Archive for the ‘Spring’ Category
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011
The delicate flowers of spring
Lucy the dog and I have gone off the beaten path. We tread through the soft green wisps that have cropped up everywhere on the forest floor like a silk carpet. The lilac, yellow and white flowers that flourish in the shade of the trees in May tickle my ankles to catch my attention. We can marvel at the big peonies and roses of the summer, but these delicate flowers of spring are more graceful and more moving because of their determination to rise up despite all of the odds: the iron nights of spring, the mud of April and May, and people with their dogs who long to trample upon the greenery as soon as it emerges.
Lucy digs furiously at the base of a tree where obviously some poor unsuspecting creature has made its home. While I fully expect that someday something angry is going to bite her nose off, on this occasion I let her take her fate into her own hands – or should I say paws? Amid the delicate flowers and the blades of young grass, my eye strikes a large-sized coffee cup from Pressbyrån (the local kiosk), which someone obviously decided they were done with. A little further on, an empty plastic water bottle lies forelorn on the ground with some used white tissues scattered here and there.
I try to reconstruct the story: A woman walking through the park on a sunny May day sipping a cappuccino receives a call from her fiancée who says he has decided to break off their engagement. She drops her cup on the ground in shock and begins to weep, unconsciously throwing her tissues onto the ground, one after the other. In order to calm herself down, she takes out the plastic water bottle from her hand bag, sits on the bench next to the statue and sips water, unable to organize her thoughts and emotions.
I like to construct these types of stories around garbage I see scattered on the ground in public areas, since I want to believe that my fellow person cares but has simply experienced a momentary lapse of responsibility. I want to believe that there are good reasons as to why people leave garbage scattered amid the delicate flowers. In my heart of hearts I am always hoping.
During the summers I sometimes walk around my island with a black garbage bag picking up the debris that visiting sailboats have left at our shores. I remember sitting on a rock with a black garbage bag that was somewhere between full to brimming, and thinking about what this says about developments in our society. Can people be blamed for feeling that the land isn’t theirs, and that the forests and wild shores aren’t really a part of their reality? People live mostly in big cities which create a considerable degree of separation from the earth and its cycles. We have divided the land between us so that we don’t feel a collective responsibility for it. Here in Scandinavia this attitude is somewhat mitigated by customary laws allowing common access to the land and the seas, but signs of lack of common responsibility are nevertheless everywhere to be seen.
I pick up the debris on the ground so that the forest floor is once again a place where people can dream. Our systems have no doubt helped more of us to survive, but they have also weakened our will to take own responsibility. How we encourage that attitude is probably the greatest challenge to cleaning up our planet.
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My new book, Rose in the Sand, a memoir of a decade lived in the Swedish wilderness, will be out shortly. Watch out for it at www.julielindahl.com and join me at Facebook and Twitter. Learn more about my non-profit, Stories for Society, which brings story-telling as a tool for learning and communication into schools. Enjoy my e-magazine at www.nordicwellbeing.com.
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Tags: clean planet, environment, garbage, spring
Posted in Allemannsrätt, Conservation, New Thinking, Season, Self-reliance, Spring, nature, sustainability | 7 comments »
Sunday, April 17th, 2011
Time to get your hands dirty
Out on the streets people are cleaning. The last of the snow has melted and trickled down the gutters. All attention has turned to the debris which is the only remaining evidence of the gargantuan winter gone by. You’d imagine that with the sun shining warmth on this pre-Easter weekend, everyone would be in their sunchairs basking in the newspaper. But no, here in do-it-yourself Sweden there is no time for that sort of thing until your hands are sore and swollen, you’ve got a few scratches on your bare legs and you’ve put your back out from the first manual work of the season.
I stand on a ladder cutting down the hedges with an electric saw. “I’ll take care of that,” my husband says, somewhat embarassed that the passers by see him on the ground with a mere rake while his wife is up in the trees wielding a heavy machine. Yet I insist on sticking to my task because I enjoy the expanding view as the crowns of the hedges fall away.
