Learn about Japanese healing gardens as havens for peace and well-being. Renowned experts Hoichi Kurisu and Michiko Kurisu will guide you through the history, philosophy and design principles of these exquisite landscapes, revealing how their elements — from stone formations and plants, to cascading waterfalls — cultivate mindfulness and instill tranquility by engaging our senses.
Contributions to the Lebanon Community Hospital Foundation Healing Garden Endowment are always greatly appreciated. Your donations help to maintain our three Healing Gardens and continue offering enriching programs about them.
[Music] wow only 1100 square ft Courtyard started growing this much I couldn’t believe it but thank you for nice introduction it’s Brandy one things I like to introduce my youngest daughter when I uh Miss uh commissioned the substantial job in morami in Florida that 1999 N I needed help and I know she’s graduating Brown University and uh do we have a job come help me and one half years signed the contract I should get kicked up my or next about 2 three years but now 25 years working I cannot get rid of her but anyway uh has been 25 years side by side walk with me and what my mission is our company Mission is she’s the one understanding right now so some work some uh about the Japanese garden tell you [Applause] tonight um for the record I did have a job right after graduating from college but I quit it to come work with my father because I thought it would be the only chance I had in my life to spend a year and a half working with him um but like he said it’s been a long time and um you know if the job description had said professional sidekick for 25 years I don’t know if I would have taken it but I am really fortunate to be here today with him and to have been a part of kurisu’s evolution itself and every major project in the last 25 years my sister also works for the company and early on we realized that accidentally calling hoichi Papa in business meetings was not um professional and so we settled on HK and it was way easier for many Americans to pronounce and uh he already sounded famous like you know a tycoon like a Texas Tycoon HK so today HK and I will be tag teaming I will be uh offering some context and a little bit of history and HK will dig into design and philosophy when people hear what we do we make Japanese Gardens often they they say oh I love Japanese Gardens they’re so beautiful and I’m pretty sure that when they say that they don’t have this in mind the Wastewater Treatment Facility in Albany now you saw a lot of our work in the in the film you’ll see some of these pictures again it’s a huge facility uh has anyone been there to talking water oh wonderful it’s been a while for me but I uh I walked it shortly after we completed and um it was quite um quite a project um for those of you who don’t know um there’s uh conventional Wastewater treated before it’s released into a natural treatment system where um the Wetland cells mimic the environment so you are actually further cleaning and cooling the water um adding good nutrients to it before it’s released into the the river and I believe as The Story Goes we never thought we would be there either that um the the Visionary behind Talking water uh Gardens Diane taniguchi Dennis had heard that something was going on here and in fact it I believe it was this Garden that was under construction and drove over here to see what this healing Garden business was about and HK was having lunch and saw a City truck kind of you know patrolling around and tried to hide he thought maybe he was in trouble um but it turned into a really wonderful collaboration uh she you know she got him and um we ended up designing about seven or eight waterfalls for um this area if you’ve been there you’ve seen different um destinations um sculpting pathways and um Bridges one Wetland led to another Diane moved up to Forest Grove invited us to their uh their new facility a 700 acre Wetland uh which if you haven’t been I I encourage you to go it’s also lovely and um teeming with life 5 million gallons a day of water are treated conventionally and also released into this natural treatment system we designed um corridors so you know the open area you’ve seen is pretty pretty expansive and flat uh we were brought in to do um a coridor entry that was a little more intimate a different experience and something called a water garden which also included waterfalls to air rate and further cool the water as well as provide a different experience for visitors coming to this destination so how did we get here how did we get to um you know from from Japanese Gardens from beautiful Japanese Gardens to Wastewater facilities um the the answer I think um lies a little bit in our smallest Garden it’s actually tiny we were honored hoichi and I were honored to um to consult with Legos um creative team uh I grew up with Legos I don’t know I see there’s there’s many generations here but you know Legos are awesome and the Legos I grew up with didn’t look like this but they were doing a tranquil garden and you know 10999 seems kind of um steep I would say for for a Lego set but actually in this series the icon series it’s like moderately priced so an Atari console is like $230 something dollars and if you want to go crazy you can get the Titanic set for for over $600 so the Garden is like mid-range and I actually did the math for a Japanese garden like a real one it’s it’s a pretty reasonable price per square inch and it’s especially especially reasonable considering how generous Lego was in Con in in giving you all these features you have a pagoda and cherry trees there’s