix in to the sea, after which a group of strapping youth dove in to the harbor in a competitive effort to retrieve it.  I was told that the one who gets it is granted very good luck and possibly a substantial amount of money as gifts from people in the community.

The Epiphany ceremony in Tinos Town

The church has an expansive mosaic terrace fronting it made of larger pebbles that are much more crudely laid than the fine mosaics in Ermoupolis, but the effect is still dramatic.  The carpeting laid across it is for penitents who approach the church on their knees from the harbor to make such a journey less grueling.  I walked, and so did everyone else while I was there.

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The island proved to be spectacular to explore in a car, but I didn't spend much time on any beaches.  I made a tongue in cheek medallion from plastic bottles that washed up on shore near Tinos Town the afternoon I arrived.

Water bottle medallion, Tinos Island

I also made a small rather uninspired mosaic a day later dedicated to Icarus, who fell to his death in the sea near the island of Ikaria, which I reluctantly bypassed on my way from Samos to Syros due to the infrequent winter ferry schedule.  Ikarus was the son of the master craftsman Daedalus, who designed the Minoan Labyrinth near Knossos to hold the dreaded half man/half bull Minotaur, who was the unfortunate offspring of the wife of King Minos of Crete's after a tryst with a bull.  Daedalus was imprisoned by Minos after he gave the King's daughter a ball of twine called a klew, which she gave the Athenian prince Theseus so that he could find his way out of the labyrinth after slaying the Minotaur.  Daedalus fashioned wings with feathers and wax in order for he and his son to escape from Crete by flying, but in his enthusiasm, Icarus, although warned not to, flew too close to the sun, thus melting the wax and causing the wings to fall apart, plunging him to his death.  The tale is one of warning to those with unbridled ambition.  My homage to Icarus certainly lacked ambition, but its cute.

The Icarus Mosaic,  Island of Tinos

In the winter the only way to get to Mykonos by ferry is via Tinos.  My Mother had been to Mykonos in 2009 and told me she saw gay men everywhere wearing practically nothing.  I had to see for myself. Nothing of the sort in winter.  Instead, of being wild, the town in January is a beautiful, peaceful Cycladian village with white washed churches, windmills, and the infamous succession of pelicans Pete's.  The current Pete is pink and missing part of one wing.  The real reason I came to Mykonos was to visit the sacred island of Delos, a place that has no permanent population beyond archeologists and care takers of the ruins.  The boats to Delos don't go very often in winter due to a lack of tourists, but I was fortunate enough to meet Irene Syrianou, a woman who has a mosaic shop in the town and teaches classes and makes reproductions of some of the classical floor mosaics found on Delos Island.  She had worked for some time doing restoration there and had some pull with the surly boat captain, so eventually we were able to visit.   In the mean time I walked a lot and at one point made a very pretty mosaic on a beach in town.  I also started cleaning beaches of the amazing amount of trash that washes up on shore.  You can read about that endeavor in the last essay I posted 'Giving back to the Earth'.

The Mykonos Mosaic

The Mykonos Mosaic with Little Venice in the background

A small group of people made the journey to Delos on a beautiful day.  An archaeologist named Martha who works on the island guided us around the ruins, focusing on the beautiful mosaic floors that lie in situ in villas that toppled over 1,000 years ago.  Delos is considered the birth place of Apollo and his twin, Artemis, as it is the island with most sunny days during the year.  Perhaps the most famous of the floors is a circular design with pairs of dolphins at the corners bearing riders in an aquatic competition akin to trick riding.

A section of the mosaic floor in the House of the Dolphins, Delos Island

We were busy exploring the ruins all day so we didn't have a lot of time to linger on a rocky trash strewn beach, but I managed to make a quick stack from the pancake flat stones there.

A slightly blurry image of my Delian Rock Stack

From Mykonos I returned to Syros and then took the ferry to the Island of Paros.  Parian marble is famous for its luminosity and helped make the island prosperous in ancient times.  The Venus de Milo and the Winged Samothrace at the Louvre Museum in Paris were carved from Parian marble.   I rented a little apartment in the main town of Parikia with a view of the bay, near the remnant of an extraordinary defensive wall made from parts of a dismantled temple dedicated to the Goddess Athena.

A Frankish wall built from parts taken from an ancient Temple of Athena in Parikia, Island of Paros

There are nice stones on the beach in town and I spent part of my first afternoon there making a large mosaic medallion not far from where I was staying.

The Parikia Mosaic

Many Greek towns are built on top of ancient ones.  Next to a parking lot on the edge of town I found the excavated remains of floors from the Hellenistic era.  Pebble mosaics were often used later for sub flooring with fine cut stone mosaics overlaying them.

Pebble mosaic flooring in Parikia, Island of Paros

From Paros I took the ferry to one of my favorite islands from this winter's travels, Naxos.  This is the largest of the Cyclades group, with high mountains and a rugged coastline.  Chora, or Naxos Town has a fine Venetian fortress crowning the small hill in its center, and the Portala, a grand entrance to what remains of the Temple of the Delian Apollo that is the main symbol of the city.  The beach next to the ruins of this once grand temple are the subject of my previous essay about cleaning up beaches of the debris that washes up on shore.  The lovely mosaic that I built there was dedicated to the boy who helped me clean the beach that day.  This young man is a glimmer of hope for humanity to me and I will never forget his selfless assistance in aiding me to gather an enormous amount of garbage from this otherwise beautiful beach.

The Mosaic of the Delian Apollo

Mosaic with the Portala of the Temple of the Delian Apollo in the background

I rented a car for two days to explore the island and drove up to the majestic Mt. Zeus, the tallest mountain on the island, and did a beautiful hike to the cave said to be where the King of Greek Gods, Zeus was raised as a child, being kept safe from his father Kronos, who devoured his siblings.  It was an incredible day in the majesty of the mountain and fascinating to explore the mysterious cave.  Being the only person there made the experience very special.

Cave of Zas

I collected small shards of stone and made little lightning bolts in honor of Zeus outside the entrance to the cave.  I brought some pieces back with me that I will use to make a similar lightning bolt design in the Labyrinth in the 5th circuit, which is dedicated to the planet Jupiter, he being the Roman incarnation of the Greek God Zeus.

Lightning bolts dedicated to Zeus

An earlier visitor left a bouquet with a pink lily that remained fresh in the divine coolness of the cave.

Naxos was the birthplace of the God Dionysos, and the faint remains of an ancient temple dedicated to him lies to the south of Naxos town.  Further on is another temple in a more recognizable form dedicated to the Goddess Demeter.

The Temple of Demeter, Island of Naxos

From Naxos I took a ferry further south to the Island of Ios to see the mosaics of Yiannis Loukanis, who I met 5 years earlier on a short trip to Athens.  In 2013 he competed a series of finely executed mosaics around the island's harbor.

A beautifully crafted pebble mosaic by Yiannis Loukanis at the harbor in Ios

Ios is a party island in the summer but was very sleepy in winter.  I rented a car one day and drove the nearly deserted roads through rugged mountains to the supposed grave site of the great ancient Greek writer Homer.  Later at Agia Theodotis Beach I made a mosaic in honor of Homer after collecting most of the garbage from the shoreline.  A friendly dog joined me for a time while I collected pebbles and assembled a tidy medallion of concentric rings.

Homer's Mosaic, Agia Theodotis Beach, Ios Island

A mosaic dedicated to Homer, Agia Theodotis Beach, Ios

 I stayed an extra day on Ios because the ferry to Santorini was canceled due to rough seas.  Before I left I went to Koumbara Beach across a peninsula from the harbor and made a mosaic there using pretty green schist that I collected from the beach.

Koumbara Beach Mosaic

I was excited to be traveling to Santorini.  This dramatic volcanic island is famous for its huge caldera, and on arrival I couldn't help but notice the similarities to Crater Lake in Oregon which was formed in the same way.  I worked on the tour boats there for a summer when I was 18 years old.  Santorini's eruption and collapse is considered to be the most violent in human history, and is believed to be responsible for the demise of the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete, which was the first advanced civilization in Europe.  I stayed in the picturesque village of Oia on the stairs where what may be the island's most famous view is photographed by zillions of tourists every year.

Posing on the stairs to my Cave House in Oia, Santorini

Santorini was the first island that I visited that had any noticeable number of tourists, mostly Chinese because they were on their NewYears holiday.  Because the cliffs are so steep leading down to the sea, the caldera side of the island doesn't have any real beach.  The hike down is steep and wonderful, passing layers of sculpted ash tufa and black and red lava flows.  At a small dock area I made a little wreath of red lava dedicated to the forces of volcanism.

A ring of red lava filled with small black lava pebbles, Oia, Santorini

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My 5 days on Santorini were blissfully beautiful, but the largest island in Greece beckoned, so I caught the ferry to Iraklio at the ridiculous hour of 3:00 AM.  We arrived in the early morning at the not so attractive but bustling capital of Crete and I moved in to a bizarrely decorated ultra modern hotel that was in sharp contrast to my atmospheric cave dwelling in Oia.  One of the main reasons I came to Greece was to visit Knossos, the ancient Minoan citadel and site of the fabled Labyrinth near Iraklio.  I'll post an essay about this later.  The weather was wet for the longest period yet this winter and my day at Knossos was very soggy.  The collection at museum in Iraklio was amazing although the most famous artifacts that I had studied in Art History at the University of Oregon were not on display for some reason.  Still, the art of the Minoans is very inspiring, especially for their love of nature.

A beautifully decorated plate reminds me of the mosaics I have been making on Greek beaches

A fragment of 5,000 year old Minoan fresco also reminds me of the mosaics I have been making

A gold wreath

Much prettier than Iraklio is the town of Rethymno in the middle of the north coast of the island.  The cities of Crete were heavily bombed by the Germans during World War ll, annihilating a significant amount of their historical charm.  Rethymno and Chaniá fared better than Iraklio and had more to salvage and restore.  I rented a car for four days here and explored the extraordinarily beautiful countryside on quiet little roads.  My adventures felt legendary as I was a lone traveler in most of the places I ventured.  I visited the picturesque Amari Valley, dotted with whitewashed villages amidst lush greenery.  Snow capped Mt. Ida dominates the region being the tallest mountain on Crete.  It is a dramatic surprise to see snowy mountains across the island.  My favorite drive was up a narrow crumbling mountain road to the tiny town of Kallikratis, something straight out of a Washington Irving fairy tale.  I met some sheep along the way.

Baaaaaa

Before I left Rethymno I made a rough limestone mosaic below the walls of the Venetian Fortress that kind of disappears in to the surrounding rock.

A rough limestone Mosaic, Rethymno, Crete

A limestone Mosaic amongst the rocks in Rethymno, Crete

Another day I visited the Minoan ruins at Phaestos where the oldest known form of typography, the Phaestos disk was found.  I bought a copy of this famous round clay disk imprinted with small symbols in a spiraling order to set in the Labyrinth when I get home.  Nearby is the famed hippy beach of Matala which inspired lines in the Joni Mitchell song 'Carey'.  "They're playing that scratchy rock n roll beneath the Matala Moon".  A golden bluff dotted with caves dug as Roman tombs became the free troglodyte lodging for hippies on a budget and the town still honors this heritage with amply painted peace signs and bright flowers.  I sang Carey over and over while I made a mosaic on this beautiful afternoon.

The Matala Moon Mosaic, Matala Beach, on the Libian Sea, Crete

The Matala Moon Mosaic

"The wind is in from Africa" The Matala Moon Mosaic, Matala Beach on the Libian Sea, Crete

I made another small mosaic on the beach at Agia Galini on my way home during a breathtaking sunset.  Another one dedicated to the God Apollo.

Apollo Sunset Mosaic on Agia Galini Beach, Crete

The next day I drove to the famous Cretan mountain town of Anogia and up to the Nida Plateau at the base of snowcapped Mt. Ida.  It is an amazing area of rugged limestone hills and tenacious forests.  Turning off on a dirt road I came upon a beautiful little round stone church modeled after the regional stone huts called Mitatas, in which the shepherds make sheep milk cheese.

A stone church near the Nida Plateau, Crete

From Rethymno I moved further west to the ancient port town of Chaniá.  This is a beautiful place with an old Venetian lighthouse gracing the harbor.  I made a sunburst using tumbled pieces of Ottoman era roof tiles and remnants of Chania's Venetian fortress walls on a small quiet beach.

The Chania Mosaics

It grew a couple of babies the next day.

A full rainbow formed before the full moon rose while I worked on the second and third sunbursts by the Venetian walls, Chaniá, Crete

 My last full day in Chaniá was warm and beautiful and I am wondering why I am leaving.   I went swimming in the sea for only the second time this winter.  It was wonderful.  I also made two mosaics.  One looked like a little cake as the pebbles were very small where I went swimming.

A little cake mosaic

Further down the beach the pebbles were much larger and more plentiful so I couldn't help myself.  I worked on this simple set of colorful concentric circles until it was almost dark.  I can't really say why I do this, OCD perhaps?  I like the results, and they do catch people's eyes as they pass.  I suppose it keeps me in shape for when I return home and go back to work.
 My last full day in Chaniá was warm and beautiful and I am wondering why I am leaving.

The sea is ready to reclaim this one

None of these mosaics is meant to last very long.  The sea often takes them back in a day or two.  I like that.

Thanks for reading another very long essay, but then its been quite a long journey,  Jeffrey

Labyrinth patterns were stamped in to the coins of Knossos, from the Archaeology Museum, Heraklion, Crete

One of the main reasons I came to the island of Crete this winter was to visit Knossos, the ancient Minoan Citadel near the island's capitol city of Heraklion.  This was the mythical site of the famed Labyrinth of the Minotaur.  Minoan culture dates from the Bronze age and is the oldest known advanced civilization in Europe.  The palace at Knossos went through many incarnations over several centuries and developed in to a great citadel with spacious courtyards and a complex arrangement of rooms on several levels.  The elaborate layout of the buildings may have inspired the idea of the labyrinthine concept due to a seemingly endless number of rooms and corridors at a time when the rest of Europe still resided in simple dwellings.

An artist's rendering of what the palace at Knossos may have looked like

There is however no actual known remnant of any kind of labyrinth on the island of Crete other than depictions on coins and ceramics.  The Labyrinth insinuated in frescos was a kind of 'dancing ground' where rituals probably took place.  So it is possible that a labyrinthine pattern may have decorated a spacious courtyard in the palace where it is hypothesized that these events took place, but there is no physical evidence of this today.

A Minoan woman depicted in a fresco from the palace at Knossos

The word Labyrinth is derived from the word Labrys, which was a Minoan word for a double edged ax, a royal symbol associated with creation, and a Goddess that was the protectress of the palace. Depictions of double edged axes were found in the excavations at various Minoan palaces in different parts of Crete, but it is assumed that Knossos was the main center for the civilization, from which the great King Minos once reigned.  The suffix -nth insinuates a palace, therefore, the word Labyrinth can mean the Palace of the Double Ax.    Double Ax symbols have been found in excavations of other ancient cultures that would have had influence on the Minoans.  I must note that the name Minoan was the invention of the colorful archaeologist Arthur Evans who led the excavations at Knossos, and that much of what we consider to be historical fact is the highly interpreted vision of this man and other modern scholars.

A palace hall recreated by the archaeologist Arthur Evans at Knossos

The most famous myth related to Minoan history is that of the Minotaur.  The story goes as this:  King Minos had promised to sacrifice his most beautiful and prized white bull to Poseidon, the God of the Sea, but spared the bull and sacrificed another in its place.  Poseidon's revenge for King Minos rejection of the chosen sacrifice was to have the Goddess Aphrodite cause the King's wife Pasiphaë, the daughter of the God Helios, to fall hopelessly in love with the bull.  Daedalus, the court architect designed a wooden bull for her to hide in so that she could entice the bull to make love to her.  She was impregnated and gave birth to the the terrifying half man/half bull, the Minotaur.  In order to hide this fearful creature, who fed on humans and wreaked havoc on the Minoans, King Minos commissioned Daedalus to design a labyrinthine palace from which the Minotaur could not escape.

