Lecture by Alan Chadwick in New Market, Virginia, 1979
Lecture 4: Man, Nature and the Garden, Part 3
An Introduction to Alan Chadwick's Lectures and a Glossary of Terms
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Seeds arrive from established soil areas. Spring rainfall. Watering so that the soil should dry out again. Arrival of insects and animals and their manures. Cave man discovers the oasis and brings his son to collect food. The clever son recreates the oasis and teaches his father the art of gardening. Conservatory and Environment. Man, Garden and Nature. Man's magnification of nature. But man must not depart too far from the natural process. (11:45)
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New Market, Virginia, 1979
Lecture 4, Man, Nature, and the Garden, Part 3
...and at the last moment in the fall, those seed pods which were still tight grow seeds―with numerous methods of catapultation and flotation of areas―were brought by the gales and the winds at the last moment of their variations of winds with warmths and coolth. The pods were split open and the seeds were released, and they flow in these winds until they came over this gentler, kinder, fertile area. Whereby they were allowed to let go, and they dropped. And they fell on this sand, and this preparation. And a little more sand followed on top. And so, as the spring came with its revolutionibus, with its warning of the birth of life, and the excitement of life, these seeds were forced by the moon to release the embryo in them from the invisible world. And little plants grew.
And then came the different clouds of spring, the rather large, single, voluminous clouds. And that one would be seen coming between the spring sunshine of March. And just as all these little plants were getting a bit hot with the heat of that sun, having come out only a few days before, and they’re saying “Hah, hah, whooh,” “Whooh, whooh. It’s rather hot, isn’t it?” And then suddenly this cloud shuts out the moon. And in the spring, these clouds are very low, so that the fall is not contagiously heavy. And that the water is a little bit warm. And the drops that fall from it now, onto this oasis, are very delicious for the plants.
And they’re delighted. And they say “Oh, how beautiful, that’s just what I was needing: a drink. Oh, how lovely.” And after a few minutes of that lovely drink, they incredibly say “Oh, dear, that was very nice but it’s getting rather cold, and I’m awfully wet.” You’ve now come to the edge of the cloud, and it goes on over. And out comes the warmth of the sun again and restores the happiness of the plants, who say “Oo, thank goodness, I was getting rather chill and wondering what was going to happen.”
But you see here’s the very identity of our whole procedure in the garden: that we water not really to make wet. To wet just temporarily, so that it should dry, so that we can water again. And the watering is so that it should dry, and the drying is so that we should water. Here you’ve got this metamorphosis change, going through the area of discontinuity.
And now you see that all those little plants grow up under this rather delicious control of the area, of the… …of the oasis, thank you. And that that control now increases the growth and the happiness of the plants. And they come into bloom. And those moistures and matters take place there, that are the gentleness of nature, the gentleness of fertility. And they produce them into seeds and blossoms, and fruicious greenery.
And now there is the smell of nectar, and some bees, that always used to work up the mountains say “Oswald, Malayla, it’s down there. Come, this is the...” Bang. “Yes, Here we are, we’re coming. There it is.” And they all start to use this nectar, and to form it, you see, with their spittle, to get ready to take back to the hive. And they get very happy and excited, and they too sing a song.
And there’re some bears up in the woods, that have always been up in the woods where the growth is taking place. And father bear says to son bear “Do you hear that? That wasn’t last year. Let’s go and have a look. If my guess is right, we shall find what we expect.” Down they waddle, these black lumps, and sure enough, they look through the hedge. There is a huge blackberry bush, or a black wild raspberry, covered in berries, and in they go. And they munch, munch, munch and yaw, yaw, yaw.
And some deer hear this, and they say “ [ ] ground down there.” And down they leap, jumping over the rocks. And they stop and listen. And then they look and see all this beautiful green. So you see, all of the bear, and the bees and the deer drop their manures. And so they graze, and so they use the flowers, and so they use the seeds. And so equally they add to the oasis, and build its fertility.
And so eventually, you had a caveman likely come down, who lived under the trees further up. And was now aware of this because he heard the bears, and noticed the path of the deer, daily, and it's traversement. And he likewise finds this procedure and begins to make use of it, and perceives its ordinance. And so he takes his son the next day, and says, “Hold on the roots here, and they’re Helianthimums, and they are excellent. And we will go and collect them.” And they make a basket and they collect them and take them up.
And the son doesn’t altogether approve of this trudging up and down the mountain. He’s been occupied watching things, thinking things out a lot. And he suddenly looks at his father, sitting in the cave, and he thinks of all that distance down, he looks right down all those miles into that oasis. And he thinks “Really a stupid old man. Or perhaps he doesn’t know what I’ve discovered.” So after the luncheon meal, he goes on a track that he knows, which is on the same latitude path as the cave. And he goes round the mountain on the same latitude, and there is a pool, and there is a little pasture, very much like the oasis, but not so formed, by any means. And he thinks, “Now that’s very close to the cave… terribly easy to copy the oasis there, and do everything there, and bring the raspberries there and bring the strawberries there, and bring all those plants there,” which he does.
And then one day, when father’s trudging up and says “You’re a useless youth, aren’t you?” “Do you think you could do all this again, when I showed you where it was?” And so the young man says “Come and have a look at this. Let me show you this…” So the father says, “Hmm. Well…, I suppose that’s fine.”
And so you enter the scene that I am talking about now, of conservatoire. Do you see, this totemism of nature, by totality of the stars of revolutionibus, equalizing everything out exquisitely. It will always give a complete clean canvas. And that the performance of ego, which you perceive in the earth revolving, had to develop a personality, a character which it could maintain, by creating hard stratas, through which it’s personality couldn’t be totally used up by the male lover, or the female lover. That it could hold back some of its personality, at least, and not be utterly overwhelmed by one or the other.
Therefore we are now looking at a word conservatoire, and of course it comes into conservation. But you see what derelict, false attitudes it also contains, through verbosity. And here, in a sense, is also the word environment. Because in the whole environment of nature, although you’ve got conservatoire, it is largely man’s destiny to produce this conservatoire as a conductor. And so you have got Man, the Garden, and Nature. The utmost conservatoire in the garden, and the induction of conservatoire into Nature. Nature also following the director of Man, through the Garden, producing conservatoire in the laws of Nature, increasing them. Making things more and more beautiful, more and more gentle. More fertile. A reduction and less of form, and prickle, and the induction of floration, and juicy fruit.
Now in the whole of that performance then, of that conservatoire, Man has discovered this Garden, and his law of that conservatoire through the laws of Nature. And it cannot be misapplied to a degree of Man’s requirement only. For if so, you are again out of balance, and will lose both the system, the technique and the law. Therefore it is essential to watch and be guided by the performances of nature. So when you want to live in an area...