a tea house that you can’t or tea ceremony thing you can’t really see but there’s a lot in there we would not normally design a garden like this but it it makes you wonder how how did Lego come up with this tranquil garden and I think it’s because these are features that are associated with Japanese Gardens they’re they’re stereotypical of Japanese Gardens they’re the things we often love to see but to really understand what the Japanese garden is and how it gets tapped how a little Japanese garden design and build company gets tapped for a 700 acre Wetland and a tiny Lego Garden you have to look beyond the forms so beyond just features to principles of gardens there are several words for garden meaning Garden in the Japanese language T is one of them and in this word in these two Kani you see an inherent Duality that really uh sits at the the fundamental um heart of Japanese Gardens territory or wild nature and bordered fields or controlled manipulated nature a reverence for nature for wild Nature has been part of the Japanese Collective Consciousness for many many many years before organized religion the ropes that you see tying these little Islands they demarcate sacredness so even before much recorded history uh the the Japanese the people on the islands were actually uh recognizing Kami or Divine forces gods that would inhabit nature and in fact they inhabited everything animate and inanimate but sacred trees sacred rocks they would be marked by these beautiful rice straw ropes called shimawa and sometimes and this is almost the earliest form of garden perhaps they would clear land in the forest and uh Place White Pebbles there to Mark a Sacred Space there are places in Japan you can still see this so where we’re going with this is that Japanese Gardens are an art and they’re an art that’s been evolved for over a thousand years what you have out there is part of a thousand over a thousand Year tradition of art evolving we’re going to take a little brief dive through history with the lens of Japanese Gardens what we see is that this art like any other art has developed over time in response to many many influences culture politics economic Trends and throughout the centuries we see distinct Garden Styles appearing some Innovations but all the time all through the years they are responding to the owners and the society the owners of the gardens and the Society of the time so hon period was um aristocracy um all about the aristocracy they had copied Chinese uh nobility culture and it was this time of the art flourishing they had developed a um a form of writing and they wrote like crazy they wrote poems like crazy like if you wanted uh a promotion and you wrote a really good poem it might get you a promotion um there was a lot of flirting going on because it was relatively peaceful right and due to the architecture and the Norms of separating men and women we get the world’s first novel The Tale of Genji written by Murasaki shikibu a woman from the the court and it’s pretty racy and we’re lucky that she also described the gardens in detail because none of them actually exist today but they do recreate them um it’s I think I don’t know this for sure but I would say it’s kind of like the Shakespeare Festival where you know you want to go live that time again so people dress up and this is um basically a drinking game it’s recreating a a cute little creek where saki floats down the creek you’ve got to write a poem before it gets to you I don’t I’m not sure how that works out in the end but uh people love the hon period just because the Arts were were amazing and there’s such great literature and poems that come from it so this is a screen recreating the um some scenes from The Tale of Genji and you can see the shinden architecture with these wings uh uh flowing out uh really defined how the gardens were they were Gardens meant to be viewed by boat um or from a fixed position mostly you know eventually all that loveliness uh and flirting came to an end and the military government Rose to power so for the next few hundred years Japan was in massive turmoil like Wars um this is when you get the Shoguns and you get feudal fighting um it’s really there’s it’s a really destructive period of time and um we get three types of gardens even despite all of this going on we get three distinct new types of gardens the the Warlords were interest were interested in showing their power right and Glory Gardens got more aere and often they were built on the former Estates of the hon period nobility but you see a shift um also pure land Buddhism became popular and this religion promised a spot in the Western Paradise of amid Buddha so if you’re uh you know going to war every day that’s that’s sounds good and the gardens became um mirrors of the Paradise Gardens a little bit later you get one of the greatest leaps in Japanese design history right the ultimate abstraction so the dry Rock Garden or zen garden you often see um with super modern architecture these days but actually it’s ancient it’s an ancient form of Japanese garden design the third design innovation in this period was uh the Tea Garden and there’s a lot to say about this but just know that it’s a unique style it’s highly detailed um and while tea was being uh enjoyed previously it wasn’t until the later part of this period that The Rustic intimate Tea Garden developed the one that we know today in tea culture so where does it leave us we’re right around the Ado period and Ado period uh remember everybody’s fighting in Japan for hundreds of years finally Tokugawa yasu F finally manages to unify everybody sort of and the ID period becomes