Water trickles over a pebble mosaic of a Liquidambar Tree in Los Angeles

I was taking a hot bath in the claw foot tub built in to a niche of a low wall in my garden tonight, listening to the music of the fountains that trickle in to and out of my pond.  The sound is intended to remind me of melting snow spilling from a ledge in a meadow filled with wildflowers in the Cascade Mountains of the Pacific Northwest where I live.  I grew up in Oregon and have an internal vault filled with the memories of days spent by streams, hiking in the mountains, fishing in lakes.

A snow melt stream in the Goat Rocks Wilderness, Washington State

One of the things I always dreamed of as a child was having a fountain and pond.  When I was 10 I saved up my allowance and ordered a horribly ugly kidney shaped aqua green lily pool from a Boys Life magazine for $4.95.  It came rolled up in a box and had lots of wrinkles.  I was allowed to dig a hole in the garden at the edge of the lawn under a scraggley lavender bush and install this sad attempt to create a place to sit and dream of nature.  I filled it with water and planted the water lily bulb in the sunken bowl molded in to the plastic.  It never grew.

Still I had this dream of building a vernal pool where water trickled and danced.  After church every Easter we went to Hendrick's Park Rhododendron Gardens in Eugene, Oregon to see the flower smothered trees and shrubs in all their Spring glory.  There is a fountain there, a very natural sculptural form of a large cast concrete Magnolia blossom, surrounded by a grove of Southern Magnolias.  My brother and I would run excitedly to it in our little suits and bow ties and climb up to have our pictures taken.

My brother and I at the Magnolia Fountain at Hendricks Park in Eugene, Oregon

There weren't a lot of fountains when I was growing up in Eugene, Oregon.  For me they were more the stuff of fantasy, faraway places with strange sounding names.  At the University of Oregon, where I studied Landscape Architecture, in the Museum of Art there is an elegant cloister like courtyard with a fountain at one end spilling in to a long tiled pool.  It has always been my favorite place on campus, the sacred spring emerging from a scrolled vessel flanked by two Elfin boys sporting tiny horns.  One holds pan pipes and the other plays a flute.  It is a beautiful piece of Beaux Arts garden architecture coming out of a design school that borrowed heavily from classical European ideals.  Baffling to me is how this space is treated today.  A large ugly modern sculpture blocks the beautiful bronze grilled glass doors that opened on to a small balcony.  The planting beds are not lovingly tended.  Nobody is ever in there when I visit, which gives it that magical quality of a secret garden.

Fountain and Pool in the Prince Lucien Campbell Courtyard at the University of Oregon Museum of Art

Water is life.  The four rivers of paradise flowed out of Eden, the legendary land best known from the Old Testament in the Bible and the Koran, the place where Adam and Eve were created on this Earth.  Eden is a kind of mental fantasy meant to bring solace to those who are not inhabiting such a lovely place.  We apparently got kicked out of Eden for wanting to taste it, and where we wound up usually isn't considered Edenic.  What I think we lost is our ability to find Eden in our world, or to be able to manifest it.  What Eden represents is the ideal landscape, one flowing with clear cool waters, the shade of trees, and the sweet fruits dangling from them.  The word Eden is derived from an ancient Aramaic word meaning fruitful and well watered.  The four rivers became the dividing lines forming a cross in which four garden beds could be planted with fruiting and fragrant plants.  The four rivers would then become four irrigation channels in this stylized landscape.  This literal representation reached its pinnacle at the Alhambra in the Court of the Lions, where white marble rills connect the fountains emerging in the interior halls of the flanking palaces to the central courtyard.  What makes the fountains so incredibly elegant is their utter simplicity.

A fountain and rill in the Alcazar in Sevilla

The word paradise is derived from the ancient Persian words pairi and diz, meaning a safe space, or a garden, enclosed by a wall.  The wall was built to protect the spring, the source of life emerging from the Earth, which would be a veritable treasure in the dry landscapes of the Middle East.  The water would be contained and the flow would provide sublime music to those who found sanctuary within the walls.  It is easier to relax when you know you wont be jumped by wild animals or more likely, rival humans.

A four quartered garden in the Bahia Palace in Marrakesh, Morocco

This garden plan, called a Chahar Bagh, originated in Persia and became the model for gardens throughout the western world.  The form is most clear in Islamic gardens reaching from India to Spain and the New World.  The goal is always the same, to be near water and the gifts that it brings in a highly stylized and symbolic setting.

A Turkish carpet depicting a walled garden with the Four Rivers of Paradise in the Museum of Islamic Arts, Istanbul

Carpets were woven as a kind of mobile garden in plan view that you could roll up and carry with you when you traveled.  They were a clean soft place to sit, pray, and sleep within the symbolic safety of the wall (being the carpet border).  The medallion in the center would suggest a fountain, with surrounding designs alluding to the garden.  My garden in summer is spread with carpets to provide space to lounge and listen to the music of the fountains.

My garden in summer

Tile zellij fountain in Rabat, Morocco

I travel a lot and I have seen a lot of fountains on my journeys.  They are clearly meant to be gravitated towards, a ceremonious spring emerging from the Earth.  There are plenty of grandiose examples, ranging from the opulent terminus for a Roman aqueduct in the Trevi Fountain in Rome to the synchronized jets waving to Pavarotti at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas.  Many are garish spectacles with colored flood lighting in the center of plazas.  But my favorites are the little ones.  These often were historically the source of water for households that didn't have running water within them.  In Moroccan medinas (the old pedestrian centers of cities and towns), public fountains are a humble spigot emerging from an elaborately tiled wall.  These public water sources were often commissioned by wealthy citizens or ruling Emirs as an artistic way to provide this essential service.

Fontana dei Libri, Rome

Rome has had an inventory of as many as 1,300 wonderful fountains.  Every piazza has a fountain, many spouting clean drinking water.  It is a lovely thing to be able to drink from a thoughtfully sculpted work of art.  One of my favorites is the Fontana dei Libri, the Fountain of Books built in 1927.  A carved marble arch frames two pedestals with two books resting on each.  Water spouts from the ornament hanging from the book markers and jackets.  A stags head is framed in the center giving rise to some story I do not know, but there is something very scholarly feeling when drinking the water.  So much of what we know comes from literature, most likely more than what we know from human experience.  Food for thought, and further motivation to get out and see the world!

Rabbit Fountain at the Villa Borghese

The carvings are plumbed with metal pipes so that the water emerges as a simple stream making them easy to drink from or fill a bucket.  There are usually basins for animals to quench their thirst as well.  Aqueducts brought potable water in to the city center which made for a healthier population.  Each fountain is different, giving it an individual identity that often becomes the symbol of the area in which it resides.  The Fountain of the Rabbits at the Villa Borghese is a whimsical pedestal for a statue of a Satyr couple holding their baby.  The water spills from the mouth in a refreshing alternative to the more frequently used lion mask.

Some of the most astonishing fountains on Earth reside at the Villa d'Este in the hill town of Tivoli not far from Rome.  This is perhaps the premier water garden in the world.  The Diana of Ephesus is a Roman Goddess honored in a magnificent temple in Ephesus, Turkey, one of the 7 ancient wonders of the world.  Diana, also known as Artemis in her Ephesus form appears to have 12 breasts from which water pours in this fountain.  She is clearly a goddess of fertility and the breasts are thought to be a collar of gourds which may have been used to adorn statues in the Artemis cult.  The Diana fountain at the Villa d'Este once resided in the central niche of the Water Organ which was designed by the famed Italian sculptor Bernini.  This is the centerpiece of the garden, which was commissioned by a powerful and wealthy Cardinal in the hierarchy of the Catholic church.  The statue was moved to a more discreet part of the garden when the Pope came to visit for obvious reasons.

Diana of Ephesus at the Villa d'Este in Tivoli, Italy

The Villa Lante north of Rome in the town of Bagnaia has a central water channel running its length connecting fountains that represent the four elements, water, earth, fire and air.

The Catena d'acqua (water chain) forms the body of a Crayfish, symbol of the Gambera family at the Villa Lante

A stream was diverted in to the garden and ravity flow provides the water pressure for small jets and spouts spilling in to pools which cool the air on hot summer days.  Below the fountain dedicated to the element of Earth is a stone table with water channels on either side for the dipping of feet, and one running through a trough down the center for chilling bottles of wine.  It is a marvelous piece of sculpture when not in use and is believed to have been used for sumptuous banquets.

Water Table at the Villa Lante in Bagnaia, Italy

Tiered fountains are a common feature of European and colonial courtyards.  They had the function of being ornamental and functional by having a basin at the base for scooping out water for household use and irrigation of plants.  The upper tiers elevate the water so that it can be admired from the surrounding area and for it's cooling affect on the air.

A basin fountain in the Alameda in Cadiz, Spain

Tiered fountains are commonly associated with Spanish colonial courtyards and continue to be popular in Latin America and the United States with varying levels of design success depending on placement and appropriate use.  The most successful in my mind are those used in the classic sense, centering a courtyard or courtyard like garden area as a focal point.

A two tiered fountain in a courtyard in Tangier, Morocco

India is a country I returned to 6 winters in a row, in part because there is so much marvelous architecture.  The fountains of the Mughals were influenced by the spread of Islam and the Persian model of the paradise garden.  The Mughal emperors built magnificent gardens with a great many fountains to adorn them.  One of my favorite treatments of water is called a chatar, where water runs down a sculpted slide forming rippling patterns.  Another is when water flows as a sheet over a wall of niches in which candles or flowers can be places so the light and color shimmer through a liquid curtain.

A sculpted Mughal water chute in the Red Fort, Delhi

Lotus fountain in the Rang Mahal, Red Fort, Delhi, India

The palace at Deeg in Rajasthan was built in the late 18th Century and contains a classic Chahar Bagh with raised walkways flanking linear pools with a line of fountain jets running down the center.  Water from the pools could be let out to irrigate the adjacent sunken garden beds.

Chahar Bagh  in the Jal Mahal Palace, Deeg, Rajasthan, India

They are only operational twice a year during the monsoon due to a shortage of water.  When they flow, the water is now colored to celebrate the festival of colors, Holi.  Throngs of Indian tourists mob the place at that time, making it less like Eden and more like Disneyland or Waltzing Waters in Florida, which I visited many years ago and is now closed.  Another loss to the world of aquatic entertainment kitch.



Nepal is another great country for fountains.  Their primary purpose was ritualistic while supplying water for households.  Spigots are often anthropomorphic creatures meant to be symbols of protection or beneficial spirits.  The layout of the fountains in important civic squares create outdoor temples dedicated to deities from the Hindu pantheon.  You could perform sacred devotional rituals while collecting water for the household.

At the holy village of Muktinath high in the Himalaya is an angled wall from which 108 of these spigots spill water in to a trough.  108 is a divine number in the Hindu and Buddhist religions.  The water is believed to be sacred and pilgrims strip down to their underwear and run through them to receive a ritual blessing, even on cold days when there is snow on the ground like when I was there in the month of April 1997.




For simplicity and because I find single spout of water to be very elegant, I tend to build a lot of wall fountains, in part because of the domestic history of having a spout from which to collect water for the garden and household, and because they are fairly easy to build.  Flexible copper tubing that is usually meant for ice machines makes an excellent piping for the water.  This can be mortared in to the masonry work that makes up the vertical part of the fountain.  I often cast these in a form and then stand them up.  A sunken basin holds the submerged pump and catches the water that spills from the fountain.

A simple cast concrete wall fountain in a garden I built in 2001

I'll be running a course to subscribers teaching much of what I know about garden design and construction, with a video tutorial on building fountains, including the process we shot this Spring when I built a free standing fountain for a client.  I will post announcements about the course as the start date approaches.

A free standing fountain adds elegance to the entry garden of a client's home

The Solstice Fountain

The Lion Fountain in the Orr Garden

A small free standing fountain in the Smith/Garret garden in San Francisco

A simple tiled fountain at the Hotel La Mamounia in Marrakesh, Morocco

A marble basin fountain in the center of a lush courtyard in a government ministry building in Rabat, Morocco

A pebble mosaic and marble terrace and fountain in Rabat, Morocco

A contemporary water rill in the Bellevue Botanical Garden, Washington

The rill terminates in a stylish pool

The King Edward V fountain at the Alhambra in Granada, Spain

One of the masks on the King Edward V fountain at the Alhambra

A shell and rill fountains spill in to a pool in Ronda, Spain

The water garden in a courtyard in Ronda, Spain

A simple water spout in Parque Montjuic, Barcelona, Spain

Lion Masks in Granada, Spain

A rill spills over a wall in to a pool in the Andalusian Garden, Parque Montjuic, Barcelona

A fountain centered on a patio in a garden I built in Portland, Oregon

A fountain I built in Portland, Oregon

The Diver Fountain in my Garden

I recently returned to Bainbridge Island to visit the Labyrinth I completed in May of 2014.  It was my first time back since the dedication ceremony last June.  An attractive wood box containing laminated fliers describing the meaning of the Labyrinth has replaced the interpretive sign that was there when I was working on the project.  Most of the horse shoes from the stables across the road were gone although a couple had been moved to the hole in the center where offerings are placed.


 It was a wonderful experience to see how this magical space has fared over the past year, beautifully maintained and brimming with the accumulated energy of the thousands of people who have walked it in my absence.  I came with two friends from Portland who had never seen it except in pictures.  One of them, my dear friend Eric Slade, came to film the space as part of a story he is making for Oregon Public Broadcasting's show Oregon Art Beat on my work as an artist.

Eric Slade filming the offerings in the center of the Labyrinth

People came to walk the Labyrinth while we were there and I had some engaging conversations.  There is a small photo of me from the dedication on the fliers in the box and people would look at me and the picture and make the connection that we were one and the same person.

Visitors walking the Labyrinth

Conversations always delve in to the meanings incorporated in to the design, the 12 moons on the outside ring, the 108 stones in the 10th circuit forming a Tibetan Mala, and the 9 circuits representing the planets in our solar system.  Some people followed the process on my blog as I posted essays after the completion of each circuit while I was working.  I suggested to those who haven't read them to do so as the texts and photos give a much better understanding of what you are walking on as you go around and around the concentric circular paths.

























But finding the essays in a chronological order is not all that easy the way the blog site is organized, so I've decided it would be a good idea to list the links to the essays here as a list so that you can click on the links and go from the beginning to the end as they are meant to be read.  So here it is:

1. The Labyrinth Project, the beginning
http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-labyrinth-project-beginning.html

2. The Halls Hill Labyrinth Project: The Mala Circuit
http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-halls-hill-labyrinth-project-mala.html

3. The Halls Hill Labyrinth: Pluto and the Four Elements
http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-halls-hill-labyrinth-pluto-and-four.html

4. Halls Hill Labyrinth: The Neptune Circuit
http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com/2013/10/halls-hill-labyrinth-neptune-circuit.html

5. The Halls Hill Labyrinth, the 7th Circuit, Uranus, God of the Sky
http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-7th-circuit-uranus-god-of-sky.html

6. The Halls Hill Labyrinth, the 6th Circuit, The Rings of Saturn
http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-6th-circuit-rings-of-saturn.html

7. The Apollon Beach Mosaics, Greece
http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-apollon-beach-mosaics-greece.html

8. The Minoan Labyrinth
http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-minoan-labyrinth.html

9. The Halls Hill Labyrinth, Jupiter
http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-halls-hill-labyrinth-jupiter.html

10. The Halls Hill Labyrinth, The Fourth Circuit, Mars
http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-halls-hill-labyrinth-third-circuit.html

11. The 3rd Circuit, Earth, the Community Circuit
http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-3rd-circuit-earth-community-circuit.html

12.  The Halls Hill Labyrinth, The 2nd Circuit, Venus, Love
http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-halls-hill-labyrinth-2nd-circuit.html

13. The Halls Hill Labyrinth, The First Circuit, Mercury
http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-first-circuit-mercury.html

14. The Halls Hill Labyrinth, The Sun
http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-halls-hill-labyrinth-sun.html

A red flower in the Summer quadrant of the 11th Circuit

Filming requires repeating shots over and over until the desired look is captured.  Eric filmed me walking barefoot, back and forth on different sections depending on the light for hours.  I could feel the warmth of the sun on the black rocks in the autumnal quarter of the circle as I tred on them as opposed to the coolness of the lighter colors.  I really noticed how different the level of connection is when you walk it barefoot rather than in shoes.

