A Little Spot Enclosed by Grace:

A Biblical Spirituality of Bonsai

by the Rev. Craig L. Cowing
Pastor, Blooming Grove UCC
Blooming Grove, New York

We are a garden walled around,
Chosen and made peculiar ground;
A little spot enclosed by grace
Out of the world's wide wilderness.

Like trees of myrrh and spice we stand,
Planted by God the Father's hand;
And all his springs in Zion flow,
To make the young plantation grow. 

Awake, O, heav'nly wind! and come,
Blow on this garden of perfume;
Spirit divine! descend and breathe
A gracious gale on plants beneath.

Make our best spices flow abroad,
To entertain our Savior God
And faith, and love, and joy appear,
And every grace be active here.

 Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

 Japanese Beech Forest

 

(For all the images in this article, my thanks to the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum, Washington, D.C.)

Introduction

Isaac Watts wrote this evocative hymn to invoke God’s blessing on the Church, but in a literal sense it can apply to bonsai.  I like to think of it almost as a prayer for bonsai--a prayer that my trees will prosper and will in turn praise their maker--not me, but God.  The first verse in particular calls to mind the image of a bonsai, a part of nature, yet set apart in a pot and protected for a special purpose.

Despite common misperceptions and even more common abuses, the biblical heritage contains a solid ethic for caring for the environment and appreciating the beauty of nature.  To augment this ethic, in this article I will draw not only upon some of the biblical texts using tree imagery but will freely draw on other sources and my own experience and reflections in an effort to illustrate how the art of bonsai can become a window into appreciating nature as a part of God’s revelation of love.  This comes out of my own experience as a Protestant pastor and does not exclude other viewpoints.

At first blush it may seem strange to consider the art of bonsai as a Christian spiritual practice.  For many, bonsai is inextricably connected to the culture of Japan, although it originated in China and came to Japan somewhere between 600-1100 AD.  It has become relatively popular in Western nations as well.  Westerners were first exposed to bonsai in Japan and China as early as the mid-nineteenth century.  Americans got their first look at Japanese bonsai at the Centennial Exposition in Washington, D.C. (1876) and the Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893).¹

In the last few decades the art of bonsai has spread around the world and people in every corner of the globe have made this art form their own using trees from their own environment, discovering native species that lend themselves to this particular form of cultivation.  As bonsai enthusiasts develop their artistic sensibilities in bonsai the challenge, notes Colin Lewis, is to learn from the Japanese rather than to copy them.  In other words, Western bonsai enthusiasts can and should turn to their own heritage to choose how to style their trees.²

 Trees as Archetypes

 Pomegranate

 

Trees are what we might call an “archetype”--a foundational image that is at the base of our understanding of the world, an image so pervasive that we share them in common with others.  Archetypes form the basis of our consciousness.  In every part of the world where trees grow they have gained religious and historical significance to the point of becoming a integral part of a local culture and of a national consciousness.  The pervasive image of the Tree of Life in many religious traditions testifies to the power of such a symbol.³

Trees evoke all sorts of good, healthy images for people.  This explains why tree images are often used in advertising a wide range of products such as life insurance or mutual funds, products that have nothing to do with trees.  A tree signifies growth, stability, and permanence.  It evokes feelings of goodness and harmony.  A tree is a living embodiment of collective memory.  It evokes feelings of wonder.  If a tree can grow somewhere, then perhaps the place it is growing is a good place.

We use archetypes as benchmarks as we go through life.  Most people probably have an archetypal tree somewhere in their childhood.  My archetypal tree was in the backyard of the first home I remember in Meriden, Connecticut.  Our house sat at the end of a dead-end road, high on a hill.  An orchard had once been on the hill, so each yard had pear and apple trees.  At the end of our yard we had an ancient apple tree.  It had passed its prime for producing edible fruit but it held our attention for years.  My brothers and I played with our toy cars at the base of the tree.

