I come from a place where the official motto is
Urbs in horto...City in a garden. In Chicago terms, that's translated into an extensive public parks system (pretty much one for every neighborhood with several large-scale parks "anchoring" the city's downtown and north, south, and west sides) and miles and miles of beaches and lakefront. You might also add to the
Urbs in horto vision that giant lake called Michigan which borders Chicago--even though the lake was here long before the city was a dream in any pioneer or planner's mind. You should also include the Chicago River, the multiple smaller lakes and rivers that bound the Chicago area, the
remnants of original prairie and native flowers that have been fiercely reclaimed and preserved, and all the wildlife that you find in and around the city--from our urban coyotes to our summer fireflies to our ubiquitous
suburban squirrels, raccoons, possums, skunks, bats, bunnies, foxes, and family pets.
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Skyscrapers of Chicago viewed from prairie wildflower garden in Lincoln Park |
That's a lot of nature. Much more than folks around the world who've never been to Chicago likely realize. It's
not quite the concrete jungle and gangster playground non-Chicagoans imagine it to be.
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Graffiti in alley in Lincoln Square, Chicago |
I mention all this because I was gonna begin this post with some cliches about how "we" (whoever that is) tend to forget, ignore, or take for granted the cycles of nature and life that surround us in this comfort and technology-worshiping day and age. I suppose by "we" I was thinking of people who live in urban and suburban areas in developed countries. Not that I buy into the notion that city or suburban people are disconnected from nature, but I've known a few gloomy, judgmental types who've tried to sell such a notion to me. I've been told by these sad folks that I come from an "artificial" culture and country--plastic, corporate, materialistic, sterile, yada yada--and I'm guessing the evidence for this lies in Americans' appreciation for stuff like air conditioning and grocery stores and life-saving vaccines and antibiotics and roomy cars. I wonder would it matter to the folks who have such a low opinion of the place I come from (whether they're talking the U.S. or Chicago or suburbia) that while I write this I sit in a coffee shop, yes, corporate-owned, with a parking lot full of cars...that's well interspersed with trees full of leaves newly and vibrantly colored by the changing of summer into fall as well as half a dozen plots of wildflowers? Does it matter that right across the street is a farmers' market bustling with suburbanites stocking up on late-summer and early-fall fruits and vegetables, home-made pies, jams, and hummuses, and locally raised and butchered meats? It's a market held every Sunday from late spring to late fall, and if you miss this one
there are other farmers' markets on every and any day of the week in nearly every suburb and neighborhood in Chicago--including downtown, right smack dab in the middle of all the skyscrapers. Hell, they even
grow and hawk vegetables on top of the buildings in downtown Chicago. Meanwhile, last night I witnessed a stand-off between a skunk and a raccoon in my backyard, and later tonight as I finish this post I'll write to the song of crickets and cicadas that drown out the hum of late-night traffic and freight trains that run through my town. So much for the picture of a plastic and artificial American landscape.
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Summer gardens in Lincoln Park, Chicago |
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The city in a garden? In the courtyard at the Fourth Presbyterian Church on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago |
Yes, this part of the American landscape, Chicago, is a big, brawling city of crime and corruption and corporations...and a Midwestern city of farmers' markets and bountiful local food and green spaces and four kinds of seasons and all the fine and fierce weather that comes with them. A heartland city. Once upon a time, not that long ago,
this city was the nation's hub for everything a farmer could raise and sell and grow and mine in the U.S. Everything that came into this city went back out to everywhere else in the country. Chicago, like nature, worked year-round to keep the exchange going, the cycle turning--but it roared loudest and throbbed strongest during the harvest season. Years ago, the stockyards and many of the original transport systems in Chicago that were supported by this national exchange of nature's bounty were demolished or dismantled and erased from the city's landscape. The city was "cleaned up," prettified. But the cycle continues in new forms of exchange and transport, as well as new forms of expression and appreciation, such as the ubiquitous farmers' markets and parks and the city's experiments in high-rise and
restaurant rooftop gardens. This is not a city that tries to hide its middle American cowtown roots--in fact it wears its mucky, Midwestern roots on its sleeve, lets the world see how a heartland town can thrive and succeed and support a nation, leaves its roots to spread and anchor all forms of industry and creativity in the city, and keeps coming back, keeps surviving and evolving, even as other once-great Midwestern cities and former cowtowns fall into bankruptcy and misguided scrambles at revisionism and reinvention.