The opening in the center of the Labyrinth contains offerings left by a number of people

I was flooded with memories thinking back to the times I spent on each section, the many flowers dedicated to people who rang the Prayer Wheel, the stones I brought back from Greece, and the beauty of the place where I was fortunate enough to spend over 3 months working on this beautiful project.  From what people told me while I was there, the place has brought peace and solice and introspection to the many people who have walked it, as was intended.  I love that!

Thanks for reading, and if you have time, read the essays from start to finish.  They're pretty interesting.
XO, Jeffrey

Dappled Autumnal light on the Labyrinth

Blakely Harbour, Bainbridge Island, Washington

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I recently saw a documentary film directed by the director Gay Dillingham about Timothy Leary and Ram Dass, followed by a question and answer session where we talked about Life, Psychology, Psychedelic drugs, and Death.  The film really shows how people can foray in to the realm of experiencing death, in order to prepare for this most profound and absolute of transitions.  It is the Spirit that makes the journey, and perhaps the most important thing we can do in our lifetimes is to prepare for departure.

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Today, Friday November 13 there were a series of attacks on civilians in the magical city of Paris.  Without delving in to the horror, which followed suicide bombings in Beirut this week, and blasts at a peace rally in Ankara, Turkey a month ago, there seems to be a desire for people to inflict great pain on others to remedy some great injustice.  There is endless strife and conflict all over the world, and the media brings it all in to our conciousness.  I feel very sad that kindness just doesn't come naturally for so many people.  We violate each other, often out of revenge, or simply because of the power of the military industrial complex exerting its desire for profit.  We've been warring since the dawn of civilization, expediating death for tens of millions of people.  If you study the history of Paris, it is one marked by a history of tragedy, littered with death.  But the way we view death is an everchanging concept.  From experience I've learned to accept it, in part to pad the shock.  My Earthly body will end up in an urn someday and hopefully be sprinkled about the world in places I have loved in my life of travel.  As for my soul, I'm working to make sure its ready.

Bare trees framed in a broken stained glass window

They say the mind lingers for almost an hour after the body dies, transitioning to another realm, whatever that may be.


While mourning the shootings and bombings in Paris this evening I went back in to my picture files to a gallery of images I took at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in December of 2012, on my first trip to the French capital.  This was the first municipal and first garden cemetery in the city.  It was established by Napoleon in 1804.  Napoleon decreed that cemeteries be built in cities throughout his empire for health reasons as the old city cemeteries filled up.  During plagues and epidemics the bodies of the dead were often piled in public squares for lack of a place to put them.  These cemeteries outside the cities greatly reduced the outbreak of epidemics.

City of the Dead

A lavish bouquet carved in marble

Being a garden cemetery gives Père Lachaice the look of a village of the dead in a forest.  It is extraordinary for its ambience and monumental architecture, making it one of the greatest cemeteries in the world.  It seemed poinient today to revisit this touchingly macabre landscape, with its depictions of life lost and taken away.  While there is an overlying sadness, sorrow cohabitates with strange beauty and profound peace.

There are more than 1,000,000 bodies buried here, and thousands more in the Columbarium, where ashes are interred.

Here lies a gallery of my favorite images from that afternoon at Père Lachaise.

The grave of French painter Thèodore Gèricault

The gates of Sorrow

City of the Dead

French sculptor Jean Joseph Carriès

Moss Roses

The Belgian writer and poet Georges Rodenbach, breaking out of his grave

Grief

Reaching

Jim Morrison's grave

A mossy cross

The Columbarian

A new arrival

Holocast Memorial

Holocaust Memorial

Porcelain Pansies are a popular tradition

Bird in a Cherry Tree growing from a rock

Gibert Becaud

Monument to the Dead by sculptor Bartholomeè

The stained glass window inside the above crypt

The grave of Oscar Wilde

Communing with the departed

Thanks for reading, Rest in Peace, Jeffrey

I was walking around the Centro Historico of the city of Queretaro north of Mexico City today, looking for the old train station that a friend I met here recommended I visit when I stumbled upon a magical little plaza, just north of the river on Avenida Juarez.

Detail of a column at the entrance to the Plaza incorporating cup handles in the design

A beautifully executed parrot using a variety of brightly colored dishes

The only information on the plaza and its creator I could find was a small sign calling the plaza Fuente de los Platitos, which means Fountain of the Little Plates.  The artist who built it was Don Daniel Mendoza.  It was commissioned during the administration of governor Noradino Rubio, who was in office from 1939 to 1943.

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The style of mosaic is called Picassiette in French, named after the Maison Picassiette built by Raymonde Isidore in Chartes, France around the same time as the construction of this plaza.  Picassiette  literally means 'scavenger' in French.  Isidore collected the material that he covered the interior and exterior of his house with mainly from garbage dumps.  Assiette also means plate in French.



Having done a fair amount of tile mosaic work, I know for a fact that working with crockery and porceline has its difficulties because it is glazed on both sides, which makes it harder to adhere to the mortar thinset used to attach it to the surface you are covering.  It also has curved surfaces, so in order to avoid sharp protruding edges you have to use small pieces to maintain a flat surface.


One of the patterning techniques that Don Daniel Mendoza used was to create tightly fit areas on the flatter surfaces and then to leave larger gaps on the curves at the tops of the benches.  He used blue colored grout to fill in the gaps that read as blue banded borders that ties the long undulating benches and walls together.  In the early 1940's the use of latex as an additive to tile setting mortar increased the strength and bonding properties making it easier to build durable mosaics.  This park is now 75 years old and is in excellent condition.


At the center of the plaza is a traditional round fountain which has the least amount of ornamentation.  This leads me to believe it might have been the first part of the plaza project and that inspiration for greater ornament came later with the building of the walls and benches.

The walls have oval perforations with a circle of black in between repeated around the perimeter of the plaza.


Each bench has a colorful garland under the seat and an oval medallion with an animal mosaic inside centered on the backrest, with farm animals and birds and insects often beautifully rendered using bits of colored plates.

A turkey

Grasshopper

Pig

A yellow bird with blue wings

Gallo, a Rooster

A black spotted dog in tall grass

Bujo, and Owl

Una Abeja, a Bee

Mariposa, a Butterfly

Mono, a Monkey

Paloma, a Dove

Hormigo, an Ant

The use of color and patterning from the plates makes for wonderful portraits.

Not sure what this is…a lamb?

Ganza, a Goose

Caballo, a Horse

Many thousands of porceline plates and cups had to be collected to create the mosaics in the plaza.  They were broken and cut to fit, separating colors to use in a large variety of designs.

Porceline plates with hand pansy flowers form a little garden

At the far end of the plaza there is an architectural panel with a coat of arms, crowned in a rising sun with eyes and a cross flanked by two stars over a man on horseback bearing a sword, and an arbor laden with grapes.  These could represent the divine heavens, victory and prosperity.  The foliar garland framing the coat of arms is particularly beautiful to me, as are the flowering plants on either side.

Coat of Arms

A mosaic lamp post rises above the bench at the other end of the plaza

An Egret

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Centered on the plaza next to the fountain is a curved mosaic panel with an image of an eagle with a rattlesnake in its beak on a fruiting nopale cactus, which was a vision that lead to the founding of the Aztec capital at Tenoctitlan.  It is the image depicted on the Mexican flag.


Around this image are mosaics of mountains, snow capped volcanos, and one striped with the colors of he Mexican flag.  On the ends are wonderful portraits of a pair of white cranes and on the other a colorful parrot.



At the corners of the park are black and white silhouettes of colonial life.

Cisne, a Swan

There are two panels in the park at an entrance with portraits of Precolombian ceremonial headdresses, one with a jaguar and one with an eagle.

A ceremonial portrait of a man wearing a jaguar head dress

Other panels depict potted flowering plants alluding to a garden.

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The plaza is a popular place to visit with friends

Beautiful places to sit

I'm so happy to have stumbled upon this wonderful little public space, which required a great deal of ambition to collect all of the materials and break them apart and reassemble them in to a magical garden of life and color.  Many hundreds of plates must have been broken up.  I know first hand how much work it was to manifest such a creation although I have never done a project on this scale.

A mixture of colorful bits of plates, perhaps leftovers

The park reminds me of the wonderful and very famous tile benches in Parc Guell in Barcelona, which I wrote about 4 years ago.  http://jeffreygardens.blogspot./2011/12/parc-guell-and-its-amazing-tile-mosaics.html

This is the first publication on the internet about this park and I hope it inspires a new appreciation for it.  Thanks for reading, Jeffrey

Surrealist mushroom and Bird of Paradise sculptures near the entrance to Las Pozas

I have a generous list of places that I want to visit in my lifetime that I consider to be pilgrimages.  These are magical environments that inspire wonder and awe for me.  Many are natural, and some are man made.  Las Pozas is a combination of both.

Las Pozas (The Pools)

Inspired and financed by the British millionaire Edward James, Las Pozas is an extravagant surrealist architectural landscape blended in to a tropical paradise in the Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains of southern San Luis Potosi State in Mexico.  James inherited an enormous fortune from his father at the age of 25.  He claims to have been attracted to the world of surrealism because of the severity of his British upbringing, escaping the confines of society by imagining alternative realities.  He studied at Eton and Oxford, published volumes of poetry, and became a patron of surrealist artists, including Salvador Dali and Magritte.  Over time he amassed what was considered the largest private collection of surrealist art in the world.

Being somewhat disillusioned with British society, James came to the United States and then moved to Los Angeles, which in my experience is not the best place to escape such a predicament.  While there he found a guru who chastised his wealth as a barrier to spirituality.  Under the encouragement of his cousin, the artist Briget Bate Tichenor and psychiatrist Eric Fromm, he came to Mexico in 1941 in part to search for a place reminiscent of the Garden of Eden.  After arriving in Cuernavaca, which had a substancial well to do American community, he hired as his guide Plutarco Gastelum, a man who worked in the telegraph office.  He bought two sleeping bags, and they set out in a car to explore the country.  In November of 1945 they came upon the town of Xilitla, a mountain village at 2,000 feet in elevation surrounded by lush jungle, southwest of the Gulf coast city of Tampico in the Sierra Madre Oriental.

A view of Xilitla from the road to Las Pozas

Gastelum later met a local woman, married, had four children, and built a a surrealist Gothic home in Xilitla.  The house is now a hotel, La Posada El Castillo.  One would think the name refers to a castle, but it actually derives its name from being built on the site of the home of Colonel José Castillo, an officer in during the Mexican Revolution.  

La Posada El Castillo

Edward James would come to Mexico for two months every summer and stay with Gastelum's family, whom he adopted.  The house had the town's only swimming pool, lush gardens, and fantastic architectural details that were expanded at the same time as Las Pozas.  James sent Gastelum and his wife Marina on a tour of Europe that inspired the Gothic elements in the house.

The entrance path to La Posada El Castillo

A couple of miles down in the valley from Xilitla lies a verdant paradise where streams cascade over cliffs in to pools.  Pozas means pools in Spanish, hence the name of the garden.  James frequently went to the pools to bathe and was known to pay the locals to allow him to enjoy the place in solitude, but as he developed the gardens, the local people to my knowledge were never excluded.  The property was a coffee farm called Rancho La Concita.  At first he collected orchids and animals, and amassed as many as 29,000 orchids, most of which were killed in a freak snow storm in 1962 while James was in New York.  People in the area had never seen snow before and called it 'white ash'.


The death of so many plants triggered the decision to build concrete sculpture in the garden for its permanence, something that couldn't be killed.  In the end the garden covered an expansive 80 acres of steeply sloping land.

This gate guards the valley leading to the above waterfall

As I began to do more research on the gardens in order to write this photographic essay, I found that there has been a fair amount written about Las Pozas.  There are also two documentaries, one of which I have linked here.  The film covers the very interesting life of Edward James, from his childhood, education, inheritance, and career as a collector of surrealist art, to the manifestation of Las Pozas.   The film is nearly an hour long so you may want to watch it first and then begin the photographic journey through the gardens.



I also found a wonderful BBC podcast which I recommend you listen two while you scroll down through the photos.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01jxs5y

A plan of the garden

When you first enter the gardens, passing the restaurant, a path winds above the stream to a series of bathing pools.  The path becomes restricted by two walls and then opens up to marvelous terraced pools and diversion channels puctuated by towering columns and undulating arches.

Pathway to the lower pools

Trellis like projections between the walls

While I opted not to do a guided tour, I passed and listened in on some of them over the 3 days that I spent in the gardens, and overheard one in Spanish saying that there was once a trampoline you could jump on to plunge in to one of the pools.  There are remnants of diving platforms jutting from the cliff as well.  The pools must have silted up as they seem to shallow for diving now.

Columns capped with lush epiphytic vegetation

It is no longer possible to reach the upper parts of the garden from this area, so we backtracked to the entrance and entered what is an amazing endeavor, a world unto itself.

Entrance to the Cinematografo

Nothing was ever really completed at las Pozas.  Like many Mexican constructions, rebar protrudes from the tops of columns and platforms for the purpose of adding new layers.  There is a structure called "The House on three floors which will in fact have five or four or six." One of the largest structures here is called the Cinematografo.  Because of some deterioration and the dizzying heights achieved climbing ever higher without hand rails it is unfortunately no longer open to the public.  It was meant to be used for projections of  film, light and color.  Las Pozas had electricity run to the garden in 1979.

Cinematografo

Path leading to the Cinematografo

Escalera al Cielo, the Stairway to the Sky on top of the Cinemagrafo

Passing the Cinemagrafo, a verdant cobbled path leads to a circular gate called Reja Circular Anillo de la Riena, or the Queen's Ring Gate.   The bold color and form of the tropical foliage plants along the paths are wonderful.

A cobbled path leading to the Queen's Ring Gate

A traditional cobbled path lined with Maranta and Aluminum Plant, Pilea cadierei

Looking back after passing through the Queen's Ring Gate, a line of stone mosaic serpents rise along the path called 'The way of the seven deadly sins'

There is no real sequential progression to moving through the garden.  It is possible to turn in to a narrow passage or doorway at many points and enter a labyrinth of optional paths.  Twisting stairways lead to unknown destinations, sometimes bringing you back from where you just came.  Such is the nature of the intended surrealism here, to disorient and confuse and delight the mind.

Avenida de Serpientes, bird of paradise, pillars, and mushrooms

Sculpted concrete leaves at the base of a stylized mushroom

A series of delicate arches emulates a flock of birds

Steps leading to new vantage points

Edward James would do sketches of his ideas, working directly with carpenters who would build wooden forms in a woodshop beneath open cabanas and platforms.  Because of a lack of engineering skill, extra rebar reinforcements were used to increase the integrity of the structures.  Concrete was poured in to the molds by masons and compacted and then the forms removed after the concrete had cured.  The surfaces would be finished and sometimes painted vivid colors.  The majority of the installations remain solid after half a century in the jungle.

La Tienda, The Store

The Cornucopia, Vegetal forms taken to a surreal level

Looking down on stylized mushrooms with Bird of Paradise buttresses

Flying arches connected to tendril like 'S' curves

Twists and turns and narrow gaps open to small patios punctuated by pillars and platforms.  The slopes and multilevel structures are linked by a wide variety of steps, often suspended in space.

Steps leading down to the Plaza San Isidro

Giant leaved plants play dramatically off the sculpted forms they surround.  The forms of many of the sculptures play on the botanical patterns of the jungle.



At the base of a cabana are a pair of sculpted hands by which the garden was created.  I've also made mosaics of my hands to honor the hard work they have endured to build what my mind imagines, so I was particularly taken by these sculptures.

Sculpture of Plutarco Gastelum's hands

Bird like buttresses support the wall of a small cabana with slender doors forming a fleur de lis

Green stones from the streams were used to create this simple flower mosaic

Formed concrete and traditional stone work are artfully combined to create a fountain and round window

Looking back through the jungle at the Escalera al Cielo

The Store

Protruding steps connect four intersecting paths

The Plaza San Isidro was the daily gathering place where Edward James would meet with the workers  to discuss each day's projects

Steps as sculpture in the Plaza San Isidro

Structures blend beautifully with the jungle.  One of the inspirations at Las Pozas were the ruins at Angkor Wat in Cambodia, where magnificent architecture is wrapped in the roots of trees and vines.