Suddenly I can see the woman who usually passes laden with jewellry in the shiniest of black Jaguars. Usually I feel like a peasant when she passes. Today she is out with everyone else raking away the molten leaves on the flower beds that line the streets. Her appearance is still elegant, and so the rest of us are all still peasants, but the leaves in her rake and the black garbage bag in the corner are the same as everyone else’s. Nature in the spring unites us on the streets and feels like an experience of true socialism without the politics.
As I cut down the corner hedge, the tennis court comes into view. The community’s tennis players are out in full force preparing their red earth courts for the matches of the summer. Children chase one another around the perimeter of the courts while their parents clear the leaves and restore the lines of play. At such an illustrious location as the courts at the royal palace one might expect the King’s white-gloved tennis court maintenance crew to appear, but here in DIY Sweden there is always the possibility that the King and Queen might turn up in their shorts, t-shirts and visors to help clear out.
A glance beyond the courts reveals an enormous pyre that is building up so that it can be burnt on Walpurgis Night or Valborg. People from around the community make pilgrimages with their garden waste to this rapidly growing pile of garden twigs. Here in two weeks a leader of the community will make the customary protest speech before the first of May, International Worker’s Day (even if he isn’t on the left of the political spectrum). Everyone needs a good protest every once in a while. This will be smoothed over by the spring psalms of the local choir, which will give way to the flames that finally clear away the debris of the winter.
The hedge is even now and my husband is relieved that I haven’t lost a finger using the electric saw. I take one last look out onto the water that reaches out to the islands. The steam boat that transports eager visitors from the city hoots in advance of arriving to forewarn us that it is time to be done with our clearing out. In the gap between the distant islands there is a space beyond which I cannot see. It seems that there is nothing there except peace, silence and the promise of summer away from cars and the bustle of life. My spirit has already gone there as I suspect it has for everyone who has been clearing out with me on the streets today.
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Happy News! My new book, “Rose in the Sand,” which is a memoir of Swedish island life and the writing of which has generously been sponsored by a literary prize from www.gather.com will be out this April. Join me at Facebook and/or Twitter for notification about the release date and more information about how to order it at my web site. Learn more about my writing and other projects at www.julielindahl.com. I a manage a non-profit for bringing story-telling to schools as a new tool for learning and communicating. If you are a principal, teacher or other person interested in knowing more about this, please visit www.storiesforsociety.com and get in touch!
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Tags: clean-up, clearing out, Easter, spring, Valborg
Posted in Season, Spring | 2 comments »
Saturday, March 26th, 2011
Little Rebel
A V-formation flew overhead. Lucy the dog and I watched it with necks craned back. The Canada geese had returned. My heart expanded with love of the season, wanting to break out and embrace every bud and creature that dared to speak despite the brisk temperatures. Each spring is like a rebellion in nature. That which lives will have its say, and like a ruthless dictator, the winter, which seemed impossible to depose just a few short weeks ago, begins to look increasingly toothless.
Over in the cropped linden trees the smaller birds are singing in an increasingly complex chorus. With each day that passes there are more voices. It’s beginning to sound like Mahler. Today a new diva in the branches catches Lucy’s attention. She sits with pricked ears and cocked head, and listens to this sound she has heard before but never tires of. Lucy is a retriever, in other words, a bird dog. Everything relating to birds fascinates her and now she has passed on her fascination to me. The thing about the birds in the trees is that it is often hard to spot where all of the sounds are coming from with the naked eye. I suspect that Lucy can smell the birds from her spot down on the ground. Without binoculars, I settle for the idea that trees sing. Not a bad thought.
Then down on the grass a crow caws condescendingly, provoking Lucy. There is something about crows that sends her blood pressure up. I hold her back and behold the raven creature. It looks at me with a regal air, as though I am nothing but a tiny spot. It is perhaps this attitude that gets Lucy all riled up. She’s a Swedish dog: she likes groups, lagom, consensus and togetherness; not a crow’s haughty tune.
We’ve gone to observe the small islands of tiny spring flowers breaking out on the sun-struck hills. Nature’s rebellion is dramatic. It has been going on under the snow for quite some time without anyone seeing it. Now as the snow retreats it is there for everyone to notice. There are purples, yellows, whites and all manner of shapes. The difference of form that life takes in this new free time is exciting and almost unbelievable after the montone rule of winter.