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Beaches of Chicago's north side viewed from the Hancock Building |
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Bridge over the Chicago River in downtown Chicago |
I wish people outside Chicago, and outside the U.S., understood this better. I wish they knew how important, special, and amazing Chicago is. I wish as I traveled I got less people asking me questions like if we eat or have access to fresh vegetables where I come from or if I ever swam in a natural body of water before traveling to a seacoast. I wish the world knew more about Chicago's garden-city roots and less about its gun-violence rates. Not that Chicago and the world should ignore the city's problems any more than is already the case. I just wish there could be a more balanced view, one that reflects the daily life and connections to both nature and culture that Chicagoans--and Illinoisans and Midwesterners--of all backgrounds cultivate and enjoy. People in the poor neighborhoods in Chicago appreciate when the sun is bright and the sky is blue and feel the changing of the seasons, just as people in the wealthy neighborhoods do. People in the "sterile" suburbs hit the beaches in the summer, go to farmers' markets and orchards in the fall, build snowmen in the winter, fall in love in the spring. So do people on the "gritty" south side. We all contribute and we are all connected--it's the Chicago way. The
genuine Chicago way. Don't let anyone convince you different.
Maybe what Chicago needs to clarify its vital importance and deep connection to the American landscape and environment is some place where people can see just how it all works, how it all comes together. Another park maybe, another garden, that locals and tourists alike can visit to learn about the Chicago life-cycle. Some place designed by someone who cares equally about the city's nature and culture, and who can figure out how the two meet and make the city (and the U.S.) what it is today. Some place with beauty and a sense of humor, a good dose of whimsy as well as wisdom, and an inclusive and friendly spirit.
There's a place like this in Ireland that I visited recently. A place where I learned a great deal about Ireland and its Celtic past and present. And about the part the seasons and the natural world played in shaping Irish culture long ago, and how contemporary culture in Ireland can re-engage with nature and the environment to inspire new generations. The place is called
Brigit's Garden. It's in the west of Ireland, near the village of Moycullen, about 20 minutes from the city of Galway. I visited Brigit's Garden with a
small tour group of women the morning after most of our group arrived in Ireland from overseas. Their arrival was immediately followed by a busy afternoon walk around Galway City. Brigit's Garden turned out to be the best place to go to for recovering from a long flight and a leap into a loud, bustling city. Peaceful, lovely, imaginative, colorful--Brigit's Garden was designed as much for delighting in nature and enjoying oneself in a natural setting as for education and contemplation about the environment and Irish history. Our group enjoyed a walk around the Celtic gardens, a tea and scone break, and a special workshop on
making traditional Brigid's crosses.
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Cutting the ends off a Brigid's cross at Brigit's Garden |
We went to Brigit's Garden because I'd wanted the group of women to learn more about Brigid, one of the 3 patron saints of Ireland and perhaps the central feminine figure in all of Irish culture and history. Everyone around the world already knows plenty about Patrick, the saint most associated with Ireland...so much so that he gets a national holiday while Brigid gets none. Brigit's Garden seemed like the perfect place for
learning about Brigid--about who she was and what she's meant to the Irish people.
My group did indeed learn about Brigid, and so much more. We learned about the seasons as they were celebrated in Celtic Ireland, about the life of Brigid and her lasting influence on Irish Christianity, about the role of the "divine feminine" before Christianity in Ireland, about how Ireland's natural resources have traditionally been used in both the practical and creative arts and how they were used in designing and creating Brigit's Garden. Brigit's Garden has been open to the public since 2004, though the idea of it came to its founder, Jenny Beale, back in 1997.
Jenny describes her vision for Brigit's Garden as "to create special gardens where people could reflect and relax in beautiful surroundings, and also to provide imaginative environmental education for all ages."