The purple undersides of Heliconia leaves makes for marvelous patterns

Trees are laden with epiphytic plants

Looking down in to one of the clear bathing pools

The intricate network of paths and stairs make it possible to explore the steep slopes of the jungle with relative ease.  Maneuvering the difficult terrain carrying tons of building material was a major task for the many workers who built the garden.

Puente de Fleur de Lis

Edward James was a lover of animals.  Being a wealthy eccentric put him in an awkward position socially.  He found the company of animals to be easier to navigate and collected a large variety of creatures which he housed in a sculptural zoo.  Here he could come and feed and talk to his white tailed deer, the ocelots, snakes, and many parrots and macaws.  There were pools for crocodiles and flamingos, and plans for an aviary that never came to fruition.

The Flamingo House

Fluted Columns by the Deer Pens

Fleur de Lis

Buttresses

There are a number of cabanas where people could stay, and a significant building in the center of the garden that looks more prominent than the others.

Two staircases lead to the Saint Peter and Saint Paul gate of the House on three floors which will in fact have five or four or six

I overheard a guide saying that James had hoped to be buried there and that for this reason the pillars under the first level are painted white, although the levels step up in half stories.  There was a bedroom, living room, and terraces for him to stay in and oversee his creations.

The House on three floors which will in fact have five or four or six

James wanted to bring his friends Alfred Guinness of Brewery fame and fashion icon Coco Chanel to visit his creation and had various dwellings built although their surrealist nature made them rather strange to inhabit.

Gothic Screen

The ravine above the House on three floors has a number of folly like structures including the delicately soaring Palacio de Bamboo, The House with a roof like a whale, and the Bathtub shaped like an eye.  Above these is a bridge that arches out to nowhere, and a lovely double bamboo screen.

The Bamboo Palace

The Bamboo Palace

Stairs in the Bamboo Palace

The House with a roof like a whale and the Bathtub shaped like an eye

Inside the House with a roof like a whale

The Double Bamboo Screen

Stegosaurus Column

The Bridge

The Bridge

Bamboo gracefully arches over the ravine

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A path leads back down to the stream, where a series of terraced pools are connected by small cascades.

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A glimpse of the highest waterfall through trees draped in bromeliads

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Fleur de Lis built in to a wall

A concrete garland connects two vase like columns about the stream

Looking down to the lower pools I went to when I first entered the garden

Sitting on a beautiful teardrop shaped bath with the Temple of the Ducks behind

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A butterfly rests on a wall by the stream

Cascades dropping in to the pool by the Temple of the Ducks

Columns and a vase at the base of waterfalls

There are trails higher up on the hill above the double bamboo screen that I wanted to explore, as I was sure you could climb up to the top of the highest waterfalls.  On the third day I was there it was warm enough to swim so I climbed the stairs to a place where they had collapsed, but I was able to work my way up.

Stone stairs and the double bamboo screen

Even up here there are walls and arches and sculptures in the dense jungle.

A narrow arch over a path in the jungle

I came to another wall with a round gate and then the path became a tiny track leading down the bank to the stream again.  I came upon an overgrown stone table, and stairs leading up the opposite bank.  Few people come up here and it feels wild and undiscovered.

A round gate draped in Bird Nest Ferns

A set of overgrown steps climbs the steep bank on the other side of the stream, possibly leading to somewhere or nowhere

Looking down the tall waterfall to the pools below

I had found paradise.  It was wonderful to bathe in the clear pools after two days with cool weather.

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There were pebbles up here, so I couldn't help but make a small mosaic in the water, as I didn't want to leave.  So I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the upper parts of the stream.

A small mosaic I built in the stream

More beautiful bathing pools

The Garden of Eden

Marvelous foliage along the banks of the stream

Another waterfall you can crawl behind

I didn't want to get lost in the dark so I made my way back down.  Transport back to town is hard to come by and I ended up having to walk back to town.  I always feel some kind of hesitance when I am leaving a very special place that I may never return to.  Xilitla is an eight hour bus ride from Mexico City on winding roads over many mountains.  If you cant make it then I hope this photographic essay is the next best thing.

Bamboo screens along the road

Edward James died in San Remo, Italy in December of 1984.  As were his wishes, the garden was left to the family of Plutarco Gastélum.  They continued to maintain it and made it available for the public to visit.   The Pedro and Elena Hernández Foundation acquired the gardens in partnership with the State government of San Luis Potosi for the purpose of preserving them.  This prohibits building new structures in the garden or adjacent properties.  It has been designated a State Cultural Heritage Site and is currently being reviewed by UNESCO for listing as a World Heritage Site.

A statue of Edward James with one of his beloved parrots

Since much of the work at Las Pozas is unprecedented, symposiums have been held in creative concete work and some interesting constructions have occured along the road where simple lodging and cafes are located.

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A new stone wall with an eye shaped windo

Such a pleasure to be able to make the journey to Las Pozas and experience its wonders with plenty of time to savor marvelous ambience.  I feel blessed.

Thanks for reading, Jeffrey



































































I have seen such beauty as one man has seldom seen;
therefore will I be grateful to die in this little room,
surrounded by the forests, the great green gloom
of trees my only gloom – and the sound, the sound of green.
Here amid the warmth of the rain, what might have been
is resolved into the tenderness of a tall doom
who says: 'You did your best, rest'– and after you the bloom
of what you loved and planted still will whisper what you mean.
And the ghosts of the birds I loved, will attend me each a friend;
like them shall I have flown beyond the realm of words.
You, through the trees, shall hear them, long after the end
calling me beyond the river. For the cries of birds
continue, as – defended by the cortege of their wings –
my soul among strange silences yet sings.

—Edward James, Poet 1907 – 1984

An opportunity to create a sand set pebble mosaic in Oaxaca, Mexico

I've been traveling in Mexico this winter (2015-16) for 3 wonderful months, rediscovering the beauty of this amazing country.  I first came to Oaxaca 31 years ago when I was 26 years old, honing my skills as a traveler.  This is my 33rd winter away and I've learned a lot along the way.  I would expect myself to be jaded by now, returning to the country where the international adventures began for me, but I am continuously blown away daily by how incredible this country south of the border to the United States really is.  The landscapes are biologically rich and diverse, and the culture of the people is equally impressive.  There is far more to Mexico than Puerta Vallarta and Cancun.

A beautifully turquoise mosaiced Mexica skull from the 14th Century

Mexico's history makes the United States look comparitively modern.  There are more UNESCO World Heritage Sites here than in any other country in the Americas, and Mexico ranks 6th in the world for the number of sites as well.  You can see a list of the sites at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Heritage_Sites_in_Mexico

A cobble mosaic courtyard in the Centro Cultural Santo Domingo, Oaxaca

One of the most significant of the World Heritage listings is the Valley of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico.    The region is inhabited by a large number of distinct indiginous cultures who still speak their native languages and dress indicitively.  Squash seeds radiocarbon dated to be 10,000 years old were found in the valley, the oldest known cultivated agricultural plants in the Americas.  Major archeological sites such as Monte Alban, Mitla, and Yagul show how impressive pre Hispanic civilizations in the valley became.

Monte Alban

With the conquest of the New World, the Spanish laid out the new town of Oaxaca around the city's Zocalo, or main town plaza in 1529 and it rapidly grew to be the most important town in southern Mexico.  Today Oaxaca is one of the most appealing historic cities in Mexico and is a major center for tourism.  It is known for its beautiful architecture, diverse culture, artisanal crafts, and delicious cuisine.

The Cathedral on the Zocalo of Oaxaca on a Sunday afternoon

When I came here 31 years ago I was intoxicated by the writings of Carlos Castaneda, a controversial apprentice to a Yaqui shaman named Don Juan.  Much of his writings took place in Oaxaca and I was entranced by the idea of being in the Zocalo wondering where he might have sat while struggling with the challenges of becoming a sorcerer.  Whether or not the writings are technically true, I found thier substance to be profound and their influence has been something of a guide in my life and work.

The bandstand in Oaxaca's Zocalo

When I was planning the loose structure of where I might go on this trip, I went to the Airbnb site and found a beautiful modern studio apartment located in a refurbished limestone kiln factory outside the city center and booked it for two weeks without really knowing anything about the place.  When I arrived in the city I hired a taxi driver to take me there, even though he had no idea where it was.  Fortunately for us I had seen a small sign from the highway coming in to town for La Calera, the name of the complex, and we were able to stop and ask people along the way for directions.  I was dropped in a rather unimpressive location, at a yellow metal gate next to a weedy hill with a rough dirt road crossing it.  I was tired from the long bus ride and had to drag my bags past a few rather disconcerting shallow graves lined with rocks to another gate a quarter of a mile away.  It turns out there is a cemetery on the other side of the wall and apparently people who couldnt afford a plot just dug graves in the field.  I walk past these graves every day coming and going, which causes a feeling of introspection and humility.

Simple burials in a field by La Calera, ringed with stones

I wasn't in the best of moods when I passed in to the compound that would be my home for the next two weeks.  Travel is not always that glamorous.  But as fate would have it I had landed in a very special place.

The studio where I stayed sits on top of the white building

The apartment is a simple cube with a wall of glass facing a sleek modern mahogany deck screened in for privacy by rust colored steel containers planted with New Zealand Flax and a steel screen wall.

The Studio apartment I've been staying in at La Calera.  The planters are recycled molds for freezing blocks at an ice factory

The flight of metal stairs leading to the studio

 Luis, the owner told me that the design to support these stairs was inspired by the dried exoskeleton of a crab that his grandson found on the beach at Huatulco when his family was on vacation.  The man who does his welding projects took the concept and created the structure for the stairs in square tubular steel.

The sun deck

The awning overhead is an ingenious canopy of panels that can be opened and closed by pulling on rope levers.  Once I got settled in and adjusted to the place, which is in a fairly unattractive part of town, it started to grow on me.  La Calera is a facinating institution with a number or residences inhabited mostly by Americans working on a variety of projects in Mexico.

One of a diverse variety of residences at La Calera with the smoke stack on the left

A plan of La Calera

Cal means lime in Spanish.  Lime is an essential ingredient in making cement for construction.  It has been used since ancient times and there are lime kilns all over the world.  The process of making lime requires crushing the rock and a kiln for heating the crushed limestone.  You can read about the process at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_kiln

A 16th Century Lime Kiln excavated at Santo Domingo in Oaxaca

A hanging melted bottle installation and limestone kiln equipment

 The owner and visionary man behind the project at La Calera is Luis Jesus, a residential developer interested in sustainability, environmental causes and the arts.  He inherited the factory in 2002 from his father, which had been built by his grandfather.  He began to develop what is an ongoing project with no clear plan in the beginning as to what it would become.  A few artists set up workshops in parts of the the compound.

Meeting space

Massive equipment at La Calera

Later his son built a house in one corner of the property, and eventually other bungalows were added.  I was soon meeting an interesting mix of people as I came and went from the complex on my excursions in to the historic center of Oaxaca and out to villages and archeological sites around the valley.   I joined a symposium one day on the preservation of native bee habitats, met a man building Mezcal distilleries, a woman working with a renowned Mexican singer, and a renewable energy consultant.

An artist's installation of a flower bed made of dried marigolds hangs in the kiln building

The industrial site has been ingeniously converted in to a residential and educational compound with a number of well integrated art installations enhancing the massive limestone kiln machinery in the warehouse.

One of a variety of attractive gathering areas

Industrial materials from the factory have been retrofitted in to art and furnishings

Another seating area built inside a huge steel vessel salvaged from another lime factory

The same seating area illuminated at night

A large sprocket as a window

A beautifully composed log round mosaic patio surrounded by an Organ Pipe Cactus fence

There is a nice library for research with a great collection of Luis's books displayed on unusual shelves.  Although the design is whimsical, the shelves will be rebuilt because the angles are not good for the spines of the books.  The hanging installation was created by an artist in residence.

The library at La Calera

Groups of school children regularly come to La Calera on educational field trips

A flatbed trailer is converted in to a deck edged with ice mold planters filled with Organ Pipe Cacti

A variety of spaces in the facility are set up to feature environmental campaigns such as a project for the preservation of native bees.  The stacked boxes were once used to freeze blocks at an ice factory

A collage of scrap metal forms a screen

There are areas mulched in river pebbles, which I habitually checked out to see if they had potential for use to create pebble mosaics.  I had a copy of my self published book, The Gardens of Jeffrey Bale, which I carry as a kind of portfolio, which I showed to Luis.  A couple of days later after finding the shapes of many of the pebbles there to be remarkably flat and perfect for pebble mosaic, I approached Luis with the idea of making a demonstration mosaic inside a round concrete bench around a tree at the base of the stairs to my apartment.  He loved the idea and called two of his workmen who specialize in concrete work, knowing that they would be interested in what I do.  They responded with enthusiasm and within an hour were preparing the site to my specifications.  He is ordering a copy of my book for them to use as a reference.

The pebble mulch area where I collected most of the stones for the mosaic

Since the area I wanted to mosaic was inside a low circular wall, it wouldn't be subject to foot traffic.  To maintain the health of the tree, I wanted to set the pebbles in sand rather than mortar so that the mosaic would be permeable and not affect the health of the root system of the tree.  There are openings at the base of the round wall where the shallow tree roots pass underneath and allow water to drain out. The workers mortared low bricks to the bottom of the holes so that a 4 inch layer of sand could be contained in the tree well.  When I returned from a day trip that evening the site was prepared and I started collecting stones and setting them in the dark, working on the only area illuminated by lighting.

Starting the layout of the stones around the edge

I mix larger stones with narrow ones around the outer edge to create a balanced composition

The stones that I choose are flat on the top and sides so that they fit tightly together, so that there is no horizontal movement.  They are usually at least 2 or more inches (4 1/2 cm) thick so that they can be well imbedded in the sand.

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One of the reasons I offered to build this mosaic is because there were plenty of nicely shaped stones available to create a beautiful and varied composition.  I like the way the long thin pieces look interspersed with the larger stones.  I left for the day after working for a couple of hours in the morning.  When I returned, the workers at La Calera had gathered stones on their own according to the instructions I had given them.  They did a great job and I was able to use about 3/4ths of what they collected.

Pebbles gathered for me by the workers at La Calera

It can be fun for me to lay the stones when I have nice material to work with.  I've been doing this kind of work for about 25 years and have a good sense of where each stone might fit by quickly analizing its shape and then seeking out the best possible spot for it.  This is a great way to learn how to fit stones together because if it doesn't fit you can always move it.  Unlike mortar, which you have a limited amount of time to work with before it dries, there is no rush working in sand.  But if the stones are not fit tightly together this kind of mosaic will not hold together well over time because they can shift around if disturbed.  I was able to stand on the mosaic without having any of the pebbles move.  This kind of work can also be accomplished by adding some cement to the sand mix, and wetted later to harden it, but then it wouldn't be permeable.  Weeds may also sprout between the rocks, but this is a desert climate so that is less likely to be a problem.

Making progress

I imagine it took about 10 hours to assemble the entire mosaic.  I set the stones all the way up to the edge of the tree, which will over time push or grow over the ones around the trunk.  I used tiny pebbles to fill the smallest holes between the larger stones to give it extra tightness.  This also gives the mosaic a level of detail I find pleasing. Water will be able to drain in to the ground and the tree roots will be able to breathe, which keeps the tree from heaving the work.  I am not invested in permanence with this project.  My main objective was to create an example of how I work so that the guys here can create their own pebble mosaics around the La Calera property for future projects.  It is a great way to create finely finished details in places that need something special.

The completed mosaic

A closer detail showing the small pebbles tucked in to holes

I could easily spend another hour filling the tiniest holes with small thin pebbles.

Another view of the mosaic

I then swept sifted brown sand in to the gaps between the stones to bond them together, and give the mosaic more strength.

Sand swept in between the pebbles finishes the mosaic

A tile I found in the field contrasts with a variety of pebbles selected for their flat tops and square sides

 The mosaic reminds me of cobbles streets that you see in old Mexican cities.