We climbed its branches and sat there, watching the world.  We swung on the swing hanging from one of the lower branches.  The tree represented permanence and durability to me.  It was a reliable friend.  Each spring we didn’t have to wonder if it would still be there.  It always was.  It was a perfect tree.  In his book Care of the Soul Thomas Moore describes his archetypal trees, a pair of majestic horse chestnut trees on his great-grandparents’ farm in upstate New York.  He found deep satisfaction in visiting the farm and still finding the trees many years later.⁴

For me, the practice of bonsai has become a way to search for the perfect tree--the tree of life.  Bonsai enthusiasts know that there is no such thing as a perfect bonsai, although many of us have probably seen a few that come close.  Every tree has its imperfections.  As a bonsai enthusiast I am in search of that perfect tree.  The most important tool in this quest is patience.  However, I realize that I will never find the single most perfect tree because every tree is perfect in its own way.  Any given tree may not be perfect for bonsai cultivation, but in nature it is perfect in its imperfection.

In a highly technological world Westerners seek perfection in many different directions.  Leonard Koren sees the late twentieth-century Western concept of perfection and beauty as manufactured and shallow.  His answer is the ancient Zen concept of ‘Wabi-sabi.”  Originally two different concepts, they have merged into a single aesthetic that values imperfection, simplicity and earthiness.⁵  Artist Peter London would agree, observing that 

Our culture’s profound separation of humans from all the rest of creation has produced a deep, diffuse, pervasive loneliness, disorientation, sense of loss, and fragility that is played out in all our relationships and through all our means of expression.  Rejoining these two aspects of the original whole, the Self and Nature, is the great task each one of us faces.⁶

 

 Meeting God in the Wild

I find the spirituality of bonsai manifesting itself in collecting trees from the wild.  Some bonsai enthusiasts in other parts of the country discourage collecting, but in Maine, where I first discovered bonsai, there is no lack of trees.  There are still many landowners who own hundreds of acres.  Cultivating personal relationships with landowners is the best way to gain access to private land.

Living now in southern New York, I have found that even within fifty miles of New York City there are places to collect with permission.  Collecting a tree is a spiritual experience for me because I am out in the woods where trees are naturally found.  The experience of being in the woods is energizing even when I don’t find a tree.  Seeking is just as important as finding.  When I collect a tree that has a unique shape I can get a clear idea of the forces of nature that have shaped it, if it has grown up between two rocks, or has an unusual bend in the trunk because a dead limb from another tree landed on it.  A good bonsai artist can reproduce such shapes artificially, but there is something special about seeing a tree in its natural context.  The benefits I have gained from getting back into the woods are beyond price.  Bonsai practice has done a valuable thing for me by getting me back into the woods to experience nature first hand.

When I come upon a tree in the woods that I like I look it over to see if it has an interesting form, is and has a healthy mass of roots close to the trunk, and decide if it is worth lugging out of the woods back to my car.  Once I have spent the necessary time examining the tree I pause for a moment and say a brief prayer silently, that God will give me the skill I need to collect the tree successfully so that it will survive and thrive.

With collecting in the wild I also have to consider the location of the tree.  Even if a tree is on land where collecting is allowed the collector must consider the welfare of the tree first.  If it is growing in a rocky area the tree may not be collectible if most of the roots have grown into tight crevices in the rock.  Some marvelous dwarfed trees are meant to remain where they are.  Respecting that is an important part of the ethics of collecting.  Some bonsai enthusiasts decry collecting in the wild under any circumstances.  Others act in a cavalier manner, digging wherever they feel like it.  I find myself halfway between the two, respecting property rights but also considering the tree’s welfare before I dig.  If by collecting a tree I kill it, the tree will not be there for anyone to enjoy, including me.