We’ve arrived back home and I urge Lucy to come in for breakfast. She cocks her head once again in such a way that says, “why?” Not even breakfast can tempt her out of the sun and the revolution of nature happening outside. She is a dog of the people and shuns creature comforts to be out there with them, witnessing the fall of winter.
Out the back window I can see that she has instead run to greet Mrs. Bengtsson, an avid gardener well into her eighties. We have opened up our two gardens so that all of us can enjoy a bigger garden. Mrs. Bengtsson is one of those diehard spring rebels and finds a great deal in common with Lucy the light lover. She has already cut back all of her bushes in readiness for the greenery. My heart is there with her but I am still here at my keyboard putting my faith in the written word to inspire you to become a rebel too (if you are not one already, that is).
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Happy News! My new book, “Rose in the Sand,” which is a memoir of Swedish island life and the writing of which has generously been sponsored by a literary prize from www.gather.com will be out this April. Join me at Facebook and/or Twitter for notification about the release date and more information about how to order it at my web site. Learn more about my writing and other projects at www.julielindahl.com. I a manage a non-profit for bringing story-telling to schools as a new tool for learning and communicating. If you are a principal, teacher or other person interested in knowing more about this, please visit www.storiesforsociety.com and get in touch!
Remember to check my e-magazine, www.nordicwellbeing.com, the one and only for wellbeing with Nordic inspiration!
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Tags: birds, dogs, rebellion, spring
Posted in Landscape, Outdoor Activity, Park, Season, Spring, Walking | 9 comments »
Sunday, May 9th, 2010
Most of us walk around with dreams. Some of them are worth having and others need more thinking through. As the weed bursts forth despite the cool spring, I dream of having one of the gardeners across the road at the palace work my little patch with all of their amazing machinery that turns gardening into a comfortable activity conducted from a golf cart. As I dream of this luxury, my reality is that I have managed to clear the infamous bishop’s goutweed from the beds behind my house using a spade that was produced in the dark days that preceded ergonomic science. I look to the ceramic Buddha’s head placed serenely in another corner of the garden and note that unless I get onto that patch within the next couple of days, the lord Buddha will be buried in a virile jungle of weed with notoriously deep and tangled roots.
Across the road, gardeners dressed in uniform whisk about the paths of the palace in white carts. A blower clears the pathways and a rake dragged on the back of one of the carts makes orderly patterns in the gravel. The tulips prepare to bloom in equidistant rows and the very sight of a weed fighting its way up in the soil in between results in its prompt extinguishment. The long rows of linden trees receive a shower of nutrients through a tube directed at the roots. The King’s recent order to distribute free compostible doggy-doo bags in the park has been promptly seen to by a machine that effortlessly hammers poles into the ground from which the new free offerings hang. No where is there a spade, old or new, to be seen. Spades are the instruments of the plebeians across the street.
As I walk through the park, green with jealousy as well as one of the King’s compostible doggy-doo bags wrapped in readiness over my hand, I notice that the birch leaves are the size of mouse ears. It is written in the lore of Swedish peasant farmers that when the birch have reached this revered state, the potatoes must be planted. Planting these most Nordic of all bulbs is one of those things that everyone should get a crack at. Having the chance to dig a spade into the earth is to experience the very essence of spring.
One of the royals breaks the ground with a shiny new spade and hundreds of people clap. It’s time to “plant” another tree. I ask myself what life would be like if each time that I picked up a spade I had to do it without getting my hands or shoes dirty, and with a team of bodyguards ready to throw themselves on top of me. With my gardens tended by teams of specialists in golf carts, I’d never get the chance to know the joy of planting a potato and, yes, even uprooting the prolific goutweed. The answer is that I’d be dying for that moment of plebeian joy across the street.
I’m not a Republican so far but things are moving in that direction. It isn’t that I don’t like the royals, it’s just that wellbeing isn’t to be found in a perfectly manicured garden but in a life of experience dug with an ancient spade. No one should be denied that pleasure.