um an era of of relative peace and isolation the capital moves and one of the great things we get are these big pond and stroll Gardens the the Dio the feudal Lords were required to build these and it was pretty clever the the main guy was trying to make sure they were otherwise occupied not putting their finances into uprisings but they had to build Gardens like imagine if the president of the United States called all of the state capitals and said hey you guys you all have to build huge extravagant Gardens like right now it would be wonderful and they’d probably still exist today right and maybe there would be less fighting I I don’t know it’s worth trying um but that’s what happened with these and many of these troll Gans survived and you can visit them today um the adal period also had uh a lot of stratification right so in Social ranking and the merchant class became wealthy the cities became dense and you got these teeny weeny Gardens called subwa right so even if you have a tiny narrow house in a dense City you can build a garden with a courtyard enter the modern era so Japan had been isolated for about 200 years and uh more than 200 years and um eventually they were forced to open their doors the Commodore Perry rocks up and says you know we’re coming back you you better be ready and the modern era becomes this um import export uh of Japanese culture and Gardens become one of the main export Commodities World Fair start and the Japanese realized they’ve had their doors closed to the world for so long they they had no idea how much had gone on outside they were a little behind you know in industrialization and um a lot of things modern so they did have Gardens and they did have architecture and that’s what they showed the world all over the world the rest of modern history proceeds forward right with modernization and one of the next big design styles to emerge is after World War II so the the bomb has dropped on Hiroshima the war ends and Zi Nona which you saw in the video is the tradition that haichi comes out of this is a style that’s very naturalistic it’s using native plants partly because there’s not that much other stuff available right the country’s been destroyed in many places so we’ll talk more about zoki Nona later but suffice it to say that a naturalistic trend is coming into Japanese Gardens this is an example you can see it’s looser there’s there’s more of a a relaxed feeling and then because Western and Japanese culture were going both ways this Garden is actually in Japan and you have a western style house rose gardens and a Japanese garden Japanese Gardens are made by a designer and it seems obvious here because we have HK but many people don’t realize that they think Japanese Garden is like a cultural thing that just happens it represents Japan it’s an art there’s a designer and often they’re they’re artists they’re expressing themselves in relation to what their environment is and often the changes so you see crazy things like no Greenery you know metal Gardens um experimentation with materials and new geometries and of course postwar we got friendship Gardens and there’s many many friendship Gardens you all probably know of some um that exist throughout uh the United States and around the world and finally we’re back at zok Nona this style became the dominant style the mainstream style postwar and it remains so today um the thing about zoki Nona is it was bringing Comfort to super stressed out Japanese why were they stressed out they had to modernized so fast traditional life was destroyed the family structures were destroyed people were moving to the cities and working in factories so the stresses of Modern Life really uh helped zoki Nona become a style of gardening that people wanted they really wanted to relax and ironically that’s exactly what this is for too so maybe the most modern material plastic right understands that it’s not really about culture it’s about trying quility it’s about relaxation Lego is marketing this as a mindful activity why because they know that Wellness the wellness economy is massive 5.6 trillion dollars is the global economy and what this is what these numbers come from is like anything from a detox smoothie to a yoga mat or mental health services and pretty much everything in between associated with Wellness so um there’s a wide net but it’s all things that we are willing to spend money on to be well so that seems to indicate either we’re just like tremendous consumers around the world which is probably true but also that we feel deeply unwell as a population so the idea of healing Gardens is is not new right healing Gardens and time in nature is is part of this Wellness economy and it’s an idea that’s as old as as our history you know 3,000 BC the Chinese were tapping medicinal plants you know the ancient Greeks built Gardens in honor of their God of healing and even in the 1800s there was one of the first programs developed here in the United States through a Quaker hospital that was using plants therapeutically because they found that um patients in Mental Health Institute seemed calmer and better when they worked out in the fields Florence Nale noticed it so we have this intuitive connection to Nature and you know somebody like uh eio Wilson posits the biophilia you know hypothesis that we have this intuitive desire to a like have an affinity with with living things and science is trying trying to figure out is that true and how and if that’s true are there places and designs that are more effective than others at making us feel great right Rachel and Steven Kaplan environmental psychologists they uh dug into this