Collecting trees in nature is not the only way to find material for a bonsai.  In some parts of the country it is difficult to find places to collect, although rescuing shrubbery from landscaping makeovers is an excellent way to find quality material.  My wife and I have even rescued discarded shrubbery dumped on the side of a road!  Rescuing someone else’s rejects and turning them into beautiful trees is truly satisfying.  One can also use nursery stock either from a bonsai nursery or a garden center, although stock from a garden center has not received training for bonsai.  One can also start a tree from a cutting, or plant a seed.  The last option takes many years.

God’s Time

Whatever the source of the material, illusion forms the foundation of the art of bonsai.  The illusion imparted by the tree engenders the feeling of age and wisdom.  It is an illusion because the actual age of the tree is irrelevant.  The number of years in training matters much more than the actual age.  The paradox of bonsai is that the bonsai artist must create an illusion in order to give the appearance of authenticity and stability in the tree.  Nevertheless, knowing the approximate age of a bonsai adds mystery to the feeling it gives the viewer because it gives a sense of a tree’s lifetime extending beyond one person’s life span.

Looking at an aged, gnarled tree can be a spiritual experience as the eye follows the movement of the tree beginning with the root base that imparts a feeling of being solidly grounded.  The eye moves up the trunk, following a meandering course to the first branch and the subsequent branches to the crown of the tree, where the fine ramification of the branches forms a halo.  The movement of a well-formed tree gives the viewer a sense of well-being and peace, and tells a story of the grace of God.

Tokanoma

 

The marks on a tree tell a story too.  Healed-over wounds may tell of a windstorm many years past that broke off branches.  Branches bending close to the earth may tell of a winter that brought deep snow and weighed the branches down.  A tree with weathered, broken branches and deadwood tells a story of overcoming adversity.  When I look at the wild honeysuckle shrubs I have collected I see in the gnarled trunks the hand of God shaping them as a sculptor carves an image out of wood.

Throughout the centuries many Christian theologians have felt that we can learn a great deal about God’s love from observing creation although we cannot know everything about God from nature.  At the beginning of the Epistle Dedicatory to his work, Husbandry Spiritualized, the Puritan divine John Flavel told his readers that “the world below is a glass to discover the world above” which preached to humanity “the wisdom, power and goodness of God.”⁷  The appreciation of nature for Flavel was not an end unto itself, but a means of discovering the grace and love of God: 

Content not yourselves, I beseech you, with that natural sweetness the creatures afford; . . . but use them to those spiritual ends you are here directed, and they will yield you a sweetness far transcending that natural sweetness you ever relished in them; and indeed, you never use the creatures as their Lord’s till you come to see your Lord in and by them ⁸

 

During the last few years I have learned a great deal about patience through bonsai.  The only way to learn it, I have discovered, is to practice it.  People will often comment that it must take patience to cultivate bonsai.  I often answer by quoting the late Yuji Yoshimura, who often responded to the same comment by saying that patience is what you need when you don’t love what you’re doing.  In our daily lives we find ourselves needing to learn to be patient, and we say to God, “I want to learn to be patient, and I want to learn it NOW!”  Our culture does not often allow for us to learn patience.  We have built a society that thrives on quick fixes and instant service.  Despite this, people can readily appreciate a bonsai that has obviously been cultivated for a long time.  Maybe we still value things in life that take time to cultivate, but feel we lack the ability to persevere.

Recently I collected a wild apple tree from the farm of a member of my church.  The tree was growing on an outcropping of ledge, so common in Orange County.  The outcropping where the tree grew is a beautiful composition of soft gray stone and varieties of moss.  Growing in such a confining environment dwarfs a tree and makes it a respectable candidate for a bonsai if it can be collected safely and with permission.  As I have discovered, the tree is approximately one hundred sixty years old.  As I cleaned the dirt from the roots to prepare the tree for planting in bonsai soil I removed the rocks that had become entangled in the roots.  I found one rock wedged underneath one of the main roots.  I tried to remove it, but found it embedded in the underside of the root.  Who can say for how many years that tree has held on to that rock?  A century perhaps?  I decided that it would damage the tree too much to remove the rock, so I left it in place.  After all, who was I to remove it?  As the tree now sits in its pot, the rock appears front and center underneath the root, as if the tree were proudly holding on to a piece of the ledge where it grew for so many years.  This is perseverance.

