Stones are the balance of the ephemeral
characteristics of the garden. They can be used as transitions, conceptual
sculptures, practical elements (ex. Benches), decoration (intertwined with
plants or not), as physical barriers, retaining walls, as symbols.
They provide a rhythm in the patterns,
textures, colors, and a sense of scale and proportion.
They are sacred elements in traditional
Chinese gardens:
Rocks
are symbolic of the mountains which ae the dominant features of many parts of
China. Three types of rock were incorporated into the design of large classical
gardens –huge rocks big enough to walk through, delicate upright rocks and
those which had complex patterns or shapes. Rockeries were built in the north
and west of gardens to provide shelter and to act as a contrast to pools, which
were situated in the south and east to capture the beneficial energies believed
to emanate from those directions.
Rocks
may appear to be inanimate but the Chinese perceive them to be powerful and to
speak volumes in the veining on their surfaces and the symbolic expressions
suggested by their shapes. Small stones, known as dream stones, are set into
the backs of chairs and hung on walls in garden pavilions. As objects for
contemplation, they can lead us, via the energy channels in their markings, to
pursue the Tao in our quest to be at one with the universe. (1)
in Japanese Zen gardens they are symbols
of mountains, rivers, waterfalls; on the coast of Matsura, there is a curious
shaped rock known as the Rock of Sayo-Hime, which story is about the Japanese
official’s wife who saw his ship disappear; she kept on gazing at the horizon
until she turned into this stone.
In Western literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells us a story of “The Great Stone Face”, that “was a work of Nature in her mod of majestic playfulness, formed on the perpendicular side of a mountain by some immense rocks, which had been thrown together in such a position as, when viewed at a proper distance, precisely to resemble the features of the human countenance. (…) True it is, that if the spectator approached too near, he lost the outline of the gigantic visage, and could discern only a heap of ponderous and gigantic rocks, piled in a chaotic ruin one upon another. Retracing his steps, however, the wondrous features would again be seen; and the farther he withdrew from them, the more like a human face, with all its original divinity intact, did they appear; until, as it grew dim in the distance, with the clouds and glorified vapor of the mountains clustering about it, the Great Stone face seemed positively to be alive.” (2)
In Amerindian cosmology there is a
spirituality in landscape based on the concept of emanation: the original (non
formal) unity is eternally divided in itself and begins the degradation to
other inferior degrees of (formal) units; in other words from the spiritual to
the physical. “This primal substance must
“precede” the rest of creation in order to establish a basis, or boundary,
which for us Is manifested in stone or rock, the “outer limit” of materiality.”
(2)
And at least I should mention, one of
the most important cultural British icons, Stonehenge (3000 BC-2000 BC), a
monumental arrange of stones set in earthworks.
(1) Gill Hale. The Practical Encyclopedia of Feng Shui. Feng Shui Principles in the Garden. P. 140. London, 2007
(2) Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Great Stone
Face and Other Tales of the White Mountains. 1882
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1916/1916-h/1916-h.htm
(3) Arthur Versluis. Sacred Earth. The
Spiritual Landscape of Native America. Foundations. Wakan, Orenda, Manitou. P.
17. USA. 1992
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