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Attention all tulip lovers! The park is full of them and in Stockholm you can now enjoy a special photographic exhibition of tulips. Visit www.nordicwellbeing.com and check Happening Now 2010 on the home page.
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Tags: Drottningholm, gardens, potatoes, royals, spade, tulips, weed
Posted in Landscape, Outdoor Activity, Park, Season, Spring, gardening | 6 comments »
Friday, April 23rd, 2010
Have you come to your senses yet?
As I’ve been walking around under a cloud of volcanic ash wondering, like many, when aircraft are going to restore that reliable sense of speed we have got used to in our lives, my dog Lucy has been concerned with developments on the ground. As the earth softens and emits the many smells of the life within it, Lucy is in sensory heaven. It has been a long, dull winter without the aromas of the earth and only endless amounts of white snow that, to her chagrin, leaves her fur sparkling clean. For a dog, not walking around with something ill-smelling in its fur is the height of unattractiveness.
So far I have managed to stick to my new regimen of a long early morning walk in Drottningholm Park. It is a wonderful new habit but I fear that Lucy and I have objectives that are at odds. While I am seeking to break into a sweat, burn energy and tone muscles by keeping up a goose-step pace strictly between 6.30 and 7.30 am (when I have to be home to ensure that the children get breakfast before I start work) Lucy is in a timeless search for the smell of all smells. Like a connoisseur, she slows down at each tree to appreciate the many great smells that a tree bears: the smell of birds, squirrels, deer chewing at the lichen on the bark and of course canine buddies who have previously baptized the tree. Like a speed tyrant, I drag her forward and reprimand her for inattention to our schedule.
On one of the back paths we run into Crown Princess Victoria looking athletic in black followed by two noisy lifeguards. “Hej”, she comments gently to Lucy who naturally captures the spotlight with her timeless sense of joy. Then it occurs to me that not even a rushed crown princess who most likely has no desire to greet more beings during her precious early morning hours can resist being drawn in by that affectionate space that a dog creates. Even if dogs physically live in our harried world, spiritually they preserve that original authenticity of joy in the moment that just then seems to have no limits.
Lucy is all done with her pal the Crown Princess and has now found a snail to focus her attentions upon. The snail is crossing the road at a pace which is painful to observe. There isn’t a great deal of traffic here but all it takes is the occasional vehicle to send the snail to purgatory. My urge is to lift up the poor little critter and move it to safety on the other side of the road, but something tells me that we should let nature take its course. Lucy and I watch the snail with ears pricked until finally its trail has left a shiny line across the road. We look up and find that a vehicle has been waiting for us to be done with snail hour.
Although she can be annoying I cherish my dog. How else would I learn to appreciate the delicate progress of a snail?
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For anyone contemplating purchasing a furry friend check Svenska Kennelklubben. If you are interested in a Lucy check Golden Retrieverklubben.
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Tags: Crown Princess Victoria, dogs, Drottningholm, golden retriever, parks, royals, speed, time, Walking
Posted in Animals and Health, Fauna, Landscape, New Thinking, Park, Season, Slow, Spring, Walking, nature | 2 comments »
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010
Change is inevitable so pick your moment
I had just returned from the mountains where April was like silk glistening on every facade. In the mountains there was peace: no rush to prepare for the life to come when the snow had melted. Here there were no gardens to tend. The blueberries and the cloudberries would simply burst forth in the shade of the pine and the spruce, and there would be nothing else to do but pick them and enjoy. There is always a reluctance to leave the measured rhythm of the mountains for the speed of the south. If you are wondering where this treasured paradise of mine is check www.fjatervalen.se.
Back in reality, I made one of those resolutions that only the spring grants you the wherewithal to make. I would get up an hour earlier to take a longer and more energetic walk with Lucy the dog in the mornings. I would reach the park before the signs of rushed humans became evident in the gravel, and before the morning traffic reached its cacophonous peak. Somehow I would beat the speed.