A cobblestone street in Patzcuaro, Mexico

I enjoyed fitting all of the different shapes together on this project

 When I do these long winter trips it is nice to be able to create something in response to all of the inspiring places I have visited.  Hopefully this will in turn inspire the masons at La Calera to create their own pebble mosaics on the property.

Thanks for reading, Jeffrey

The colors of the pebbles darken when wet

A round medallion mosaic I made for Oregon Art Beat

My work was recently featured on an episode of Oregon Art Beat, which is an emmy award winning program produced by Oregon Public Broadcasting.  It was produced and directed by my good friend Eric Slade (www.ericslade.com).

Eric Slade filming at the labyrinth

http://www.opb.org/television/programs/artbeat/segment/pebble-mosaic-artist-jeffrey-bale/

I built the mosaic pictured here for the show using a nice collection of stones.

Enjoy, Jeffrey

I've just returned from three amazing months of travel in Mexico.  This is the country where I began what has become an annual winter escape for the last 33 years, where I honed my skills as a vagabond.

Statue and glass highrise, Insurgentes, Mexico City

I first traveled to Puerta Vallarta and Yelapa in 1983, flying from Tijuana after crossing the border from San Diego.  Flights were really cheap then.  The next year I took a second longer trip where I stayed in Zihuatanejo for a month, followed by Mexico City, San Miguel de Allende to visit a friend, and Guanajuato.  I didn't return to the States until I ran out of money and made a pledge that I would try to skip winters in Oregon from then on.  I am probably diagnosible with Seasonal Affective Disorder, struggling to cope with the gloom of so many dark rainy days.  So why chose to struggle?  Winter travel to warmer climes was my cure and a far more appealing option than Prozac.  The next year I took the train up the Barranca de Cobre (Copper Canyon) in 1986 with friends and then traveled to the Yucatan Peninsula.  I returned to the Yucatan again the next year, and on to the Mayan ruins at Palenque, San Cristobal de las Casas, and Oaxaca.  Then I went to Spain and Portugal.  The next year, a  trip to Bali and Java in Indonesia started a series of adventures in Asia that continued for over a decade of winters.

Woman and sculpture, Centro Judicial, Centro Historico, Mexico City

I hadn't been back to Mexico since I went to Cuba via Cancun in the year 2000 with friends, after which we explored more remote areas of the Yucatan by car before heading south through Belize and Guatamala, and on to Ecuador.  I went to South America 10 more times after that, and then spent 6 incredible winters in the Mediterranean region of Europe and Morocco.

Woman and Eagle, Hemiciclo, Alameda Central, Mexico City

A tighter budget last year made me decide that it was time to revisit the country where I originally learned to travel.  My Spanish is borderline conversational and the dollar is strong against the peso.  Going to Mexico maybe doesn't sound as glamorous as say going to Morocco, but this wasn't a trip to Mazatlan or Cancun to lay on a lounge and read by the pool.  I had a loose agenda of places I wanted to revisit and new places to explore.

Mimes, Centro Historico, Mexico City

I started with 10 days in Mexico City.  The first time I was there was the year before the great earthquake of 1985, and then the year after to see the extent of the damage.  Over 4,000 buildings were destroyed,  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Mexico_City_earthquake).  The city has changed enormously and doubled in population to something like 24 million people.  The North American Free Trade Agreement ushered in a new era of American corporate and commercial influence, making affluent parts of the country look a lot like their neighbor to the north.  There are over 500 Starbucks in Mexico now, and Costco, Walmart, and even Bed Bath and Beyond.  Its rather disconcerting to see, but fortunately the old mercados are still full of life and much of the country has hung on to its cultural identity.

Sueño de una tarde domenical en la Alameda Central, Dream of a Sunday afternoon in the Alameda Central, by Diego Rivera formerly housed in the Hotel del Prado.  The hotel was destroyed in the 1985 earthquake but the mural survived and was moved to a new museum a block away.

Futbol in the Hemiciclo, Alameda Central, Mexico City

Mexico City is an amazing place to be these days, with a vast array of spectacular museums, parks , and vibrant neighborhoods.  I stayed in Roma Norte, a neighborhood that was run down 30 years ago but has transformed in to a hip bohemian district today.  There is so much to do in this sprawling metropolis that I had to push myself to see as much as I could without burning out.  I used the extensive metro system a lot, and some buses and an occasional taxi.  The city was originally founded as Tenochtitlan by the Aztecs in 1325.  It was conquered and raised by Spanish conquistadors lead by Hernán Cortés in a period of only two years beginning in 1519.  Thats 100 years before the pilgrams landed at Plymouth Massachusettes.

Reflecting pool with pyramids, Centro Justicia, Centro Historico, Mexico City

Underpass mural at Insurgentes, Mexico City

Mexico is a country of murals.  They are often compelling compositions covering the dramatic history of conquest, oppression, revolution, and the liberation of the people.  Some of the most reknowned were painted by Diego Rivera, who depicted scenes of great complexity and expression.

El Hombre en el cruce de caminos, Man at the Crossroads, by Diego Rivera, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City

Diego Rivera's shirt, hankerchiefs, and walking stick, Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo, San Angel

Rivera's wife Frida Kahlo would attain greater fame than her husband as an artist after her death, perhaps because of the compassion inspired by the physical suffering she endured during her life, which is powerfully expressed in her paintings.  Today she has become a pop icon and her image is heavily merchandized.

Frida Kahlo T shrits and hats for sale in Chapultapec Park

The largest park in Latin America is the Bosque de Chapultepec in Mexico City.  This amazing green space contains one of the World's great museums, the Museo Nacional de Antropologia.  I discovered and revisited a lovely water garden there several times while I was in the city, lounging on these ingenious and popular day beds.

Lounges in a water garden near Museo Rufino Tamayo, Chapultepec Park, Mexico City

Mexico City is a great place to people watch.  There are a lot of people, and since the weather is usually nice, they come out in droves to enjoy the city they live in.

Boys with a Pad, Centro Historico, Mexico City

Curandera, Centro Historico, Mexico City

A girl selling socks in the Centro Historico

An elaborately costumed mime in the Centro Historico

Performance at Museo Jose Luis Cueva, Centro Historico, Mexico City

Ashtray at a Skeleton Altar, Centro Historico, Mexico City

A homeless man naps while sitting in front of a mini market, Roma Norte, Mexico City

Not far from the fringes of the megalopolis of Mexico City lies one of the oldest and greatest of Precolombian civiliations, Teotihuacan.  Founded around 2,100 years ago, this was for a long period the most populous city in the Americas.  It is known for its monumental pyramids dedicated to the Sun and Moon.  The Pirámide del Sol is the 3rd highest in the World after Cheops in Egypt and the pyramid at Cholula near Puebla in Mexico.  I was here over 3 decades ago.  There were a lot more tourists this time, but the day was quite epic for me.  I've spent many a late afternoon watching the light turn golden on sacred mountain like structures in many parts of the world, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Bagan in Burma, Borobodur in Indonesia, Hampi, Konark, and Mt. Palitana in India, Mihintale in Sri Lanka, The Acropolis in Greece, Baalbek in Lebanon, Tikal in Guatamala, Uxmal in Mexico…the list goes on and on.  When I look back on my life, these afternoons come to me as some of the most profoundly beautiful memories I have.

The Temple of the Sun, Teotihuacan

Sunset at Teotihuacan

Another place I went in 1985 was San Miguel de Allende, where a good friend of mine's parents had a home.  I jokingly call the World Heritage Site town, "Gringolandia".  There are over 15,000 Americans  living there.  I would say they are lucky people.  Its so beautiful, and filled with festivity all the time.  My first day there I encountered a wonderful parade with indigenous dancers and giant puppets and women in bright dresses spinning to make them swirl.  Vaqueros (cowboys) rode through on horses.  No apparent crowd had gathered in expectation.  I almost felt like I was getting a private welcome.  Over the 10 days I was there I think I saw 10 different festivals.

Parade, San Miguel de Allende

Needless to say, the gringos in San Miguel can be a colorful mix.  They blend in fairly well into the fabric of town, and bring a fair amount of character and prosperity to it as well.

A long time gringo living in San Miguel de Allende

The main reason I came back was to see a friend of friends I had met on Facebook.  Anando McLauchlin and his partner Richard Schultz live in a fantasy world of what Anado would call "adorned" space.  The primary medium of adornment is mosaic, and via that medium, we are brothers.  All I can say is that it was a wonderful time in a place without limitation.  Everything here is art.

Anando McLauchlin and Julie Brumlik, Chapel of Jimmy Ray, San Miguel de Allende

His chapel of Jimmy Ray is a shrine like gallery named in honor of his Father.

A portrait of Anando's Father on the back side of a wall outside the Chapel of Jimmy Ray

An hour and a half away by bus, Guanajuato is a beautiful old silver mining town in steep ravines northwest of San Miguel de Allende.  I had been there too many years ago.  I had found it to be an exceptionally special place.  The silver wealth made for some grand colonial architecture stacked almost vertically on to the slopes, with many tunnels burrowed through the hills and underneath the town.

Guanajuato

It was Christmas week and Guanajuato was thronged with mainly Mexican tourists.  The evenings are filled with music as performing groups guide gatherings through the streets in what is called a Callejoneada.  Calle means street, and this fills them with music and laughter.  The houses are painted brightly in every hue, splashing the hillsides with color.

Bougainvillea blossoms on steps in Guanajuato

Calle Postitos, near the birthplace of the artist Diego Rivera

Traditional Mexican markets are the flipside of Walmart or Safeway and a lot more fun.  I walked around the Hidalgo market several times during the week I was here to soak up the ambience.

The Mercado Hidalgo, Guanajuato

My next destination was another old silver mining town called San Luis Potosí, where I met up with my friend Karen who flew in from Hawaii.  This was to be a stop on the way to Las Pozas, in the jungly mountains to the Southeast.  It also happened to be end of 2015, so I had somebody to ring in the New Year with.  For some reason this holiday has often involved a lot of drinking and this one was no exception.  We were so fun that we bonded with the rock band playing in the bar.  So San Luis was our rocker town.  It has some beautiful colonial architecture and very few tourists.

A dazzling projected light show set to music on a beautiful church that we watched a number of times over the nights we were in San Luis Potosí

Girls dress up for their birthdays, San Luis Potosí

Cobbled street, San Luis Potosí

Alpha showdown, San Luis Potosí

It was a long bus ride over the mountains to Xilitla, and I've found that the mountains of Mexico tend to be very beautiful, with fine diverse forests of oak, pine, jungle or desert cacti.  They don't practice clear cutting like they do where I grew up in the Pacific Northwest so the forests are often in pretty good condition.  Xilitla is a booming jungle town in the Sierra Madre Oriental near a garden called Las Pozas I was doing a pilgrimage to.  You can read the photo essay I wrote about it at  http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com/2016/01/las-pozas-pools.html


The pictures I chose to use here are rather abstract in relation to why I came to Xilitla, but they stood out photographically to me, and made the cut in chosing 101 images.

Paletas (Ice cream and fruit popsicles) painted on a shop wall, Xilitla

I must look absolutely huge to this Chihuaha on the street in Xilitla

From Xilitla I traveled alone to Queretaro.  Another World Heritage Site, the city's colonial center is beautifully preserved.  These photos tend to be more about moments than touristic sights so you'll have to look Queretaro up online.  I also wrote an essay about a wonderful little mosaic park you can read about at http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com/2016/01/fuente-de-los-platitos-queretaro-mexico.html

A man selling things from a basket by the street

Since I was on my own again, I started going to places I hadn't planned on.  Reading the guidebook convinced me to visit the city of Morelia in Michoacan State.  The old center is distinguished by its grandiose cathedral and fine colonial buildings, yet another World Heritage Site.  Its also close to Patzcuaro, another town I wanted to visit.

A pigeon sits unconcerned on the back of a heraldic eagle outside a civic theater, Morelia

Patzcuaro is a special mountain town with lots of old adobe architecture and a strong indiginous population. Adobe has an earthen softness to it that exudes a different feel than stone buildings. The markets are colorful and lively spill out in to the streets.

Templo del Sagrario, Patzcuaro

A woman feeds pigeons in Plaza Vasco de Quiroga, Patzcuaro

A decaying old door with patches, Patzcuaro

Pueblo Magico is a title used for special towns in Mexico

Daddy was obviously grey

Near Patzcuaro is a large lake I had always wanted to see, although it wasn't at all what I had fantasized.  A tourist boat trip across the murky brown lake to the unfortunate party town on Isla Janitzio was what I had time for.  I ran up to the top of the hill to see a monumental statue and the view and encountered an extremely kitch bar scene.   I ran back down in fear of missing the last boat back and being stuck here.  I was back in Morelia in time for dinner.

A place to get drunk, Isla Janitzio

Since I was in Michoacan, I decided I should go see the Monarch butterflies that gather by the millions in the forests along the border of the Distrito Federal of Mexico City.  My guidebook said that the more pristine of the sites was at Cerro Pelon, so I took a bus to Zitacuaro and then a taxi up in to the mountains to Macheros to stay at J.M.'s Butterfly B&B.  A wonderful family hosts guests in simple comfortable accomodation and make arrangements for guided trips up the mountain on horseback or on foot.  Macheros is a poor, mountain town with beautiful surroundings.

Turkeys and laundry in a yard in Macheros

The butterflies are something to see, but when the weather is cold they fold up like dead leaves, hiding their brilliant orange wings.  El Niño weather conditions were unusual this winter and there was some moisture and cold temperatures in what is usually the dry season.  The butterflies huddle in masses to generate heat.  If they fly, cold temperatures sometimes make them drop to the ground, which was littered with dead butterflies.  After mating, all of the males die.  It is one of Nature's great spectacles.

Dead butterflies carpet the ground at El Rosario

After visiting Cerro Pelon, I was talked in to making a trip to El Rosario, a far more touristed place but which harbors 60% of the Monarch butterfly colonies.  The scene was almost a theme park with masses of vendors and wide paved paths, and hoards of people, but the volume of butterflies was immense and breathtaking to behold.

A butterfly lands on my face and crawls across my eye for a very close range view, El Rosario

After climbing the hill to see the butterflies, a child decides its time to lay down and take a nap on the walkway, El Rosario

Michoacan was a detour for me.  My original plan was to go to Puebla, a large historic city southeast of Mexico City.  It is known for its tiled buildings, but a particularly gory Christ in the magnificent cathedral was what made the photo cut.

Christ after being taken down from the cross, in the Catedral, Puebla

A woman dozes while selling seeds in front of a toy shop, Puebla

A man texting in front of a clothing store with naked mannequins, Puebla

I was headed next to Oaxaca, but I recieved a message from a plantsman I know who suggested I check out the Tehuacan-Cuicatlan Biosphere Reserve, another listing on the World Heritage list.  These mountains contain the largest population of columner cacti in the world.  So I went to Tehuacan and stayed at the Hotel Mexico, a beautiful mid century Mexican resort with well preserved ambience.  The town itself lacks colonial buildings but has a lively street market to give it interest.

Entrance to the Hotel Mexico, Tehuacan

I planned from the beginning to spend two weeks in the fabled city of Oaxaca.  It was another of the places I went 30 years ago, lured by the spell that reading about Carlos Castaneda's shamanistic journeys had cast on me.  Oaxaca is a very special place, another Puebla Magica.  I rented an interesting modern apartment in a renovated industrial complex called La Calera.  You can read a photo essay I wrote about being there and the pebble mosaic I built at: http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-pebble-mosaic-at-la-calera-oaxaca.html

Triquis Women at a demonstration in the Zocalo

Oaxaca is reknowned for its multicultural population and fine artisanship.  Its also known for its sophisticated art galleries, and distinctive cuisine.  It has grown enormously since the first time I was there and now many of what were outlying villages are now connected by urban sprawl and terrible traffic.

Hanging out in a doorway at Templo de Santo Domingo, Oaxaca

A hat vendor in Plaza de Santo Domingo, Oaxaca

A woman sitting on terraces by Templo de Santo Domingo

The great Dominican church and monastery, Templo de Santo Domingo now contains the Centro Cultural de Santo Domingo, with a fantastic museum and the stunning Jardin Ethnobotanico, designed in collaboration with the famed Oaxacan artist Francesco Toledo.  I'll write about this extraordinary garden sometime in the future.

