Murin-an Periodical
This is the information program of Murin-an Garden.
It provides information on Japanese gardens, invitations to events that help foster the garden and seasonal highlights.
The name of this periodical is Sara-Sara News.
What does “sara-sara” mean? In Japanese, this word is used to evoke a gentle rustle or murmuring sound in nature. We have adopted it from a passage in a poem by Yamagata Aritomo, Murin-an’s original owner. It reads
At the end of a water stream/That murmurs gently as it travels hidden beneath the shade of trees/I see a fish leap
We chose this publication’s title to reflect our hope that, like the ceaseless flow of the murmuring brook flowing around Murin-an, the encounters here will produce a current toward nurturing Japanese gardens for the future.
Oct-Nov 2017 Issue
Murin-an is a representative work among Japan’s modern gardens and has been designated as one of Japan’s Places of Scenic Beauty. In 1896, elder statesman Yamagata Aritomo constructed by communicating to Ogawa Jihei VII his idea for a garden incorporating water from the recently completed Lake Biwa Canal and using the Higashiyama Mountains as its center point. This same Murin-an garden is now being restored according to preservation policies that stay faithful to Yamagata’s original design intention. In this issue, we shall introduce the restoration efforts being made for the garden path.
Deep inside the Murin-an garden, where the scenery changes with each step, there is a small pathway that extends from the maple forest grove to the pond. Until now, this path had been closed, but thanks to the recent restoration, visitors can now walk along it down to the pond shore. If you walk to the end of the garden path, you can see many important elements of the garden. For this season of autumn colors, we have brought another new maple-surrounded scene back to life.
Gardener’s View
A way to look at autumn leaves that only gardeners know about.
Wouldn’t knowing this be sure to make autumn more fun?
On the garden path stretching from the main house of Murin-an to the lawn area, there is a small path just beyond the water-crossing stones that heads a little off to the side. Try walking to the end of it as you pass by. As you gaze upon the waterfall at the end of the garden, a scene with an incredible feeling of depth unfolds before your eyes. The secret behind this depth is the several layers of autumn leaves stretching out in front of the waterfall. Not only do you get the feeling of spatial depth, but you can even feel the depth of time as you contemplate the many autumn seasons that have come and gone here. Such scenery is produced only by properly considering the role played by each and every branch in the overall scene. Now this is the technique of a true gardener. As you continue noticing other things, you will see a number of spatial compositions that produce a feeling of depth by positioning the autumn foliage branches in front. This is an important technique seen not only at Murin-an, but commonly used for garden trees in Japanese gardens.
Try focusing a little on things like these on an autumn day stroll. It will add another thing to enjoy during your visit to the garden.