Americans are fascinated by the art of bonsai but often expect instant results.  Put a little tree in a pot and expect it to grow a big fat trunk in a couple of years so that it will look like a tiny old tree.  As bonsai enthusiasts know, the factors that make a tree look small are what keep it small and cause it to grow slowly.  I have realized that it will take years if not decades for the trees I have to become polished bonsai.  I am learning to be patient because I have realized that by my impatience to have my trees develop I am, in a sense, wishing my life away.  The most important tool a bonsai enthusiast has is time.  Learning to use time well is the secret in bonsai as well as in the rest of life.  My trees don’t look bad now, but will look a lot better in the future.  It will be worth it, if for no other reason than to teach me that some things in life simply require the passage of time to come to fruition.  Nothing takes the place of God’s time.

Time and patience factor into bonsai.  Anyone who has done too much work on a bonsai only to watch it die from shock knows this.  Many trees outlive individual human beings by decades if not centuries.  These are living things, bearing the marks of time that has passed by.  A tree does not experience time the same way we do.  Just before my family and I moved from Maine to New York my very inquisitive eight-year-old son was asking me about the big old sugar maple on our front lawn.  He asked me how old it was, and I told him that I thought it was probably about one hundred fifty years old.  “Do you mean that it was alive and growing when the Civil War was going on?,” he asked.  He was making the connection between our time and an event of the past, and that tree at that moment was the bridge between the past and the present.  Trees embody what Peter Ackroyd describes as a “communal memory,” extending beyond the memory of any living person.⁹

 

Yamaki Pine

 

I encountered this bridge, God’s time, in a profound way a few years ago.  While on a trip to the Washington, D.C. area on business I had a couple of hours to stop at the National Arboretum.  The bonsai collection was all I had time for.  It was well worth the time.  The highlight was the Japanese White Pine placed outside the entrance to the Japanese pavilion.  The tree is roughly three hundred seventy five years old, and was in training as a bonsai from the beginning.  This tree really enthralled me.  To think that it was in training around the time my Puritan ancestors were coming here from England gave me pause, offering an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of the passage of time.  Somebody started that tree by grafting shoots on a trunk with the intention of growing it as a bonsai.  It would be interesting to know if they had any idea that it would still be living centuries after that, long after they themselves had died.  Later I learned that this very tree, among the original collection of fifty-three trees donated by Japan to the National Arboretum, survived the nuclear attack on Hiroshima.¹⁰  That is indeed perseverance.  God would have us learn the sort of patience that measures time in years not seconds--to not expect instant results for the important things in life, and to not seek solely for our own gratification in what we do.

 Tree Imagery in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures

Images of trees abound in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.  In the Hebrew Scriptures, or Old Testament, the primary tree images are of a healthy tree bearing fruit, signifying God’s blessing.  Trees that do not bear fruit are seen as “barren.” The prophet Habakkuk writes that even though the fig and olive trees do not bear fruit, he will still praise God, even though God seems to withhold the outward signs of the divine blessing.  (Habakkuk 3:17)  A healthy tree is obviously grounded well and has abundant rain and nourishment, and so it is with the righteous, who prosper because they are grounded in the Law: 

They are like trees
planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.

 (Psalm 1:3; cf. Jeremiah 17:8)¹¹

Smooth-leaf Elm

 

Trees do not figure as prominently in the New Testament as in the Old Testament, but the same image of a tree bearing (or not bearing) fruit persists.  In several places in the gospels people are compared to fruit trees bearing either good or bad fruit, emblematic of good deeds or evil deeds.¹²