Turquois Mosaic Skull from Monte Alban, Centro Cultural de Santo Domingo, Oaxaca

Jardin Ethnobotanico, Oaxaca

Naptime in the Zocalo, Oaxaca

A temporary sculpture installation in the Zocalo, Oaxaca

Skulls for sale in Plaza Santo Domingo

Oaxaca is another city where there always seems to be some kind of celebration going on.  One of the more important ones is Candelaria, celebrated as the Catholic Epiphany in other parts of the world.  I saw some wonderful parades during this time, with giant puppets and brass bands and dancers in colorful costumes.  Small carnivals are set up by churches outside the center.

Children in a procession for Candelaria, Oaxaca

An finished Elote, Corn on the cob, stuck in a doorway, Oaxaca

A man catches up on the news by the church at the El Pochote-Xochimilco Market, Oaxaca

A woman selling snacks on the street, Oaxaca

A clown waiting for the bus, Oaxaca

A dog I startled from his nap, Oaxaca

I love funny signs, and have been collecting images of them for many years.  This one cracked me up, Oaxaca

Business is slow late at night for an Elote (corn on the cob) vendor, Oaxaca

Young men hanging out in the Plaza de Templo de San Felipe Neri, Oaxaca

Near Oaxaca are the spectacular ruins of the Zapotec ceremonial center of Monte Alban.  The temple city has a number of beautiful stepped pyramids and ball courts at the top of a high defensible hill in the middle of the valley.  It was another of those amazing days watching the world turn from high places.

A toddler from a French family wanders across an expansive plaza at Monte Alban, Oaxaca

Friday is market day in the town of Ocotlán on the west end of the Oaxaca Valley.  I took the bus out and wandered through the huge market taking in the vitality of endless interactions.  There is a food stall in the market run by a woman who dresses like Frida Kahlo.  The food wasn't that great but who can resist being served lunch by Frida Kahlo?  She was lovely.

Lunch at Frida's

Beware of Clowns shopping for Machetes, Ocotlán

A wheel barrow full of Mamey, Pouteria sapota

There is a popular tour that takes small groups in vans to visit some of the more iconic sights of the Oaxaca Valley, to see the great Montezuma Cypress at Tule, a carpet weaving shop in Teotitlan, a Mezcal (Agave liquor) distillery, the beautiful Zapotec ruins at Mitla, and the travertine waterfalls at Hierva el Agua.  El Arbol de Tule is one of the world's most spectacular trees.  Over 1,500 years old, this incredible cypress, Taxodium mucronatum, has the most massive trunk of any tree in the world.  When I was here 30 years ago, the site was a dusty little town with this amazing tree with a fence around it to protect it.  Today there is a lush park filled with topiarys and manicured lawns, and many food and souvenir stalls.  The tree is as impressive as ever.

An incredible knot on the massive trunk of Arbol de Tule

The Mezcal distillery was a popular stop where we were walked through the process of making booze by roasting the hearts of agave plants in a pit and then squeezing and distilling the juice, to make a smokey tasting brew similar to tequila.  As we were leaving I caught this image of a little boy sitting in front of a sign painted on a wall with a giant bottle of mezcal.

A boy sitting by a sign for El Rey de Matatlán Mexcal Distillery in Matanlán

The last stop on the tour is Hierve el Agua, a breathtaking set of travertine springs flowing from the edge of a spectacular valley.  The travertine forms terraced pools and white flowing formations that cascade down the slopes.  The largest is like a natural infinity pool.  The water is not all that clean as hoards of tourists bath here, and it wasn't warm either, but I paddled around and the setting is certainly breathtaking.  The clouds and late afternoon light made for a beautiful scene.

The bathing pool at Hierva el Agua after a long wait for a shot without people in it

Organ Pipe Cactus and the grand vistas from Hierva el Agua

After my two lovely weeks in Oaxaca I took a van over the mountains to the coast on a road that is so winding that it has been knicknamed "la Carretera de Vomito".  We had to pull over a couple of times for people to do just that.  The forests are rich and varied as the elevation changes from cactus forest to pine and live oaks, and then becomes more jungle like while decending to the Pacific.

Barking dogs on the roof of a rest stop in the mountains of Oaxaca State

My destination was the coastal village of Zipolite, Mexico's only designated nude beach.  Mexico is a rather modest country when it comes to beach wear, but Zipolite is a special place where nudity is tolerated.  There is even a Hotel Nude.  Of course most people wear something while they are on the beach, but they don't have to.  It makes for a very relaxed and open minded vibe that I found hard to resist.  I planned to be there for a week and ended up staying for two, and after I left I wondered why I did.  I can see why so many people spend their entire winters here.  Its so beautiful.

A girl reflected on the mirrored sands of Zipolite

A heron at sunset on a rock by Playa de Amor

I stayed at a wonderful place run by an Italian couple called Posada México.  The accomdations are simple, set in sandy gardens shaded by coconut palms.  The food is wonderful and the drinks are cheap, served at tables set up under palm thatch umbrellas on the sand.  Its paradise.  At night they light torches along the beach and the sky is filled with the brilliance of the Milky Way.

Bedspreads drying in the sun at Posada México

Every day ends with a beautiful sunset from Playa de Amor

Children playing at sunset in the surf on Zipolite Beach

When I finally did tear myself away from Zipolite, I took a taxi to the main beach hub of Puerto Escondido.  This is a famous destination for surfers who ride the pipeline waves.  Its a nice place but lacks the magical charm of Zipolite and I didnt stay long.  The popular swimming beaches were crowded and with lots of people come lots of debris from our disposable single use food distibution system, plastic bags and bottles and styrofoam, which often winds up in the water.  We certainly are trashing out planet and an alarming rate.

Girls by the Sea, Playa Principal, Puerto Escondido

An boy buried in the sand cracked up when I took his picture, Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido

Dyed chicks for sale on the street in Puerto Escondido

It was a long bus ride up the coast to my next destination, Acapulco.  One of the reasons I've always longed to travel was because my Grandparents used to be awarded trips by the Gibson company.  They sold Maytag and Gibson appliances in Bend, Oregon and sold a lot of them.  Gibson sent them to many exotic places around the world for their good work.  As a child we spent many evenings in the den of their basement watching slide shows of their travels, and it made me long to do the same.  One of their trips was to Acapulco.  They stayed at the posh Las Brisas Hotel on the far end of the bay.  My mother and stepfather also visited Acapulco when my Mother was 16 years younger than I am now, and stayed at the mid century classic Hotel Boca Chica on the other end of the bay at Playa Caleta.  I wanted to stay there but economized by staying at another mid century relic, The Sands in the middle of the chaotic mess that is Acapulco.

A beautiful tile mural at the Hotel Boca Chica, Acapulco

A vendor with a boat full of shells on Playa Caleta, Acapulco

The one time "Pearl of the Pacific" has fallen on hard times, although it is trying to bounce back.  Drug violence has been pacified by an intense military police presence that is not unusual in Mexico.  You sort of get used to seeing heavily armed men wearing helmets and bullet proof vests everywhere.  A hurricane hammered the city a few years ago and some places have yet to be rebuilt, but on the weekend Acapulco was swarming with Mexican tourists.


I have a weakness for seedy port towns, and for some reason I found a certain charm to Acapulco, in spite of its tacky Las Vegas on the beach vibe.  The bay certainly is breathtaking, and except for the all the plastic bags in the water, the swimming is divine.  I spent hours paddling around off various beaches.  I gorged myself on fish, and took advantage of the pool at the Sands at night when it was empty.

A fistherman filets a sailfish caught by sports fishermen off the coast of Acapulco

Street scene in the hurricane battered center of old Acapulco

A man prays to the body of Christ in the Cathedral of Acapulco

Clowns are very popular, performing in nearly every Zocalo throughout Mexico   Acapulco

My time was running out.  3 months seems like a long time but alas, it is finite.  I took another bus over the mountains to Mexico City to spend my final week running around seeing some of the many sights I wasn't able to take in when I was there at the beginning.   I took the Metro and Tren Ligura out to see the famous canals and boats of Xochimilco.  They used to be decorated with flowers, but are now painted with garish dayglo paints.  There were several men working painting boats with the incredibly toxic smelling paints.  The canals are the last remnant of the once great lake that surrounded the Aztec capital.  Farmers mounded soil and vegetation to create land for growing crops, forming a vasts system of canals.  Today the area is a major producer of ornamental plants for gardening and there are streets lined with small nurseries.  It was a slow day for boat rentals and Mariachi bands stood around waiting for customers staring at their cell phones.

Colorful boats in Xochimilco, once decorated with flowers, are now vividly painted

Not far from Xochimilco is the Museo Dolores Olmedo, the former estate of the businesswoman and philanthropist who was a close friend to Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.  The museum is a sanctuary in the city and contains an extensive collection of art and Precolombian works.  The gardens are lush and manicured, being a world apart from the city outside the high walls.  There are numerous peacocks strutting about flashing their brilliant plumage.

The spectacular patterning of feathers on a peacock's back at Museo Dolores Olmedo, Mexico City

A met up with an old friend in Roma Norte one night and we went to a surrealistic bar called Bang Bang, that features a smoking lounge based on a recreation of the bedroom from Stanley Kubric's 2001 A Space Odyssey.  Mexico City is full of surprises.

The smoking lounge at Bang Bang

There is a fantastic computerized fountain by the Monumento de la Revolucion off Avenida Reforma that is hugely popular with Mexican families.  The unpredictable jets of water spurting from the pavement are illuminated with changing colored lights at night.

Girls playing in the fountain at Monumento de la Revolucion

I spent my last Sunday in the Centro Historico, which is filled with weekend strollers and an endless variety of amusements.

A shooting gallery at Alameda Central, Mexico City

Couples love to salsa dance in the plazas on Sunday.  It brought tears to my eyes to think that I would soon be leaving all this vitality and humanity.  Mexico has captured my heart once again.  I'm sure I'll be back.


Thanks for reading and looking in to my Winter's adventures, Jeffrey

A man sits in the doorway of the sinking Iglesia de la Santa Veracruz, Centro Historico, Mexico City

Water, Origin of Life on Earth

I recently spent 3 months traveling in Mexico, including 2 1/2 weeks in Mexico City, one of the world's largest.  I've been told that there are at least 24 million people in the metropolitan area now.  The place has changed enormously since I was last there 30 years ago.  While the sprawl is immense, the city has also risen upwards.  There are highrises everywhere, gleaming glass towers to corporate commerce.  The city is also filled with gems, so many of them that many people who live there have never heard of some of them.  I rented a room on airbnb in the Roma Norte neighborhood and my hosts were always curious to hear where I had been each day.  By far one of the most amazing and obscure monuments in the city is the Sistema Lernas reservoir project in Chapultepec Park, the largest urban park in Latin America.  There is a brief mention of it in my guide book, and it sounded interesting, so I made the long trek across the park from the better known area off Avenida Reforma, crossing freeways and circumnavigating a large amusement park with roller coasters.  What I discovered blew me away.

An elegant Beaux Arts Building contains a water tank as part of the Lermas Project

In 1943 a monumental water supply project was completed for Mexico City, diverting the Lerma River through tunneled pipelines to a series of reservoirs built in a section of the city's largest park, Bosque de Chapultepec.

Elegant towers mark the center of each round reservoir

The first thing I came upon were a series of four round reservoirs planted with large masses of agaves, cacti, and aloes.  The plantings are obviously a recent addition with a low water usage replacing what were once expanses of lawn.

Columner cacti and Agaves  planted en mass on top of each reservoir

When the system was first installed, the reservoirs were ringed in sculptural cascades and incredible mosaic serpent canals that formed Uroburos style rings around each tank.

A Mixtec style rattlesnake swallowing its tail in the style of an Uroburos winds around each reservoir tank

Water once flowed inside a canal in the body of each serpent

A series of toothed openings appear to have been cascades for water filling pools inside of the peremeter serpent canals

The Valley of Mexico is perhaps the most dramatically altered urban landscape in the world.  At the time of the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in 1519, the Mixtec (Aztec) capitol of Tenoctitlan was and island inside a great lake laced with canals and connected to the surrounding shoreline by causeways.

A mural of the Mixtec (Aztec)  capitol of Tenoctitlan in the Palacio Nacional in Mexico City, by Diego Rivera

With the arrival of the Spanish the dams constructed to protect Tenoctitlan were destroyed along with the city and its great ceremonial pyramids.  Drainage of the lake began but the new colonial capitol of Mexico City was plagued by frequent and lasting floods until a massive drainage project was undertaken in the early 20th Century.  This made for dramatic environmental changes to the basin and much of it became semi arid, with the extinction of many native species.  Only a few remnants of the the original aquatic environment exist today, most notibly the canals at Xochimilco, which remain an important agricultural production area within the metropolitan area and a prime example of what the region once looked like.

A canal at Xochimilco

The canals are a popular recreation area with hundreds of decorated boats that are poled around while mariachi bands serenade the passengers.  The boats were once decorated with flowers grown along the canals, but are now painted with garish flourescent colors.  The historic center of Mexico City and Xochimilco were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.  Examples of the traditional agricultural practice of floating island gardens called Chinampas can stil be seen here.

Trajinera boats are modeled after Prehispanic vessels called Acallis.  They ply the canals at Xochimilco carrying tourists.

Today Xochimilco is an important center for the cultivation of ornamental plants and flowers and several streets are dedicated to small plant nurseries.  The canals and the ecosystems they support are under significant threat by urban expansion, the ever dropping water table, and pollution.


Drainage of the lake basin is the cause for another significant problem for the city.  It is sinking.  In the past 100 years some areas of the city have sunken as much at 42 feet.  Many old buildings tilt noticably, especially heavy historic stone churches in the center.  Approximately 70% of the urban water supply is pumped from the aquifer beneath the city and it is estimated that the land on which it is built is now sinking at a rate of as much as 8 inches a year!  This puts lower parts of the city at great risk of flooding during the rainy season and requires a substancial pump system to remove waste water from the valley.

The dramatic slant of Iglesia de Santa Veracruz in the Centro Historico of Mexico City is caused by the sinking former lake bed.

In 1943 construction began on a system to divert the waters of the Lerma River to a series of 4 reservoirs in Chapultepec Park that orignally were built to receive water from the Xochimilco and Chapultepec Springs in 1909.  It took 8 years to build a 14 kilometer long underground aqueduct from the Lerma river through the Sierra de las Cruces Mountains.  A second system from the Cutzamala Basin in Michoacan State was built as demand for water in the city increased requiring a huge pumping system to carry the water to the higher altitude of Mexico City.  The system today provides 30% of the city's water needs.

Information signs describing the function of the water storage system

The Edificio Carcamo, with four valves and a meteorological sensor at the entrance

To commemorate the project, the Edificio Cárcamo, designed by the architect Ricardo Rivas was built in the form of a Roman temple.  Rivas asked the reknowned Mexican artist Diego Rivera, at the age of 64, to paint a mural inside a square tank connected directly to the water works inside the building that would be partially filled with water.  Thus the water from the system would be received with great honor by the many depictions represented in the murals.  The mural is a blending of natural and cultural  themes combined with engineering and the social politics of water use and distribution in a truly holistic and profoundly telling work of art.  The space is astounding.


Executed in 1951, Rivera used paints with a polystyrene base to create the extraordinary waterproof mural, El Agua, Origen de la Vida en la Tierra, Water, The Origin of Life on Earth, which covers 272 square meters (nearly 3,000 square feet).

One face of the mural honors the engineers who designed the project, lined up over the four gates that channeled the water in to the four reservoirs

Diego Rivera painting portraits of the engineers who worked on the project,  taken from an interpretive plaque

The inspiration for part of the mural originally came from a visit by Rivera to Russia where he was introduced to the theories developed by the Russian scientist Alexander Oparin, who suggested that life on Earth originally formed in a gradual chemical evolution of carbon based molecules in the primordeal soup of the seas.  The theory surmises that the formation of the most basic of organic compounds eventually led to the evolution of more complex molecular organisms that over time developed in to biologic orderliness, cell growth, conforming to the laws of survival of the fittest and natural selection as suggested by Charles Darwin.