and they kind of explored three questions is this Affinity real how does it work and are some patterns in nature better than others there is a ton of scientific research out there and more every day as we become an urban population we’re going to be majority Urban population on this planet uh soon and uh often that means less access to Nature what we know is there’s some really clear benefits stress reduction is huge that is such a a fundamental benefit of healing Gardens positive distraction pain mitigation faster recovery times from certain surgeries was a famous research study and then positive changes in biometric things so we know that nature Works in even in short times but what does a healing Garden look like right we are not here to tell you that Japanese Gardens have a monopoly on healing garden design they can look like many things but the healing Garden concept cept is two things right the garden is a thing a place and healing is a process and what we find is that uh there’s a lot of effort spent on thinking about design and what to use and where to put it and proportions you know of Pathways and slopes and that’s important but before that can be effective you have to address how you perceive space and again the Kaplin tried to figure out what kind of space makes us feel the best what kind of space that we perceive through our cognitive processes can make us feel the best they talk about attention so if you think of when you get burned out driving in traffic or um you know multitasking or in meetings that are driving you nuts your directed attention is getting uh is getting burned out right involuntary attention is the kind of attention that you uh engage when you look at wind through the trees or a butterfly flying by and they found that there are certain types of environments that actually restore your ability to function with directed attention when it’s burned out they discovered that it’s through our cognitive processes we can reach that that feeling of restoration so it may not be so much which environment you’re in but more how you perceive your environment we know that in a busy cluttered office maybe you’re stressed out maybe you’re not so cool with your co-workers there’s a lot of things going on that make you feel ill at ease and when you look at a forest walking through the forest there’s something just intuitively easy about it it’s welcoming right they’re both complex environments but one of them just feels naturally better so uh HK is really the designer and he is going to tell you how Japanese Gardens handle this Duality between uh design and perception [Applause] well I’m looking at all your fa is so serious are you okay shall I stand up one one minute or one 30 second yeah thank you the because I asked you is uh I have to talk a little bit serious maybe you might sleep so actually is a healing Garden is uh dealing with space Nature’s space over 60 years our landscape Mission has been to create for the people our space to effect Oneness with nature based on Japanese garden landscape principle that’s the our mission in order to understand that space so I like to ask you understand few things there some mass is involved normally of course 1 + 1 equal 2 2 + 1 = 3 of course but in the Japanese way of landscape or other uh art form is 2 + 1 is not a three that’s not the number that’s the space between those three item this is showing the Border setting if somebody ask me set for me the three borders I never set like a left hand side that’s the western style and the three three of them is the same way and uh um this be among the three borders among the three item that space is that we are dealing with it’s not the item the space Tre is the same way and uh one things is different is any tree has a something try to move something Direction the direction or Force you might say to utilize the force creating the space this is uh the top one is H you must say pine tree and uh bottom part is this is just Maple or something like that is it’s not the tree not the borders the space this the space understanding is lead to your heart is different Consciousness Japanese people as you know is a symmetrical is in a number and triangle is most of the art form in Japan is fundamentally to use that method uh this is a flow Arrangement it’s not gorgeous but if you look at is the balance somehow is a Harmony you feel the that’s not the moon that’s the space showing here and same way sorry triangle you start to catch the beauty any the garden any FL Arrangement you are starting understanding of this the space that’s in order to understanding is we have to work on our Consciousness from this method it’s this is a maybe you have been on Anderson Garden Illinois I have I had to work about 38 years this Garden talking about about this kind of space don’t stick to the triangle scaring triangle but when you looking at it’s a balance it the Beautiful the space is the creator or Japanese art ikim uh the teacher or student is arranging is not really measuring each item with feeling is a your sense is creating the space that space is successfully done you feel are that’s not you are talking about the uh the white fling tree or BHA know that space is affecting inner sense how the inner sense to achieve to understand is uh like a um silence is a math we understand the math it doesn’t work now is a silence silence is I take Shadow off from outside of the noise World noise then be silence then you can start to understand to understand to be silent silence is another chore we have Japanese people really like the bow how how much deeper you put the heads down is much more you are sincere is