Scriptural uses of tree imagery teach a lesson about God's patience.  In Luke 13, Jesus tells a parable about a man who plants a fig tree in his vineyard, but after three years the tree does not produce fruit.  The owner wants the gardener to cut it down, but the gardener pleads for the tree, asking for one more year to fertilize the tree well and see if it produces fruit.  (Luke 13:1-9)  It is good to learn God's patience through nature, as John Flavel observed: “It is not in the power of husbandmen [farmers] to ripen fruits at pleasure, our times are in the hands of God, therefore it is good to wait; a long-suffering patience will reap the desired fruit.”¹³

Taking care of our environment has become a major and necessary preoccupation in the past thirty or so years.  The Christian tradition does not have a clean track record in terms of caring for the earth.  Only in the last two decades have Christians begun to understand that subduing the earth is only a part of their theological heritage; indeed, caring for the earth stands at the very heart of the Christian faith, only we haven’t seen it until recently.  Mary Evelyn Jegen offers a perspective on the Church’s role in healing the Earth, beginning with the New Testament.  In the Incarnation (the concept that God was incarnate in a special way in Jesus) Jegen finds a foundation for respecting the earth by presenting an opportunity to “return to our senses” and acknowledge that God loves all of creation.  “By reason of this Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity, all creation is made holy” because God chose to become incarnate in a physical human being.¹⁴  Focusing on trees as a part of God’s creation is a good way to acknowledge the sacredness of all creation, and to think about caring for the earth.  Caring for a bonsai can teach us how fragile the earth is and remind us of our own fragility.  The prophet reminds us that:  The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass.  The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.”  (Isaiah 40:7-8)  We don’t live forever yet we sometimes treat the earth as though it will last forever despite our intervention in the course of nature.

The most striking image of a tree in the New Testament comes at the very end as the author of Revelation.  He describes the redemption of all creation and the restoration of human access to the tree of life cut off in the Garden of Eden.  This is the consummation of all of creation and human history: 

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city.  On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

 

(Revelation 22:1-2)

Ficus

 

The Judeo-Christian ethos tends to neglect the appreciation of nature simply for what it is.  Western society tends towards a utilitarian approach to nature, sometimes forgetting the simple joy of beholding the beauty of nature simply for what it is.  Despite this, there is a strong thread throughout Christian tradition that emphasizes the beauty of nature as an expression of God’s goodness, and that nature in its beauty praises God simply by being.  This concept of things simply “being” can draw us away from an obsession to find a need or purpose for everything.  The art of bonsai certainly resonates with the increasing desire for finding simplicity in life.

When a tree suitable for bonsai training has been found in nature and already has a well–formed root base and trunk and primary and secondary branches the shape truly becomes a sculpture from the hand of God.  From a scientific standpoint there would be a completely logical explanation for why the tree looks the way it does--the genetic makeup allows for the tree to respond to its environment in specific ways.  From a spiritual viewpoint the source for the genetic makeup would be the Creator.  The tree’s response to its environment becomes a form of praise to the Creator.

In Isaiah as well as in the Psalms the image of nature praising God’s goodness appears frequently: 

For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.  (Isaiah 55:12)

 Was the prophet thinking of a tree whose leaves shimmer in the breeze, such as the quaking aspen?  Perhaps.  This image is poetic, of course, saying that the trees in the field live to praise God.

 Bonsai as a Vehicle for Contemplation

Juniper Forest on slab

 

Artist Frederick Franck describes what he calls “seeing/drawing,” the process of looking at a subject and understanding the subject well enough to draw it, as a “technique of contemplation.”  He finds it to be a “discipline through which I extricate myself from the habitual, the mechanical, the predigested and acquisitive automatisms of our society.  I stand face to face with a hill, a bird, a human face—with myself, in unwavering attention.”¹⁵

Of what practical application is this?  Spirituality is partly about practice.  One important role bonsai can play in one’s spiritual life is as a vehicle for contemplation.  This is, in my view, a largely unexplored aspect of bonsai in the western world despite the Western fascination with things Zen.  We tend to be people of action rather than contemplation.  In the United States in particular, many emphasize the horticultural aspects of bonsai as if it were an art devoid of spiritual content.