At the waterfront all signs of the thick sheet of ice that had looked unmeltable only a couple of weeks ago were gone. As I walked down the linden alleys my thoughts were drowned out by the screeching of birds for which 6-7 am was obviously mating hour. The branches of the trees were still bare but the birds had got a head start on the race of the season. In the gardens of the well-kept homes leading down to the China Pavilion, the bishop’s goutweed had already managed to creep up before the garden sheds had been unlocked for the warm season. “Remember to get your tomato seeds planted by the end of March,” I had been advised by the lady with the greenhouse next door. Were mine planted? Were they hell! Time was running through my fingers.
Up at the China Pavilion, the pansies stood ready to be unveiled at the doorstep. Were we already back at the annual pansy exhibition? I sat down on the top step and took a sneak preview of the exhibit under one of the white covers that would be lifted later this morning. “Peaceful moment” read the sign in front of one of the many different varieties. Of course, peaceful moment, I thought, isn’t it so true? Change is in the nature of things so just pick your moment.
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Tags: China Pavilion, Fjätervålen, mountains, pansies, spring
Posted in New Thinking, Outdoor Activity, Season, Slow, Spring, The Now, gardening | No comments »
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
Spring cleaning in the mountains
As the snow melted and the water began to trickle through the crevices this Easter, I could feel it running out of me. The stress of winter which had been created by dark days and nights of sitting in front of my computer squeezing in as much as possible now began to subside as the light season of outdoor play returned. To encourage this process, I decided that I would live for several days without connecting to the Internet (I pray that the Editor of The Local will forgive me). During all of the time that I have used the Internet – say, the past couple of decades – I had never felt that need but more recently my mind and body began to show clear signs of requiring a break.
It wasn’t that I lived without a computer. Rather, I continued writing my contracted book each day. The difference is that I didn’t hook up to the Internet. This leap into the unknown was encouraged by the fact that I am in the mountains where you have to stand on the right mountain to get your mobile broadband to work. I guess I am standing on it so that I can post this blog entry, but the slowness of doing almost anything on the Internet up here eased the decision to break with it for a few days.
As usual when you give yourself some space and time, perspectives which can lead to change and personal growth emerge. The conclusion I came to during these Internet-free days was that the web is one of the greatest anomalies of all time. It is at once the most important contribution to the wellbeing of all people AND the greatest threat to the wellbeing of all people. The sharing of knowledge and information not only for survival but a better standard of living is unparalleled. Lives have been saved because of the Internet. At the same time, the threat it poses to the physical and mental health of active users is an issue that we have brushed over until now but that we are going to have to face quick smart.
Over the years, I’ve dipped my toes into the rather thin and highly-polarized debate about the effects of Internet use on our minds and bodies. Some argue that since the means by which we access and use the Internet are developing so quickly, it is hard to say what effects it is having. Others, in particular those who are in touch with what happens to children and teenagers as they interact with the Internet (see my previous blog entry about Facebook and youngsters), conclude that clear limitations need to be placed on our Internet use if it is truly going to be of any use to us. Some researchers have even concluded that either we are all going to suffer from some form of ADHD or our brains are going to have to evolve to handle the bombardment of stimuli that the Internet delivers. In a few decades there won’t be anyone to award the Nobel Prize to, one researcher argued, since no one will have the focusing capacity that is required of a Nobel Laureate.
Personally, I think this is a bit extreme. This is not the first time that the devil has been painted on the wall when it comes to new technology. At the same time, I see a need for a new discipline around Internet use which we might have to formalize as education. People are burning out, running into walls, starting to look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame and becoming overweight because they don’t know how to control their relationship to bytes. Up here in the mountains during the spring it feels easy to let go of the Internet for a few days and then return to it with greater judgement. However, it’s back in the everyday of our working world where e-mails and urls surround us that we might need help to get a grip.
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For further interesting discussion and links about the Internet and us see my blog entry The worst predictions don’t come true. If you’ve got any interesting information on health and the Internet please do share!
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Tags: e-mail, Facebook, the Internet, time management
Posted in Landscape, Mountains, Season, Spring, Technology and Health | No comments »
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
I'm worth it!