humble actually it’s not that way there doing that but sometime yes and uh or is a Japanese Gardens principle has each tools to become silent from outside of the world bridage usually sure is a major in a public garden or Japanese Garden or any even the private like to have a bridge because we in order to try to cross cross the bridge that moment if you are thinking that that’s I’m going to different area now I’m going to new place to see something is you you put up everything what you have in your inside is a left leave the before cross that kind of psychological effect to the people but inside but not one time we cannot do it but that’s the one of the tools also and the gate is sure we have a gate in Japanese here too little small one but later on I like to show you but down and this is the Monami the left hand side the morami is Anderson and the morami is another South Gate more gate but it’s a gate is when you go into the gate through the gate it’s you have in your mind some people looking at the top it’s have the made it or something like that but it’s again you are going through new are ER which another tools loosen up to drop your world concern and you know what you have in your mind pathway another one so Japanese garden every step has designed to shake off your world opinion angry hatred everything to one by one leave around gradually become silence silence means is more you don’t hear the noise it’s really starting to hear real things that’s Japanese garden does that it’s a pathway another pathway is a is a psychologically that you you know you going to the fin is what is it or anticipation that thought that’s not the world thought it’s something you are expecting something that moment you have world the thought is angry or hatred or jealousy or anything you are not thinking that little things but [Music] is when you go passway going through turn and one rocks that stick out and looks like looks like inviting Something Something There to suggesting again your mind is let’s go see there see that kind of thought so many Japanese G has it it’s a m is another one it’s a little bit you can see but not clearly see it that’s anticipation or curious that thought those kind of thought also another your noise drop off you can see is a cross by is there a the the pass is banding around it’s to try to invite you kind anxious to see that it’s a the stepping stone is in Japanese garden is a I say to even the my crew is almost equal value of cell phone H because the stepping stone never straight like this you have to you have to step by step step forward is you are Center you are not thinking anything else you have to be Center there and be become yourself and then turn is a bigger Stone there usually stop look at usually CIA or Dang or something to look at and then proceed another one to so the stepping stone is a one of the nice tools become yourself Asim ashimoto is this the bottom of the foot is a lanton is the Western Way is to show how much expensive rang I have here look at but Japanese healing point of view is hide purposely partially hide that’s Grace to teach you another shaking your worldly thought waterfall this is a Japanese Gardens uh Heavenly fall um most of the time when the water waterfall is the main uh you know the the the scenary in the garden most of the people think and they don’t want to hide the waterfall but this Japanese Garden or healing uh method is hide not the entirely but hide of course this one another interpretation is little makes that depth of that but it’s much more uh humility is a showing that this is a previous MOS picture show that but it’s you can see Far Side of the Mountain is that not belong here the far end but when you look at the Garden here is the mountain is belong to this Garden which you are you know where I am the wonderful distance one one wonderful is why the world I am in some the suggestion of that and here and there we plant stim is a nice fragrant flowers I you know that that one is when go out to the garden and then the oh some nice fragrant is are where coming from that thought itself in your mind that that’s already some you are taking out that time you’re not thinking the political issue or your you know maybe sicknesses if ache that def me but you are not thinking World thought there so one by one Japanese or even you know the one step out that’s if you look and the carefully and uh which desire want to be is a silent is a many many tools otherwise is a scenary or the the place to relating to this effect based on that Mi show you what we have done not everything successful but we try to do is uh something [Applause] meaningful okay I’m taking the serious uh the serious scan here if anyone wants to stand up and shake out no you’re good okay so we’re going to show just a few Japanese uh kesu healing Gardens um I want to read a um something that a a landscape an American landscape architect named Mark Kean wrote he’s actually an expert in Japanese Gardens and has lived in Kyoto for for decades um he he wrote the Japanese garden is in a perilous situation and he’s writing about uh Gardens in Japan right now so remember the the long history we saw um over 1200 years of gardens being made and and evolving and innovating ating he writes that they are in a perilous situation its native habitat is being destroyed at an alarming rate to make room for tall modern more profitable buildings at best these buildings may have a forlorn scrap of a garden shoehorned into a corner in front even where there is space to be had there is some question whether the Japanese garden can keep Pace with society and still have meaning and purpose in the