“The rocks are alive,” Cahuilla Jo May Modesto said in an oral history a few years ago. “The rocks have power and you can use that, good or bad. You can use them as a source of power.” So the mighty Tahquitz, the spirit responsible for meteors, thunder, lightening, and earthquakes according to traditional lore, […]
The humble and beautiful Agave deserti. Desert gardeners may await its bloom with anticipation at this time of year, but the Native Peoples of the deserts of Mexico and California depended on it for its delicious roasted “heart,” its tasty flowers, and for its seed, ground into flour. In return, traditional people practiced what anthropologists […]
John Fowles, the great English novelist, published, in 1979, a complicated essay called “The Tree.” It was reissued in 2010, in this country anyway, with an introduction by Barry Lopez. I will refer to it as The Tree, as it is a pretty little book. If you don’t recall the novels of John Fowles, you […]
Here I am in what is known as Strawberry Valley in the San Jacinto Mountains, and the only strawberries I can find are boxed in plastic at the Mountain Harvest Market. Forest food flora abound here. But most people don’t know about these plants, or even what to do with them if they did. The Native […]
The small Southern California town of Idyllwild, in the San Jacinto Mountains above Palm Springs, is about two and a half hours east of Los Angeles. The town is a mile high, not incorporated, and is home to about 3,000 permanent residents. I began spending time here in early 2006, when I met Anna Bielecki […]
In the last five years I’ve been refining my ideas about the depth and breadth of human culture that lie behind the making of gardens. These speaking topics are but a partial list of these ideas. THESE FRAGRANT DRY HILLS: Learning and Loving the Landscape of Southwest France What happens when a landscape “garden” tries […]
(New York Botanical Garden) by Paula Panich Thank you very much for coming to the New York Botanical Garden for our discussion about expanding the boundaries of what is called “garden writing.” I hope you did take some notes — not to write down what I had to say, but to commit to paper the […]
Ever Changing/Never Less Than Whole: Writing the Getty Garden Museum Studios, Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA How do you engage the world? This is a crucial question in Robert Irwin’s llife and work. To ask this question of yourself, join writer and teacher Paula Panich in this writing workshop focusing on Irwin’s Central Garden. Participants […]