angelagnsmith's Journal

Stare At The Japanese Lamp - Feng Shui
''The lantern is present in all places''. That is likely to be a rash assertion! Yet the obliquitous lantern is present in a stroll backyard within an Imperial Villa or a courtyard backyard in a non-public residence. I feel the lantern gives great symbolism in a Japanese garden. The lantern presents a lightweight source and a vertical picture (Yang). The lantern suggests mild after dark and illumination of an object worthy of reflection. The lantern guides the best way and offers the area's vacancy something of life (Yang) and substance. It has meaning. The lantern dissociated from vegetation and living things, from the mosses and grasses and the Azaleas and densely clipped shrubs of Kyoto.

The lantern comes in so many shapes and sizes. Little doubt each form represents a history and legacy steeped into time. And regardless of the website requires little question a lantern style will be found to fill that space. Some lanterns no more than 30cm in peak and others seen in Kyoto up to 1.6-1.eight metres tall. There must be lantern factories somewhere. Smaller lanterns seen closer to the pathway and larger ones set into the distance. Maybe set onto the ground within a clump of trees to accentuate change.

Lantern constructed usually of stone or marble and containing a hood. A heart for the location of the flame, a stem to elevate it from the ground and a base for attachment. It maybe three sided, 4 sided coned hood, pyramid hood, circular or rectangular stem, single leg or treble leg. Suggesting the lantern gives a flexible inclusion to a Japanese styled garden.

However why is it a vital inclusion? To information the visitor alongside a pathway after nightfall? To view from a distance to symbolise? To radiate mild onto water for reflection or a plant or pebble or stone? Is the lantern a Yang intrusion so as to add life after dark (and the Yin world of darkness)? Is the lantern a symbol of life or inclusion of human intervention upon a setting?

The lantern gives Yang to cut back the dominance of Yin. The white circle in the black. The fireplace to defend from the cold. The life to enlighten and vitalise from the dark. The lantern to me holds a symbolic place and has practicalities. Yes I'm a harmonious chi gardener and I am going to imagine all that.

The lantern is perfect . It gives Yang in a Yin environment. The lantern postures. It represents timeliness. Evening and day, yr after year. It transcends time and its physical construction and design completely attune to the climate of Japan by offering a hood for the snow and ice and a roof and partitions to protect the flame. The lantern can sit beside a pond, in the pond, within a corner of the backyard, alongside a pathway. I wouldn't find it the place the sha (detrimental) power can extinguish it e.g., exposed on a hill in a gully or swamp the place the constant damp will extinguish the flame or if utilized in a low place lifted above it on a pedestal to turn into a beacon much like a lightweight on a seashore guiding ships at sea.

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