The Origin of Life

The central circle on the floor of the mural is a microscopic view of the moment when matter interacts with electrical power to form organic compounds that harbor the first inklings of life, that over time develop in to living organisms.

A biological list of the various organisms withing the mural, The Origin of Life

The surrounding floor is decorated with a variety of living organisms inspired by a natural history book written by the German biologist Ernest Haeckel, who suggested that all life was derived from a common ancestor.  Diego Rivera kept a copy of this book for reference throughout his life.

Floor of the mural, The Origin of Life on Earth

Aquatic life forms in the process of evolution

As life continued to evolve from the most simple of organisms, to those that produced their own food through photosynthesis, they released oxygen in to the atmosphere, creating a more favorable environment  capable of supporting ecosystems.  Life forms became mobile, eventually moving to land in the form of algaes, which over time manifested in to the earliest plants.  The walls of the mural depict the progress of life as it diversified on land.  It is a remarkable pictorial representation of the concepts derived from these theories that inspired Diego Rivera to depict them so beautifully.

The flowing current of water and an array of organisms, entering the tunnel that once connected the tank to the water system

Life at the threshold between water and land

The evolotion of higher forms of life and the transition to land

Part of a Crab,a  Jellyfish, and a Turtle and a Snail

On opposite sides perpendicular from the the tunnel that connects to the water system are an African Man and an Asian Woman as representations of early humans.  They are partially submerged in the water, connecting the aquatic world to the cultural aspects of how humans use water.

An African Man stands partially submerged, representing early humanity

On the opposite wall stands an Asian Woman representing a later evolution of humanity

Across the the panel of engineers and the four water gates are paintings of workers constructing the tunnel that transports the water to the system and provide it to the people of Mexico City.

On either side of the connecting tunnel are depictions of the engineering of the water system

The uses of water are expressed in scenes of agriculture, hygiene, and pleasure.  The system provides water for the cultivation of plants, quenching thirst, washing, and filling swimming pools.

A spigot and hose brings water to a garden

Diego Rivera's daughter is depicted swimming, representing water providing recreational pleasure in a swimming pool

A photo of Diego Rivera and assistants working on the mural

A common aspect of Rivera's murals are his representations of social strata, its economic and cultural divisions and resulting injustices.  There are Marxist elements subtley integrated in to the paintings addressing inequality and the need for social change.  The design of the mural is ingeniously circular, which softens the square shape of the basin's corners and blends the many concepts depicted in the mural harmoniously.

A worker providing water to an Indigenous family to quench their thirst

On the opposite wall a worker offers water to the bourgeoisie, represented by a pious woman

An unusual detail  of a boy street performer in the mural painted by Diego Rivera

Because the mural was partially submerged, and its polystyrene paints a new and untested technology, the mural suffered significant deterioration within a decade of its dedication in 1951.  It wasn't until 1992 that the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes decided to undertake a restoration of the mural.  The amazing evolutionary paintings on the floor and lower walls had all but been erased by the water, and needed to be reconstructed using remaining lines, sketches and photographs after the tank was drained.  But even after the restoration the mural was all but forgotten and the building remained closed for most of the next two decades.  In 2010 the murals and building were again restored and are now maintained as part of the Mexico City Museum of Natural History.

A photo of the Origin of Life with water in the tank

If the murals were not astounding enough on their own, the senses of hearing are given an extraordinary gift through what is called the Lambdoma Chamber.  This installation was created by the Mexican artist Ariel Guzik to symbolically replace the essence that was lost when the physical presence of water was removed from the tank to restore the murals.


The artist used the Lambdoma matrix, which is originally attributed to the Greek philosopher Pythagorus around 500 BC to create a mysterious and intoxicating aural experience inside the domed building of the Cárcamo.  It is hard for me to explain but  what essentially it is is a mathematical table of multiplication and division that has a direct relationship with musical intervals in a harmonic series.  These intervals can be translated in to frequencies of audible sound.

A Lambdoma Table

 The concepts intended to be audibly expressed are abstract but honor the intentions of the mural, and the integral whole of the water system as a metafor of veins flowing through the urban organism in the form of distribution pipes.  The work combines a sonority sensor which reacts to the flow and volume of water in the system and the thermal noise wavelengths it produces, with two sets of pipes that produce harmonic and subharmonic sounds.   There is also a system that collects meteorological signals to control the texture of the sound, as well as a beautiful art deco control panel with rock crystals and tuning forks imbedded in a diamond shaped panel.


This may all sound very confusing unless you are an acoustical scientist but the fact that Ariel Guzik constructed this magical device in this beautiful domed space with its marvelous acoustics speaks for itself.  It is an audible homage to the miracle substance that is water.

Artists renderings explaining the systems that regulate the Lambdoma Chamber

                           The amazing sounds created by the Lambdoma Chamber


And this is just what you find inside the Cárcamo de Dolores.  Step outside the glass doors and you find yourself in the midst of a monumental sculptural mosaic fountain of the Precolumbian God of Rain and Water, Tlaloc.

The Fuente de Tláloc from inside the Cárcamo

The Fuente de Tláloc and the Cárcamo

 A giant head with two faces, one gazing at the Cárcamo and one directed toward the sky sprays water across the pool like rain.  The sculpture is embedded with a variety of colored stones in a painterly way.  Water flows from the gaping mouth much like the tunnel connecting the mural to the water system inside the building.

The head of the Mixtec (Aztec) God of Rain and Water, Tláloc

The face turned towards the sky is depicted in the style of the Aztecs, with round eyes, two intertwined snakes forming his nose, and jaguar like fangs.

The second face of the God Tláloc is directed to the sky

A terraced ampitheater like slope remeniscent of a stepped pyramid faces the fountain opposite of the Cárcamo providing a vantage point for viewing the entire form of the diety.  It is a ceremonial space that was no doubt designed for the dedication of the works.

The stepped pyramid like slope facing the Fuente de Tláloc

A photo of a photo on a placard of the Fuente de Tláloc taken from above showing the entire mosaic

Diego Rivera intended the pool to be visible from airplanes arriving in Mexico City.  The water refects and connects to the sky and clouds, and the water spraying from the head mimics rain and connects water with the air.  His body is meant to resemble the outline of mountains from where Tláloc was worshipped.  Underneath his left leg is a mosaic of a Quetzalcoatl, or plumed serpent, one of the most important and frequently depicted Mesoamerican dieties, who bestowed maize as a source of sustenance to mankind according to mythology.

The pool as a mirror of the sky

 Tlaloc is one of the oldest and most revered of the pantheon of Gods worshipped in Mexico.  Ceremonial shrines have been found buried in the pyramids at Teotihuacan, the oldest of the great civilizations to be built in the Valley of Mexico where the city today resides.  He was probably derived from the ancient Mayan God Chaac, or an earlier Olmec one.  The patron diety of farmers, Tláloc is the bringer of rains that sustain agriculture and he also represents fertility.  But with rain comes thunder and lightning, hail, and floods, so the God was fearsome as well.  In Aztec mythology, the four corners of the universe were marked by "the four Tlálocs".  The most important shrines were built on mountaintops, where powerful priests conducted ceremonies to appease the God.  These were also destinations for pilgrims bearing offerings.

This abstract ceramic depiction of the rain God Tláloc with a symbol of the four corners of the universe, Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Mexico City

Tláloc is usually depicted with bulging eyes and jaguar like teeth.  Jaguars skulls and bones have been found at the shrines at Teotihuacan and are believed to be the ultimate sacrifice in that culture due to their stature of power.  The heron, being a water bird, is also associated with Tláloc and priests often work heron feather headresses during ceremonies.

Another ceramic plaque representing the Aztec God of Rain, Tláloc, Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Mexico City

Maize, or corn, was the primary crop in Precolumbian agriculture and corn stalks were also used in rituals as well as water vessels bearing the God's image.

Ceremonial water vessels bearing the image of the Rain God Tláloc, Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Mexico City

Flowing forms in the mosaic represent springs and rivers, and fish and snakes swim through the design on the bottom of the pool in which Tláloc sprawls.

A mosaic fish at the bottom of the pool of the Tlalock Fountain

In his left hand he holds four kernels of corn surrounded by a mosaic of clouds and lightning.  I was entranced by the murals and sounds inside the building and had a hard time leaving.  I was the only one there under the watchful eye of a guard.  When I finally did step out the door, the fountain spraying from Tláloc's head suddenly stopped.  It was then that I realized that the guard was waiting patiently to lock up the building for the day.  As soon as the fountain stopped a flock of black birds landed on the hand bearing the corn kernals.  It was a magical moment of quiet with the end of the splashing water from the fountain.


In the God's right hand he bears two beautifully rendered cobs of ripe corn which were picked from the mosaic maize field depicted at the bottom of the pool.  Maize continues to be the most important staple of Mexican cuisine and the cultivation of corn over the ages represents sustenance.

Two ears of corn in Tlálocs right hand

Part of the mosaic representing a field of maize on the bottom of the pool surrounding Tláloc's right hand

The sandals the God is wearing bear symbolic imagery on their soles, combining mythology and the purpose of the water project in to an abstract expression.  On the right foot an eagle transports water over the mountains.


On the left sandal the eagle finds a route under the mountains for the water to flow.  The eagle stands on a cactus and the water takes on the form of a serpent, which alludes to the image found on the Mexican Flag.  This image is derived from the myth that led the Aztec people to found their capital in the Valley of Mexico.

Mosaic on the left sandal depicting an eagle on a cactus bringing water under the mountains

And with this ends a laborious essay on an incredible and little known gem in the vast, epic expanse that is Mexico City.  It inspired me to do a great deal of research in onder to understand it better, and it inspires me to bring the richness of meaning that I strive to incorporate in to my own work to a higher level.  Thanks for reading this.  It was a lot of work but a pleasure to do.  And I took all the photos, Jeffrey

A painting of the symbol of the nation of Mexico, an eagle on a cactus with a snake in its beak in the Palacio Nacional, Mexico City

A man hole cover displayed outside the water tower, Chapultepec Park

Agave guiengola plants bloom in the Jardin Ethnobotanico de Oaxaca

Oaxaca is one of the most historic and beautiful cities in Mexico.  I hadn't been there for 30 years was amazed by how much it has grown in the last 3 decades.  Sprawl has connected many of the towns that used to be located outside the city and traffic is terrible.  But the city center has maintained much of its beauty and charm and remains one of the most popular cultural destinations in the country.

Late afternoon promenade along Avenida Constitucion

Oaxaca has a strong identity, enriched by its diverse population and vibrant indigenous cultures.  It is a center for artisan crafts dating back many hundreds of years.  The valley has been occupied for thousands more.  Seeds from squash dated to over 10,000 years in age are some of the oldest known evidence of agriculture in the Western Hemisphere.


Oaxaca's colonial center is a gathering place for people from all over the valley and afar.  Architecturally well preserved, many of the old buildings now house museums, art galleries, thriving markets, and fine restaurants serving variations on the distinctive cuisine of the region.

La Biznaga, named for the Spanish name for Barrel Cactus, serves wonderful food a block from Plaza de Santo Domingo

Galleries abound displaying works by a large variety of talented artisans and artists and I spent a lot of the two weeks I was there being inspired by what I saw.  There are a number of architecturally beautiful museums blending old and new structures, displaying amazing works with a high regard for design and innovation.

Colonial and modern architecture connect as part of the Centro Academico y Cultural San Pablo with a gallery, cafe, and library

The primary reason that the Spanish took interest in the Oaxaca region was because of an insect called Cochineal that feeds on Nopal Prickly Pear Cactus.  This female insect sucks juices from the plant and contains a red pigment called Carminic Acid that departs a rich series of colors depending on how they are treated.  The Zapotecs, Aztecs and Mayans began dying fabrics with it in the 14th Century, and Europe became obsessed with the fabulous reds and purples that could be obtained using Cochineal.  Its value by weight was greater than gold and for a time it became the second most important export from colonial Mexico after Silver.  Cochineal thrives in the climate of the Oaxaca Valley but failed to survive when cultivated in other countries.

Nopal Prickly Pear Cacti in the Jardin Ethnobotanico, Oaxaca

Cochineal insects on a Nopal leaf

Cochineal pigment used to dye yarn for carpet weaving in Teotitlan, Oaxaca State

The wealth created by the Cochineal industry made Oaxaca the most important town in the region, and great churches and monasteries were built for powerful Spanish religious sects.  The most incredible of Oaxaca's cultural institutions is located in the confines of the Templo de Santo Domingo located 5 blocks north of the city's main square, the Zocalo.  Construction of the complex began in 1570 and took over 200 years to complete.

Templo de Santo Domingo de Guzman

When you approach the elegant golden stone structure, one of the most striking features are the unusual plantings in the plaza.  Large squared graveled beds contain straight rows of a native species of bromeliad from the genus Hechtia.  The tall slender dried brown flower stalks silhouetted dramatically against the lighter stone of the church at the time I was there.

The dry flower stalks of native Hechtia bromeliads silhouetted against the golden sandstone of the Templo de Santo Domingo

Hechtia bromeliads

Oaxaca State is the home of 21 known species of the genus Hechtia, the greatest concentration of this genus of bromeliad.  Many have reddish stripes or blood red spots giving them great ornamental potential, although they are not commonly seen in gardens.  I assume that the spacing and straight rows of the plants mimics that of the many Mezcal Agave plantations in the region, the roasted hearts of which are used to make tequila like liquors.

Grid pattern planting of Hechtia bromeliads in the Plaza de Santo Domingo de Guzman

Paving detail in the plaza

Another species of Hechtia is planted on stone terraces leading to a pedestrianized street

Equally dramatic are the spires of blooming pale blue Agave guiengola, sometimes called the Dolphin Agave because of its smooth wide blue leaves.  The margins are guarded by a row of tiny dark barbs giving the plant a refined look.  They are planted in masses along one side of the plaza.  The flower spikes soar to 12 feet.  Many were in bloom when I was there, which signals the end of life for the plant.  I was told that a probable cause is climate change and unseasonably warm temperatures that stress the plants triggering them to bloom.

Beautiful bluish leaves of Agave guiengola, native to Mount Guiengola near Tehuantepec in Oaxaca State

The plaza is a popular gathering place and the site of many festivities.  Vendors sell crafts to tourists while others visit with friends.

A vendor sells handwoven hats and bags in the Plaza de Santo Domingo

The interior of the church is the most resplendent in the city, lavishly decorated in three dimensional plaster and carved relief.  During the years of revolution in Mexico the church and monastery became a military barracks.  It was reverted to use as a church in 1938, and in 1972 the monastery was converted in to the Museum of Oaxacan Culture.

An incredible family tree of the founder of the Dominican order, Santo Domingo de Guzmán, sculpted on the ceiling inside the entrance to Templo de Santo Domingo

The adjacent Dominican Monastery is equally lavish, and has been converted in to one of Mexico's finest regional museums, the Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca.

A ceiling in the Monastery

The vast complex and its miriad of spaces, workshops, chapels, and dormitory cells are now galleries displaying artifacts from the diverse history of the Oaxaca valley.


The monastery encloses some beautiful courtyards with fine cobbled pavements.  The main central courtyard is surrounded by cloisters with a fountain flanked by columns at the center.  The fountain would have originally been used as a water source for the complex.

The main courtyard in the Monastery of Santo Domingo de Guzman

Smaller courtyards were once used as utilitarian spaces.  This one has been planted with native Plumeria trees with a square paving pattern set with three shapes of cut stone.

Native Plumeria rubra planted in a smaller courtyard in the monastery

The bold sculptural form of the trees contrasts nicely with the squareness of the space and the pattern of the paving.

Looking down in to the courtyard

Walking down the long hallways of the upper floors of the Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca, you come upon large open windows with fantastic views looking out over the courtyards and surrounding landscapes.  Many of these windows don't have glass because of the benign climate of the region, and act like balconies.

A family takes in the view from an open window

The most wonderful views take in the lush and beautifully composed Jardin Ethnobotánico.  This garden didn't exist when I was here 30 years ago.  The project commenced in 1993 under the direction of the reknowned Mexican artist Francisco Toledo, who is also a strong advocate for the preservation of Oaxacan culture.

