the Zen garden – un sentiment de paix et de sérénité dans le temps suspendu

A visit, a while ago, to a garden Le Jardin d’Eden, with a personality – a living energy – that has remained engrained in my memory. Not only for the impact that this landscape (I prefer this description) made but also the experience of the visit after a very hot summer here in the Gard, the journey north to the Drôme in October was a boon – it even rained . . . eventually.

And so on arrival, le jardin d’accueil (the welcome garden) – delicate in treatment but also somehow firm – and where Erik Borja’s sculptural identity balances with his obvious talent as a gardener. https://www.erikborja.fr

There is a small basin here where the visitor can purify themselves according to Feng Shui but honestly I was more taken with the leaf drop neatly sitting within the raked gravel . . .

Wandering into the Jardin de Thé alongside and running below the main house, folks were busy tidying on high instead of offering cups of tea and quite rightly as it was that time of the year – leaves were falling down to below .

Now it is a woodland garden in the grounds of the ancient Convent des Cordeliers but originally the family farmed the fruit orchards on the surrounding land . . .

. . . signs of people playing on the ground. And signs of great instinctiveness with the creation of the third dimension - volumes and spaces both generous and narrow to frame views through to beyond.

Here we start to feel how Borja’s origins – Algeria with the Mediterranean garden ethic – have manifested into a particular landscape.

. . . still signs of the family fruit farm .

In the Dragon Garden, having followed narrow sinuous paths, the miniature waterfalls and basins reflect the Herbasse river with, in the autumn, colour from the acers boosting the contrast with the evergreen structure.

Bold bamboo planting by the boundary river the Isère which flows down from the Italian Alps into the Rhône above Valence. The scent of anything flowering or from foliage is subsequently held in the garden..

.. and to the Garden of Meditations – the most recent creation, I believe.

Erik Borja sadly passed away this winter; His garden is his legacy enjoyed by many.

I came once to sit on Cold Mountain
And lingered here for thirty years.
Yesterday I went to see relatives and friends;
Over half had gone to the Yellow Springs.
Bit by bit life fades like a guttering lamp,
Passes on like a river that never rests.
This morning I face my lonely shadow
And before I know it tears stream down.

Today I sat before the cliff,

Sat a long time till mists had cleared.

A single thread, the clear stream runs cold;

A thousand yards the green peaks lift their heads.
White clouds—the morning light is still;
Moonrise—the lamp of night drifts upward;
Body free from dust and stain,

What cares could trouble my mind?


The clear water sparkles like crystal,
You can see through it easily, right to the bottom.
My mind is free from every thought,
Nothing in the myriad realms can move it.
Since it cannot be wantonly roused,
Forever and forever it will stay unchanged.
When you have learned to know in this way
You will know there is no inside or out!  ColdMoutain Han Shan