Practically speaking, a bonsai provides an excellent focal point for contemplation because of its size.  Most bonsai range in size from a few inches tall to three feet or so.  Unless it is very large a single person can quite often move a bonsai by him or herself.  Portability makes a bonsai adaptable to a wide range of display options.  The way a bonsai is displayed can accentuate its best features and enhance the desired feelings.¹⁶  The small size of a typical bonsai also can evoke peaceful feelings in the viewer.  By being in a pot the tree is set apart much as a fine painting is surrounded by a frame, creating a harmonious composition.

Bonsai also provides an opportunity for contemplation by virtue of the detail work required to maintain it.  Working on a bonsai is not contemplation in the usual sense, but it is a way to relieve stress and to lose oneself for awhile.

The modern concern for nature is a starting point for building a contemplative component in bonsai although with continued threats to the environment some might question how much respect we truly have for nature.  Our society still operates under the assumption that nature is a commodity to be sold by the board foot although many Americans enjoy the beauty of nature by spending time camping, hunting, hiking and the like.  In order to contemplate nature we must free ourselves from seeing nature as a commodity.  “As long as we try to develop a norm for distribution of the earth’s resources according to any economic system that sees the goods of creation primarily as commodities to be owned,” writes Mary Evelyn Jegen, “we will never find a norm that is equitable or that respects the earth itself.”¹⁷

The difference between seeing nature as a commodity and seeing it simply for what it is the same as the difference between acting on nature and accepting nature as it is.  Harvey Cox discovered the contrast between contemplating action and simply contemplating in the process of writing his 1977 book Turning East.  Cox spent time exploring Eastern forms of religious experience to see what attracted Westerners.  He found a connection between the Buddhist concept of awareness, of simply being conscious, and the biblical concept of Sabbath as a time for rest.  Although the art of bonsai is the last thing on his mind, Cox’s observation about contemplating a tree for its own sake speaks to the bonsai enthusiast: 

When we plan to prune a tree, we perceive it differently than we do when we are simply aware of it, allowing it—for the moment at least—simply to be as it is. . . . This is the “bare awareness” which is strengthened by the practice of meditation.  It is being aware, fully aware of the apple tree, but having no judgments, plans or prospects for it. . . . Meditation is the cultivation of the first, receptive state of awareness . . . its purpose thus seems nearly identical with that of Sabbath.¹⁸

 The Buddhist traditions offer Christianity a valuable insight in this concept of awareness or “mindfulness.” The challenge is to approach any facet of life without an agenda, simply to accept every aspect of life for what it is and to live fully in each moment.¹⁹  Our bonsai trees challenge us to put away the tools and simply look at them—not to decide if one branch should be wired a certain way, or cut off entirely, but simply to look at them as trees and relate to them in the same way as we might look at a large oak tree in the middle of a pasture or a gnarled dwarfed pine growing on a steep cliff.  Of course, cultivating a bonsai requires planning how to work on a tree, but it helps to step back at times and appreciate the tree for what it is.

If the purpose of bonsai is to recapture the feelings we experience when looking at full-sized trees, we can deepen our relationship with bonsai by approaching them in the same way.  When people see a bonsai for the first time they see a well-styled tree.  They aren’t going to analyze the placement of the branches.  They will encounter the tree with a sense of wonder.  This is especially true when a person encounters a real bonsai for the first time instead of the half dead junipers commonly sold at big box hardware stores during the Christmas shopping season.  Contemplation of a tree when first encountering it can move one to experience God’s grace, much in the way that the seventeenth century French mystic Brother Lawrence experienced a conversion when looking at a tree that had lost its leaves for the winter.  As he looked at the tree, stripped of leaves, he realized that “within a little time the leaves would be renewed, and after that the flowers and fruit appear, he received a high view of the providence and power of God, which has never since been effaced from his soul.”²⁰