years to come overseas certainly the Japanese garden languishes as a cultural artifact or a museum piece sharing no cohesive tradition to give it a sense of belonging right you would think that there would be no Japanese Gardens but we want to show you how U while in Japan that may be a little bit true actually that’s a whole other conversation but here in the United States let’s just say North America Japanese Gardens are actually thriving and they are beginning in many ways especially the public ones like the ones you have here they’re beginning to find new purpose and engage in different ways Beyond culture so let’s look you have seen Anderson Gardens um this started as a backyard project a wealthy businessman loved Japanese stuff and he wanted a garden and it got bigger and he bought more properties it got bigger and bigger it became amazing he ended up making it a nonprofit gifting it to the city and it’s become this incredible cultural gem for Rockford Illinois it’s about 5 acres oh 15 Acres okay it’s it’s big and it’s very uh well-maintained it’s a place uh to see authentic Japanese culture amazing architecture built by uh Carpenters from from Tokyo who came and you saw pictures in the in the movie of them building the tea house with no Hardware this is Japanese joinery which is an art in itself so there’s places certainly to find solitude but Anderson Gardens has also embraced community in a big way in fact sometimes controversial there’s been webinars about whether you should have concerts in Japanese Gardens or not but in case anybody’s wondering about that remember that in the hon period and also Ado period especially where people were partying these Gardens were for parties right so what we’re doing today is maybe new for Japanese gardens uh recently but not that new in their long history Anderson Gardens is in many ways a microcosm of The evolutionary Arc if you will that public gardens outside of Japan some of the most successful are on and that goes from maybe first being a sister city or a backyard garden or a friendship Garden that may have gone into neglect because you know the the people who were interested in in the beginning they moved away or whatever it’s hard it’s hard to keep up the interest it’s so fun to build a garden and then like maintaining it is another thing right Anderson Gardens a has excellent um maintenance and that’s another that’s another lecture that’s a very interesting lecture how to maintain Gardens but the other thing they’ve done is understand that what they have is not just a Japanese garden that’s interesting for people who like Japanese culture but they have this incredible Health Care Resource they have a a wellness Hub and if you go to their website right on the top navigation you’ll see um this Wellness in nature right I I need my glasses yeah Wellness in nature and if you scroll down you see them educating you and they you see that they’re offering like this amazing amount of programming in the garden so Gardens until fairly recently Japanese Gardens were like Mark Kean said sort of Museum pieces right you go you walk around you look isn’t that pretty you take pictures and you go home but they’re becoming places where you go to eat to drink to enjoy to gather they’re getting activated and one of the biggest ways that they’re doing this is through Wellness so Anderson um also inspired another Garden in Rockford Illinois you saw also in the movie called Rose CR um this is a substance abuse treat Center for for young adults for for Youth and um what Rose CR uh figured out was this Garden could be an asset to their existing programming and encourage additional programming they uh when the weather permits this is Rockford Illinois they go walking through the gardens the groups of patients go walking through their Gardens um up to two times a day sometimes more and they have found that certain therapies they’ve always used that they know work you know journaling breathing um Talk therapies that they have sometimes become much more effective in a nature setting HK designed um special features for their program they’re a 12ep program 12-step recovery program so this uh waterfall has um 12 different Cascades and the patient there get to learn all of this about the garden we we also designed the garden right up close to the building so as you can see there’s lots of Windows um it’s it’s immersive even when you’re inside we did a uh kind of post occupancy survey questionnaire and I just I love this right have you have you been in a facility where you were made where you’re unable to go outside if so how did that make you feel yes like a psychopath right recovery is hard work is the Garden in any way helping you to recover if so how yes it’s calming and makes things make sense I feel like this is super profound teenagers can be profound right it’s so simple but isn’t that what everybody wants you just want things to make sense so this Garden is called the serenity garden and Rose CR has gathered together um a whole bunch of poems written by their patients and published a book and I want to share an excerpt from one of my favorites and it’s a poem that actually um opened my eyes into how Gardens can support recovery it’s it’s by Karina D the Serenity Gardens as you let yourself hear the birds along the water as you let your hair gently blow away from your face exposing you your anger melts away how can you be angry in a place made of beauty your sadness evaporates how can you be sad in a place so Serene you try to be indifferent but it’s hard not to care how can you not in a place made of Peace most importantly the loneliness in your heart is