The plan was built according to a design by landscape designer Mary Reynolds, who incorporated traditional materials and stories with a contemporary twist into her design. The result is a place of woods and meadows, rushes and ring forts, apple trees and wishing trees, standing stones and basket swings, ancient bog oak sculptures, thyme-covered earthen mounds, a thatched roundhouse, a crannog, a giant dancing woman, a grassy sleeping woman, and a lovers' hollow encircled by wildflowers and crowned by the western Irish sky and stars.
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Wishing trees in the Bealtaine (May) garden |
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A sculpture made of 5,000-year-old bog oak representing the flames of love in the Bealtaine garden. Bealtaine is the traditional fire festival in the Celtic calendar |
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In the Samhain (Winter) garden, a woman made of bronze leaves rests in the shelter of an island, awaiting her rebirth at Imbolc (Spring) |
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That's not a mere mound. That's the resting head of the giant sleeping woman at Brigit's Garden, snuggled on the earth in front of the thatched roundhouse for the Samhain (Winter) season |
It was Jenny Beale herself who led us around the Celtic seasonal gardens, explaining to us the significance of its design.
Everything in the gardens, everything on the grounds, has a story, and every story has a meaning that is reflected in its design. You could say that Brigit's Garden is a wholly organic space, in that everything in it and about it has been inspired by the places in mind where nature and culture meet. The overall story that Brigit's Garden tells is the story of Ireland and of Celtic culture, of creation and endurance, of birth, life, death, and rebirth, of constant renewal. It's only fitting that Brigit's Garden has taken a feminine figure of Irish/Celtic history for its name, as the story of Ireland that it tells has a very feminine slant to it. This is not the history book's story of Ireland--a linear, masculinist tradition of dates and decrees, and texts and timelines, heavy on the tragedies and heavy on the heroes (nearly all men of course). This is the earth's story of Ireland, a cyclical story of how the land has shaped the culture and how the culture has shaped what the land has given.
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Jenny Beale explains the 3 faces of Brigit in the Imbolc (Spring) garden |
For me, it's a story of Ireland that makes more sense, in that it's a story you can feel yourself fitting into, literally. Ireland's history is a very long one, and many of its traditions are very old. In many other places in Ireland that tell the story of the country, for example in many museums or folk parks, it can be easy to feel very remote and distant from what you're learning about, even if you find it interesting. There's a disconnection when looking at a document on a wall or a re-creation beyond a barrier or an artifact behind plated glass. (And forget about the silliness of seeing actors in costumes wandering around old-timey-looking villages.) At Brigit's Garden you walk amongst the stories and are invited to interact with the design and displays as if you were walking across your own backyard. You can pick one of the pears or apples, swing in the baskets, seat yourself on the ancient bog oak throne, run down the aisle of standing stones, brush your hands over the beds of herbs and take the smells of the garden with you, gather rushes for a Brigid's cross, leave a wish on the wishing trees, lie in
Diarmuid and Grainne's (uncharacteristically) grassy bed. You can come back at different times, different seasons, and see how the gardens change and take on new meanings with each visit. No matter when you visit, you leave a place like this feeling calm and connected.
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A wayfaring woman claims her place at the bog oak and yew throne and hearth in the Bealtaine garden |
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A wishing tree and the grassy hollow where lies the bed for the mythical lovers Diarmuid and Grainne |
It's a magical place. And the world needs more places like it. Even Chicago, for all its impressive parks and well-planned gardens, could do with its own sort of Brigit's Garden. Perhaps a place that tells the story of Chicago and its connection to the heartland, a place designed with equal parts big-city gusto and Second-City humor, a place of prairie flowers, cowtown roots, lake breezes, and concrete sculpture. What would a place dedicated to the Chicago life-cycle look like? Or is the whole city itself the place I'm looking for, the place of vision, the
urbs in horto come to life? Maybe I need to simply look at my hometown with new eyes, with eyes refreshed by the vision that inspired Brigit's Garden. I would love to feel as connected to the city of my birth and the land that shaped it as I did in lovely Brigit's Garden way across the Atlantic Sea.