Pauper’s Tea

We encounter the majestic and mystic presence in trees all around us in a way that is almost beyond describing.  Trees are exhilarating because they “transcend time,” writes photographer James Balog: 

Great trees are sculpturally elegant.  They are grounded.  They transcend time.  They are humbling.  They are authentic.  They are nature’s ultimate survivors, having escaped the ravages of weather, fire, disease, insects, and humans.  They are even an antidote to cultural amnesia.²¹

 It is a mystical feeling we can describe as “mystery, “ or as Rudolf Otto describes it in the Latin, “mysterium tremendum” — a sense of “creature-consciousness” that reminds us that we too are creatures — in this context, we are creatures just as trees are creatures.  Otto’s seminal work, The Idea of the Holy, provides a foundation for understanding the transcendental experience we feel when looking at a tree.²²  Seeing bonsai as a vehicle for contemplation can start with encountering nature in a spiritual context.  Leave behind the scientific analysis, as important as it is, and listen to the trees.  “Do your trees speak to you?,” someone once asked me.  They certainly do, if only I listen.²³

 The Authenticity of Bonsai

The naturalist John Burroughs knew very well how he could experience nature for what it was.  In his essay “The Gospel of Nature” Burroughs writes that he does not learn from nature in the way that he might learn from another person: 

I do not go to Nature to be taught.  I go for enjoyment and companionship.  I go to bathe in her as in a sea; I go to give my eyes and ears and all my senses a free, clean field and to tone up my spirits by her "primal sanities." If the bird has not preached to me, it has added to the resources of my life, it has widened the field of my interests, it has afforded me another beautiful object to love, and has helped make me feel more at home in this world.  To take the birds out of my life would be like lopping off so many branches from the tree: there is so much less surface of leafage to absorb the sunlight and bring my spirits in contact with the vital currents.  We cannot pursue any natural study with love and enthusiasm without the object of it becoming a part of our lives.  The birds, the flowers, the trees, the rocks, all become linked with our lives and hold the key to our thoughts and emotion.²⁴

For Burroughs nature is not a bottomless pit waiting for us to exploit it; rather, it is the context in which we live.

The attraction of bonsai for Westerners probably lies in its mystery and authenticity--authenticity in time, in life.  Authenticity speaks to the part of our souls that craves the experience of the non-rational.  Nature is as it is, nothing more, nothing less.  It is.  This is the meaning of authenticity.  A tree does not lie.  It openly bears the marks of its existence.  It manifests suffering, prosperity, and endurance.  In short, a tree embodies all that life is.  As such, by presenting trees in a convenient and approachable manner, the art of bonsai represents life.  Through this art the artist and viewer encounter a spiritually authentic experience which runs counter to our culture which thrives on superficiality--on things that are here one day and gone the next, on image over substance.

The modern soul hungers for authenticity.  We have built a world of technological wonders yet we alienate people near to us.  We have advanced so far with our minds but satisfying our deepest spiritual hungers alludes us.  A tree offers an experience of authenticity through giving the viewer a sense of harmony and peace of mind.  What is not genuine will not satisfy.  Only what is genuine will satisfy the hunger we feel for security and peace.  A tree offers harmony because it is connected to all things.  It is connected to the earth yet it reaches to the sky.  It offers us life by assuring us that life endures.

Authenticity is the most spiritually satisfying aspect of bonsai for me--a way to experience God’s love through living in close contact with nature, with living things made by the creator of all living things. 

The tree of life, that near the throne
In heav'n's high garden grows,
Laden with grace, bends gently down
Its ever-smiling boughs.
Hov'ring amongst the leaves there stands
The sweet celestial Dove;
And Jesus on the branches hangs
The banner of his love.

 Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

Trident Maple

 

Notes:

¹The Phoenix Bonsai Society has on their website a large number of articles chronicling the history of bonsai in the West at  http://www.phoenixbonsai.com/Pre1945Biblio.html.

²Colin Lewis, The Art of Bonsai Design (New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 2001), pp. 10-11.