no longer loneliness but peace and for once in this world of Deceit hurt and sadness you feel okay to be with yourself you know the gardens are not here to hurt you lie to you or abandon you they’re not going anywhere and they return as surely as the seasons do by trusting their calmness Serenity you somehow trust yourself so loneliness and hope are um are a big deal for healing Gardens and we know that loneliness has become uh declared an epidemic um especially since um covid and lockdowns and lots of changes to social situations the morami gardens down in Del Beach Florida the one that um is responsible for me hanging out with this guy is a 17 acre um public park it’s part of the the Parks and Recs Department of Palm Beach County and uh just a quick little history uh it it was uh a result of a former Japanese farming Colony um around the early 1900s um they came to grow tomatoes and pineapples and ultimately failed for a number of reasons but one guy stayed on George morami and sorry that’s him on on the right the bottom right looking really Dapper um everybody else eventually left or moved away George morami stayed and donated his land to parks and rck it became the morami Japanese Gardens and you can stroll around about a mile of Pathways to different Gardens inspired by those different design era um that we talked about and haichi really designed this um very intentionally as a healing Garden for the world uh it was uh I think he mentioned the uh the turn of the Millennium actually there was a lot going on um we felt the world was particularly divisive you know 20 25 years ago we still felt that um people were looking for comfort and the morami became a place of a clinical study it was a study with the Florida Atlantic University School of Nursing and it was investigating investigating whether Garden walks Could Be an Effective intervention for depression among older adults and that was 55 and older in in Florida that’s like everybody so um you know it was a good place to do this study and um that’s it’s a really interesting study that um they they uh used guided imagery so they had three different groups and um the control was Art therapy which is a known um successful intervention for depression and uh the results were that all groups improved so Garden walking uh was proven in this study to be as effective as traditional interventions and I can tell you uh from uh firsthand experience that this program saved lives I was fortunate enough to um actually be in HK stand in he wasn’t in Florida and they wanted him to come to a reception for participants and you know if you ever go to a reception of um self or clinically diagnosed uh depressive people I can tell you it’s a weird vibe in the room um but at the end of the Gathering people had shared um their experiences both therapists who had been in the program with groups and individuals and there was not a dry eye in the room it was so powerful that um I am really grateful to have had that opportunity so it literally prevented uh suicide so when you think of healing Gardens as being sort of a soft thing or a complimentary thing to traditional medicine it’s true that they can be they can reduce stress they can keep you you know your heart healthy ithier um but they can literally save lives that study um was so successful that it continued to be funded for many years and the moromi has worked to reach out to over 40 organizations who could benefit from these Garden walks they continue to do that so let’s go from the subtropics the hot subtropics to a little bit closer um right here right across the street and I know most of you are familiar with this area but in case there’s a few who aren’t we’re looking at the uh Community Hospital across the street and that dense Green Spot is a healing Garden a public garden that anyone can access whether or not you’re a patient at the hospital right yes I think you can just walk right in this is the before and after and there are many people here who were involved in this project from the beginning people who actually inspired it and made it happen so I I just want to say thank you to all of those people as well because uh it’s an incredible project that um as you can see has um tremendous effect this is the site plan so when you go you’ll notice that you can walk all through the garden and still feel private there’s four distinct populations we design for the public on the bottom there um there’s the a corridor in the cafeteria going um around to the left is uh oh yeah going around to the left is the oncology Wing um you go up to the top there’s a cafeteria sorry I said that wrong didn’t I bottom birth wi left side oncology Wing um and the top is um the public Corridor with the cafeteria the right side is a teaching uh room um and all of those Gardens are designed specifically for those populations the middle you can walk through and enjoy privacy without bothering anybody else so don’t don’t hesitate go check it out more Japanese architecture steps and you know shelter is important here for sure you want to have lunch outside and it’s raining you need a good place to sit and you could just put a little you know Home Depot Hut up and people would still go and eat lunch there but in the Japanese garden every detail matters a lot of what HK was saying is about detail every single step and not just every single step but how you step right you can step you can March down a concrete path or you can be forced sort of gently forced to be mindful of the uneven stone that you’re walking on on Stepping Stones so in that regard you know this is the ceiling of where you can go eat lunch whether you’re