With great excitement and eager to reach out to the world anew, I had just launched my new Facebook account. This certainly is not the first time that I’ve launched an on-line communications tool but it is the first time that I began to wonder about the new tools by which we measure ourselves. There in the left column I had one star out of five for post quality and zero interactions. Granted, I had just launched the page and so no one knew about it, but these messages did stick in my mind as I turned off my computer and headed out for a walk in the equally uninspiring mud that covers the country roads after this winter of ample snow. Looking down my path, I repeated those disturbing terms – one star for post quality, zero interactions – and began to identify with the horse droppings on the path ahead. Don’t get me wrong – I do love social media for the way that it helps me to meet people who I would otherwise never know (you perhaps!), but the whole business of measurement on the Internet seems to be going into overdrive so that it can be counterproductive.
To my right and left there were in fact very beautiful experiences to be had. Tiny villages dating back to Viking times dotted the landscape. Several of the rust-red cottages showed evidence of being originals dating back many hundreds of years. It wasn’t hard to imagine looking into a window and seeing a woman sitting at a weaving loom from which a new pattern that people everywhere would admire and replicate for generations to come was emerging. My thoughts became entwined in this image. How had this woman created her pattern? Surely not by wandering around the village and asking the neighbors what they liked to look at (i.e. how many stars and interactions might my idea generate?). Her inspiration would most likely have been the shy emergence of nature in the early spring and that irresistible sense of anticipation that goes hand-in-hand with it. As for the pattern, was it beautiful simply because many people would eventually like it or did it have its own inherent beauty? Was it worth something in and of itself? Was this woman worth something, whatever the future success of her brainchild, the pattern?
As I turned the corner on the road leading down to the small early medieval village of Lambarudd, my thoughts came to a head: of course she is worth something and so is her pattern, because this capacity to make something out of nothing and believe in it enough to create it is the way that humanity moves forward. At middle age, and having experienced plenty of ups and downs, I have enough skin on my nose to know this and to handle the starting stats on my Facebook page with a bit of perspective. Yet if we look at the increasing psychological ill-health of youngsters (a major focus of research at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute), in particular Facebook-obsessed teenagers, we find that younger generations don’t consider their ‘patterns’ and, by association, themselves worth anything because the Facebook and other social media gods have come up with a random rating system that is misleading. Looking upwards, I took a deep breath and exhaled my irritation. Hanging above me on an old telephone line was an assortment of sneakers that had been tied together and thrown up in the air. Are we creating a society in which youngsters are hanging up their sneakers and great ideas because the bar is just too high?
“Lambarudd” read the letters etched into the wooden signpost at the side of the road. Here I was surrounded by what was most likely the origin of a commonly used word. For those of you who do not know it, “lamb” is a word that originates from the many small Scandinavian villages that survived by tending these woolly animals. Lambarudd was the plainest place on earth and its people had given the world a very important word. As I stood there on this small muddy peninsula of cottages jutting out into Lake Mälar, I appreciated being here. That is, not because the world flocks here or because it has a great Facebook page or highly visited site on the Internet, but because it has a strong inherent sense of self-worth.
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Concerning how the great new ideas of the future will emerge, I recommend reading Ambassador Matthew Barzun’s Blog Om Sweden entry about TED talk and the science of motivation. “Autonomy, mastery and purpose” rather than carrots and sticks seem to be the way that we are going to meet our future challenges.
Concerning lamb, check out The Nordic Wellbeing Cookbook for your Easter celebration.
If you want to increase my interactions in Facebook, you can visit me there at Julie’s Island or nordicwellbeing.com.
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Tags: Facebook, Karolinska Institute, lamb, Lambarudd, Motivation, self-worth
Posted in Island, Landscape, Motivation, New Thinking, Season, Spring, Uncategorized | 3 comments »
Saturday, March 20th, 2010
Could this happen in Sweden?