A panoramic view of the Jardin Ethnobotanico from the Monastery of Santo Domingo

The expansive walled grounds of the monastery complex originally had workshops and orchards.  These were destroyed when the army occupied the complex during the revolution.  For many years the property was used for storage and exersize yards and parking and garbage dumps when it was an army barracks.  After the army vacated the monastery it was slated to become a convention center with parking lots occupying much of what are now gardens.  Fortunately the concept of building a garden showcasing native and culturally significant plants took precident and construction began on the Jardin Ethnobotanico in 1994.

Looking down in to a large cobbled courtyard

To reach the Oaxaca valley, the roads crossing the state pass through rugged and diverse landscapes.  I came from the market town of Tehuacan in Puebla State to the east through the spectacular Tehaucan-Cuicatlan Biosphere reserve.  These mountains and valleys contain the world's largest concentration of columnar cacti.  The state of Oaxaca contains the highest diversity of plant life in Mexico, as well as the largest diversity of ethnic groups.

Columnar cacti cover the slopes of mountains in the Tehuacan-Cuicatlan Biosphere Reserve

On one of the highways heading to the coast to the west the high mountain forests are lush with jungle.  Like the state of Oaxaca, the Jardin Ethnobotanico has a dry side and a more moist side representing the climactic differences of various regions.

Clouds form over the dense evergreen forests of Oaxaca's coastal mountains

Magnificent mountain vistas from Hierva del Agua, Oaxaca State

In 1993 Francisco Toledo approached a man named Alejandro de Ávila, a man with great knowledge of the region.  He proposed the idea of creating a botanical garden that is intrinsicly linked to the culture of the region, an Ethnobotanical Garden.  With the backing of other members of organization Pro-Oax, which supports the preservation and enhancement of Oaxacan culture, the concept of a garden received the blessing of the government over other proposals.

Plan of the Jardin Ethnobotanico

The walled 2.3 hectare enclosure in which the garden was planted was in a state of great neglect.  As excavations began, the remainders of centuries old facilities related to the monastery emerged.
These spaces were incorporated in to the design as terraces and pools, including plantings that corelate to the original purpose of the spaces.

The remains of a 16th Century laundry area with a Soapberry Tree, Sapindus saponaria growing against the wall.

The Soapberry Fig is a tree native to India that was brought to Oaxaca to make soap and is one of the few non native plants in the garden

4 meter deep below ground lime kilns built in 1575 were used for the calcination of limestone by using coal or wood fire to heat the stone in a processs that took about a week to complete.  The lime was used to make mortar for masonry in the construction of the church, monastery, walls, and outbuildings.

A path crosses and steps down in to an old Lime Kiln, used to make lime for mortar

The different areas are connected by a series of colored decomposed stone paths that zigzag through the
plantings.  The forms of the paths were inspired by the the cut stone mosaic facades of buildings at the Zapotec ruins at Mitla, 46 kilometers to the southeast of Oaxaca City.  Mitla was an important ceremonial center when the Spanish arrived over 500 years ago and the decorative patterns are unique to it's tombs, palaces, and ceremonial spaces.

Grupo de las Columnas, Mitla

A variety of cut stone mosaics decorate the walls of the structures at Mitla

Detail of a wall at Mitla displaying energetic shapes and traces of pigment from when the structures were painted

The zigzag paths look dramatic and modern set against the artful arrangement of the plant material, while summoning conciousness of ancient Zapotec designs.  A Mexican painter named Luis Zárate had significant influence on the design in consort with Toledo and Ávila.  The result is an extraordinary garden composed with an artist's, anthropologist's, and botanist's sensibilities blended in to a series of sublime compositions.

A green decomposed stone path, edged in steel forms a path through useful native trees in the garden

A steel basin and rill modeled on a design from Zapotec design from Mitla designed by Luis Zarate

Interior wall in the Grupo de las Columnas, Mitla

The garden was originally designed to be entered from a courtyard on the church's plaza, where a thick rectangular plinth fountain designed by Francisco Toledo is made of native Montezuma Cypress clad in mica, a thin, shiny mineral.  The fountain has a Mitla inspired "step fret" design cut out of it, and water died red with Cochineal drips over it.  This entrance was closed and moved to a back street corner after several rare plants and cuttings were stolen from the garden.  Visiting the garden can only be done on a tour now in order to prevent that from happening again.  There are tours in Spanish and less frequently in English, which are very comprehensive and well guided.

Sangre de Mitla Fountain by Francisco Toledo  Photo by Dana Gallagher

There is an interesting library with a focus on botany, agriculture, and art near the entrance where you can do research or linger while you wait for the tour to depart.

A book on the garden designs of artist Luis Zárate in the library

When the tour of the garden finally begins, two of the first trees you encounter are an Amate Fig, Ficus tecolutensis, who's bark was used for making paper before the Spanish arrived (extensive information at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amate), and a Montezuma Cypress, Taxodium mucronatum.  These magestic trees, related to the Bald Cypress of the swampy South Eastern United States can grow to great age and size.

An Amate Tree and Montezuma Cypress and a bed of prehistoric Horsetails, Equisetum myriochaetum

In fact the tree said to have the widest trunk in the world is a famous Montezuma Cypress growing in the town of El Tule, southeast of Oaxaca on the road to Mitla.  I remember getting off the bus here 30 years ago and being astounded by the fantastic sight of this 1,500 year old tree, that is 11 meters across (35 feet) at the base at its widest point.  A well watered park now surrounds the tree and supports its need for moisture as the water table of the area drops because of extraction from wells.

The massive trunk of El Arbol del Tule

El Arbol del Tule

Back in Oaxaca, a path below the imposing walls of the monastery leads to an innovative arrangement of yellow and red stones interplanted in small agaves, cacti, and recumbent desert plants.  The stones are separated by a linear gap that mimicks the irrigation rills that have been excavated around the site.

Yellow and red stones are arranged to create a dramatic pallet studded with small desert plants

Further along the path are native Plumeria trees underplanted with beautiful Vriesia bromeliads surrounded by rough stones that set off the plants and create an ecosystem similar to their native habitat.  The largest possible trees were transplanted in to the garden when it was built to give it a more mature character.  A lot of experimentation was required as they didn't have much previous experience moving large trees in the region.  Many of the plants have been rescued from road building and construction projects.

Plumerias and Vriesia Bromeliads

Oaxaca state has the largest number of Plumeria species in the world.  These trees are popular ornamentals throughout the tropical and sub tropical world, prized for their fragrant flowers, sometimes called Frangipani.  The fragrance, most powerful at night, lures Sphinx moths as pollinators, even though they contain no nectar.

The bare branches of Plumeria trees in winter contrast dramatically with Yuccas, Agaves and Cacti in the garden

Plants in the garden were arranged to recreate bioregions and to convey cultural uses.  Local farmers and healers were enlisted to locate and collect specimens for the project.  There is a vegetable garden featuring plants that have been cultivated for hundreds of years, including squash grown in a raised bed oriented in the direction of the site near Mitla where the ancient seeds were found.

Cultivated squash seeds found near Mitla date back to 10,000 years ago

It is possible that the Oaxaca Valley was the first place where corn was cultivated as a crop, over time becoming a primary staple food for indigenous people over much of the Western Hemisphere.

Stepped walls and river stone pavement frames beds of corn

Useful plants grown in this part of the garden include Hierba de Conejo (Rabbit Herb) Cynoglossum officinale, a medicinal and culinary herb.   Marigolds have been cultivated for centuries to use as a dye, an insect repellent, and for ceremonial decorations.  The odor of corpses is masked by the sweet fragrance of Tuberoses.  Chia, from the Salvia family is used to make a gelatinous drink.  The name of the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico is derived from the Chia plant.  56 varieties of Chili are grown in Mexico.

Plants historically used in agriculture in the Oaxaca region, including chiles and marigolds

Introducing new plants to the garden

Some of the most striking plantings in the garden are the rows of Organ Pipe Cacti.  Traditionally used as a living fence, the cacti are planted close together in lines, which when grown in create an impenetrable wall.  Over a period of 2,000 years, forms of the cacti were selected to domesticate the thornless plants seen today.  In the garden they have been used to great affect to create alleys and a dramatic backdrop to a reflecting pool.  A black hair dye is made by boiling pieces of these cacti.

Organ Pipe Cacti   Stenocereus thurberi  reflecting in a pool

Rows of Organ Pipe Cacti frame the foundation of a ruined structure

The cacti also make an interesting punctuational contrast to the shapes of less linear plants and relate in a vertical way to the linear paths.

Plumerias, Prickly Pear Cactus, Yuccas and Agaves contrast with walls of Organ Pipe Cacti

Organ Pipe Cacti form a narrow alley framing a Bignonia tree

Organ Pipe Cacti and two species of Prickly Pear against the backdrop of the Monastery

Detail of a Prickly Pear Cactus Pad

Turning past the corner of the Monastery is a square bed planted with native Cycads.  There are some 20 known species of Cycads native to the state.  These prehistoric plants that date from the early Permian era 820 million years ago are gymnosperms, meaning that they have seeds that do not have shells or skins, and are open to the air for pollination.  The primitive flowers are usually pollinated by beetles.

A bed of Cycads mulched in pink stones simulates the environment that they are proned to grow in

Unopened Cycad cones

A silvery blue species of Cycad

Looking back to the Monastery, is a beautiful cluster of native palms and Beaucarnea Pony tail Palms.  The arrangement of plants takes advantage of their sculptural character, texture and color to make for handsome compositions in harmony with rough stones and ground covering plants.

Beucarnia Pony Tail Palms and Fan Palms in a corner of the garden

Water is distributed throughout the garden using traditional rills.  These add an architectural element to the garden similar to the way they are used in Spain and North Africa, but here they contrast with the sculptural forms of native Oaxacan plants.

A row of small Agave species line a rill.  Oaxaca has more species of Agaves and Cycads than any other region of the planet.

Tall Yuccas and masses of Agaves create dramatic compositions in the desert garden

For me the desert areas of the garden are the most dramatic.  The striking forms of the plants, spiky, linear, and sculptural are arranged to great affect.  On the tour I was always lagging behind in order to take photos without a cluster of people in the shots.  The guide told a number of stories relating to the various plants and their cultural uses.  The desert plants receive no irrigation once they are established.  The stone and gravel mulches help provide the drainage and warmth the plants are accustomed to.

The architectural forms of a variety desert plants

Agaves, Hechtia Bromeliads, and Cacti

Beautifully composed groupings of cacti and desert plants contrast with the straight lines of the fretwork paths

A Biznaga, or Barrel Cactus estimated to be over 600 years old was rescued from a road construction site and moved to the garden

A close up of the spined ridges of the Barrel Cactus, Biznaga

More species of Agaves are found in Oaxaca State than any other region on Earth

The sculptural form of desert plants is used to great effect in the garden, arranged in staggered rows or massed together, Agaves are very dramatic in form, as are yuccas, cacti and palms, and can be arranged to make for wonderful compositions.  Added meaning is implied in compositions reminiscent of how these plants would appear in a cultivated setting.

Clumps of Agave stricta contrasting the stepped line of the green rock dust path

Beautiful clump of Agave stricta

A fantastic array of plant forms arranged in a painterly manner

The view of the desert garden from an opening on the upper floor of the Monastery

Blue green paddles of Prickly Pear contrast with Organ Pipe Cacti

Mezcal is an alcoholic drink made from the roasted hearts of Maguey.  Many types of Agave are grown extensively in the Oaxaca Valley.  The most common species used for Mezcal in the Oaxaca region is Agave angustifolia, the Small Sword Agave.

Maguey Agaves

The outer leaves are cut off and the heart of the plant, called a Piña, is cooked in a stone lined and covered cooking pit.  They become juicy and can then be pressed.  The liquid is distilled, producing a smoky spirit that comes in a broad range of variety and quality.

The hearts, or Piña of the Agave before pit roasting at a distillery in Santiago Matatlán

Large flat stones in the garden may have been intended for seating as well as their sculptural form

The center of the garden features a rectangular reflecting pool.  I don't know if this is a water reservoir used to irrigate the garden or if its purpose is purely ornamental.

Organ Pipe Cacti frame a reflecting pool

The gardens are a popular place to host high profile weddings for families from the capitol, who like to incorporate colorful ceremonies popular in Oaxaca.

A beautiful setting for the rehearsal for a lavish wedding

Late afternoon February light in the garden

A forest of Organ Pipe Cacti

A prostrate cactus

If you know how to identify any unlabeled cacti in these photos please make a comment

The zig zag of the fret stepped paths, edged with steel strips, and a variety of stone mulches

Late afternoon light illuminating the garden

Stone gutter spouts spill water from the building on to loose stone mosaic panels along the high walls of the monastery

Yuccas, Agave stricta, and Agave guingola

A dramatic South American tree distinctive for its spiny bulbous trunk, Cieba speciosa, the Silk Floss Tree has showy pink flowers in March followed by large seed pods filled with a cotton like floss that was used for stuffing in life jackets and as insulation in aircraft during World War II.  Another spiny trunked tree from Cental America is Bomacopsis quinata, the Pochote Tree.  It produces a fine grained wood used in furniture and cabinet making and in stringed musical instruments like guitars.

The spiny trunk of a Pochote Tree surrounded by masses of Agaves

Tall Yuccas and low Agaves with the beautiful tan stone backdrop of the monastery

Leaving the desert area the garden becomes more wooded with trees and large shrubs from regions of Oaxaca with higher rainfall.

The garden transitions from desert on the west side to forested ecosystems to the east

Transitioning between the two ecosystems are Palo Verde Cercidium spp. paint the ground with yellow flowers and tiny fallen leaves.  Palo Verde is Spanish for Green Stick, referring to the green bark that dominates the trees.  The trees have edible flowers and pods.

Palo Verde trees dust the ground with a tinge of yellow at the back of the garden

Palo Mullato, or Black Stick, Bursera tomentosa, produces a fragrant resin called Copal, which is burned in purification rituals.

A Palo Mullato tree to the left of the path

A tree with showy red papery bark, Bursera simaruba, or Gumbo Limbo, is also called the Tourist Tree for its resemblence to the sunburnt peeling skin of tourists.  The fast growing trees are often planted as windbreaks simply by rooting cuttings in the soil.  The wood is used for firewood and in light construction, and the tree's resin is used to make glue, varnish, and incense.

The red papery bark of Bursera simaruba, The Tourist Tree

Agaves planted amongst a grove of trees, including Ochroma pyramidale, the source of lightweight Balsa Wood

Terrestrial Bromiliads along the edge of a path

Bromeliads and Agaves in the understory

An epiphytic Bromeliad growing in the crotch of a tree

Masses of spiny foliaged plants with contrasting colors planted in masses along an irrigation rill

Another Mitla inspired sculpture by Luis Zarate

An irrigation rill creates a slender linear axis through the garden

Green rock dust and white gravel make a soft deliniation of a fret stepped path in to the woods

In a back corner of the garden, in line with the walls is a modern geothermically heated glass house was recently built to house orchids and other tropical plants that grow in the warmer, wetter coastal mountain slopes of Oaxaca State.

The Glass House

A metal staircase leads up to a walkway around the perimeter, from which on clear days you can see the mountaintop ruins of Monte Alban.

The roof of the Glass House with a yellow flowered Tababuia chrysantha in the background

A winter evening sky with the silhouette of Santo Domingo from the roof of the Glass House

In the shade of the trees, are nursery areas holding groupings of cultivated plants, many of them rare.  The unfortunate theft of valuable plants from the garden prompted the need to only allow visits by guided tour.

A bed of young cacti

The propagation of rare and endangered species of plants in the garden will help preserve them for future generations.

The Monastery towers over the garden offering splendid views

The Jardin Ethnobotánico de Oaxaca, in the span of only 20 years, has grown in to one of the finest gardens in Mexico, if not the World.  While many botanical gardens end up looking like giant plant collections, this jewel in the city shows how an artist's eye blended with the skills developed over centuries by farmers working the land, can create something extraordinary and inspiring.  Sitting on a stone windowsill high up in the Monastery, gazing out over the textural landscape of these gardens, with the mountains beyond is time well spent.

An overview of the garden from the Monastery

Thanks for reading, Jeffrey

Handsome old buildings from the Colonial era line a street across from the entrance to the Jardin Ethnobotanico All photos but one by Jeffrey Bale