³For an excellent discussion of trees as archetypes see the chapter, “Trees That Talk,” in Thomas Moore, The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1996), pp. 22-30.  As an example of the cultural and historical significance of trees in a particular culture, see Peter Ackroyd, Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination (New York: Anchor Books, 2004), pp. 4-8.  Sir James George Frazer brings together concepts of the sacredness of trees in a number of cultures both ancient and contemporary in The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, abridged edition (London: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1922; reprint ed. New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1994), pp. 126-156; see also Patrice Bouchardon, The Healing Energies of Trees (Boston: Journey Editions, 1999), pp. 18-27 and Marie-France Boyer, Tree-Talk: Memories, Myths and Timeless Customs (New York: Thames and Hudson Inc., 1996.

⁴Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994), p. 269.

⁵Leonard Koren, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets  Philosophers (Berkeley, California: Stone Bridge Press, 1994)

⁶Peter London, Drawing Closer to Nature: Making Art in Dialogue with the Natural World (Boston: Shambhala Publications, Inc., 2003), p. 1.

⁷John Flavel, Husbandry Spiritualized: or, the Heavenly Use of Earthly Things, in The Works of John Flavel vol. 5 (London: W. Baynes & Son, 1820; reprint ed. London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1968), p. 4.

⁸Flavel, Husbandry Spiritualized, pp. 6-7.

⁹Ackroyd, Abion, p. 6.

¹⁰For the story of this famous bonsai see the National Bonsai Foundation website at www.bonsai-nbf.org/nbf/hiroshimasurvivor.

¹¹The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA and are used by permission.  All rights reserved.  See Anne Gardner, “Ecojustice or Anthropological Justice?  A Study of the New Heavens and the New Earth in Isaiah 65.17” in The Earth Bible, vol. 4: The Earth Story in the Psalms and the Prophets,” ed. Norman C. Habel (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), p.208.

¹²Adrian M. Leske, “Matthew 6:25-32: Human Anxiety and the Natural World” in The Earth Bible, vol. 5: The Earth Story in the New Testament, ed. Norman C. Havel and Vicki Balabanski, p. 16.

¹³Flavel, Husbandry Spiritualized, p. 5.

¹⁴Mary Evelyn Jegen, “The Church’s Role in Healing the Earth,” in Tending the Garden: Essays on the Gospel and the Earth (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1987, p. 95.  This collection of essays helps dispel the misconception that Christianity has no intrinsic concept of ecology.

¹⁵Frederick Franck, The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation (New York: Vintage Books, 1973), p. 16.

¹⁶For a detailed study of displaying bonsai and accessories see Willi Benz, Bonsai, Kusamono, Suiseki: A Practical Guide for Organizing Displays with Plants and Stones (Watertown, MA: Stone Lantern Publishing Co, 2002).

¹⁷Jegen, p. 95.

¹⁸Harvey Cox, Turning East: Why Americans Look to the Orient for Spirituality—And What That Search Can Mean to the West (New York: Touchstone Books, 1977), p. 70.

¹⁹Thich Nhat Hanh offers an excellent overview of this concept in relation to Western culture in Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life (New York: Bantam Books, 1991).

²⁰Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1958), p. 11.

²¹James Balog, Trees: A New Vision of the American Forest (New York: Barnes & Noble Publishing, Inc., 2004), p. 16.  Balog’s book is not simply a book of photographs of trees.  He approaches his subjects with reverence and awe in a unique manner.  This book is a must-have for anyone who loves trees.

²²Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy (London: Oxford University Press, 1923; reprint ed. 1958), p. 10.

²³For an interesting approach to “listening” to trees and being aware of trees see Chapter 3 of Bouchardon, The Healing Energies of Trees, pp. 62-87.  The exercises in this chapter can easily be used to facilitate using a bonsai as an object of contemplation.

²⁴Burroughs, John. (1912) “Time and Change” Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg.  Accessed January 18, 2005: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/tmchg10.txt 

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