Recently I’ve been thinking of how much mental space we could create if we collectively agreed to get rid of stereotypes. All of those small compartments we walk around with in our heads would suddenly be cleared away and we’d feel so much lighter. Just think of all of that space for real new perceptions and no reinforcement of tired old views by tired old media and advertizing (naturally I am not referring to this forward-looking publication). One of the thoughtful readers of this blog recently reminded me of a quotation from Walt Whitman that read “in me there are multitudes”. Aren’t all people and places like this? Over the years, I’ve discovered that Sweden is no exception. Yes, it is dark but it is also very light and several shades in between. Yes, people are quiet but they are also deafeningly loud and then there are the varying tones from the gentle nyckelharpa to the thundering Poodles. Hair is blonde but it is also dark, red, and every shade of mouse on the color spectrum.
This brings me to the business of gardens. Who thinks of gardens when they think of Sweden? Vast tracts of coniferous forest and flat tundra perhaps, but not the luscious, romantic gardens that we associate with that green and pleasant land, England. The fact that my interest in gardens first germinated in this land of hearty winter shrubs is in fact no coincidence. The Wall Street Journal noted in a survey undertaken sometime during the past decade that Sweden is home to the largest number of recreational gardeners in the world as a percentage of its population. When Martha Stewart sought ideas for her media imperium from European gardens she came to Sweden and visited Zeta’s, among other Swedish gardens. This long country of thirsty and domineering birch is an unexpected gem of inspiration when it comes to gardens.
Even among those who are skeptical in this country, gardens are on their minds. A headline article in one of last week’s main daily newspapers read in translation, “For a mediocre gardener the best time is now.” The journalist, a veteran hobby gardener, was referring to the many times he had watched the dreams presented in the gardening catalogues of March devoured by garden pests, dry weather and other mischievous villains that gardeners perpeutally duel with. My point is, what other industrialized countries do you know of where an average gardener’s frustrations make headline news?
Perhaps it is because we do it against all odds in Sweden. Perhaps it is because of the Linnean tradition of fascination for the detail of all that makes its way out of the once hardened ground. Could it be a legacy of Sweden’s close peasant past or is it a symbol for progress and a society in which people have the time and economic means to fuss over the roses? I have often wondered why, and at the same time find it extremely freeing to be a part of Sweden’s little-known gardening fetish which defies all mental compartments about this country.
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For those of you who want to join Sweden’s gardening fetish:
8-11 April, Nordiska Trädgårdar, Älvsjö Mässa
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Tags: gardening, Nordiska Trädgårdar, stereotypes, Zetas
Posted in New Thinking, Openness, Outdoor Activity, Season, Spring, Uncategorized, gardening | 5 comments »
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
In case you were too busy to notice it, I just wanted to remind you that you are there. “Where?”, you might ask. In the time between hägg and syrén (bird cherry and lilac) which is so short-lived and delicate in the far North that modern life is in danger of not noticing it. We drive over it, chat and SMS over it, and blog over it (here I am…). Yet it somehow survives to return each year to offer us a powerful source of regeneration if we choose to source it.
Sometime back in the old days when we still took our winter shoes to the shoemaker for fixing in the spring so that they would be ready for the autumn, a shoemaker somewhere in the North decided that enough was enough. He sat exhausted in his workshop, took one look at the piles of ancient leather that had to be repaired before harvesting time, took one look out the window at the apple blossoms that were about to open and decided that he didn’t want to miss it all. He pulled out a slab of wood and on it painted with some of the faluröd color left over from re-painting his cottage, “Closed between bird cherry and lilac”. He laid down his tools with hands that had themselves become like the leather that he cut and polished everyday, turned the large key and locked the door. Passersby and people who came with their broken shoes during these weeks read the sign with curiosity, and immediately understood and respected the wisdom of the shoemaker.
This is the true story of this famous Nordic expression of time, between hägg and syrén, which has become a cultural institution in this part of the world. Even if most of us do not have the flexibility to just lock the door like the shoemaker, we can at the very least find the courage to sometimes put down our tools and know the extreme joy of this time.
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Watch out for more about participating in Spring as National Park Day approaches on 24 May! Watch www.nordicwellbeing.com for more about this.
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Tags: bird cherry, lilac, National Park Day, nature, shoemaker, spring
Posted in Fauna, Nordic Wellbeing, Season, Spring, Uncategorized, nature, wellbeing | 2 comments »