looking up or looking down into a waterfall every detail matters we were um lucky to interview patients years ago here at the hospital and get more insight into how it was impacting people’s lives this is uh the garden right outside of the oncology Wing you see the the curved wall um this Garden uh as I think many of you know uh was award-winning the hosp the wing was awardwinning um the the garden gathered a lot of attention and it became such a positive influence in the hospital itself and the town that there was kind of a ripple effect and actually this ripple effect is is this right um for those of you who may not know this used to be a big grass field right just a field an open field in that first aerial you can look across the street and there’s nothing there but thanks to the spirit of the community and the design of the garden um many good things happened it inspired this entire campus that we are on today the colleges the amazing Hotel this place that we’re in and what was um I I dare I say like dying town at one point Lebanon was a dying town just like a lot of rural towns in America and all over the world when their industries that built them go away and there’s no employment people have to leave you know kids can’t stay there’s no place to to raise a family that what are you going to do the garden and all of the community that supported it played a huge role in revitalizing this town and not only that but that revitalization that ripple effect had another ripple effect and even um Huger far-reaching one perhaps it went all the way to Japan yeah okay so let me just let me summarize so Japanese guy Japanese Gardens Lebanon Oregon back to Japan right and then uh Japan came here so literally what happened was this town made so many so many waves in their revitalization that K the city of coob in Japan you might know it as um like beef coob beef or um the earthquake which is not as happy as KOB beef uh this town is looking for the city is looking to revitalize and they’re looking to Nature and they heard about this and they wanted to come see so literally a delegation came they walked through the garden they checked out your Gardens and they went back home and they built one so this is actually a popup Garden it’s a complete like the boulders are real the trees are real everything’s real it’s a popup temporary Garden that was kind of a test case right at the main train station and um hoichi was there to help design when people heard you know in Florida people heard that uh my dad was going to build a garden in Japan they were like why does Japan need haichi to build a garden for them right and that’s a really exciting answer because in this whole import export thing that Japanese Gardens have been doing for for centuries right we have they have exported their Gardens outside of Japan and they have imported Western culture what’s happening now in great part thanks to your town and your Gardens is that Japanese Gardens are being reimported into Japan with a new vision so believe it or not it is uncommon in Japan for them to think of their Gardens as healing Gardens they’re cultural they’re old they’re for rich people you know we take things for granted that are part of our culture sometimes and it took exporting their garden and 60 years to repport it with a new idea so you know like modernizing after the bomb Japan is quick to catch up and this Garden had a really Charming Ambassador which um I’d never seen before and it had this this iPad that um gave you the history of the garden and stuff about ihk and it was very uh user friendly the whole thing and uh it also did this I don’t know it gave this like information and then it broke into like a dance so I um love that Ambassador and hope that it he or she um appears again um so continuing ripple effect the pop-up Garden was a success people loved it and they said okay let’s do this for real a little bit um uh nearby but in a little bit different place they built a permanent Garden just recently called isami Park healing Garden hoichi went back to assist and I’m going to hand it over to him to tell you all about it that time is okay time is we have okay you’re okay okay well again is uh isi heing Garden showing the robot I asked them get the robot s the coffee to the people but uh they they’re so expensive that they just give the robot there but uh idea is we our cyber sword or you know the AI age is going going into it and uh we cannot ignore we have to go with the movement but this side which is our space the Oneness with nature space is it’s not much it’s going on like a speed of the AI but anyhow uh this uh opportunity in the K is wonderful and uh um this is a the showing right now is a finishing the garden and uh again is afterwards I I never put together the measurement and the the and know scating triangle but this some the composition is the people coming to it hugging you you know that’s friendly and as a healing Garden is made probably is the first one as a public garden as a healing Garden in Japan and much more you know here is a more so before and even that they very impressed from the co officers uh one try I did it is a I did I I and I asked them why suggest it it’s a the plaque is a little word uh make it unintentionally in the sitting area the place it is a this said is not I I didn’t have the time to translate but it’s a this one is uh listen to by eyes and seeing by ears huh right but it’s you have heard this kind of things probably heard before but it’s again 1 + 1 = 2 2 + 1 is no that concept the space which I’m talking about the Oneness with nature in order to feel experience is you have to transfer transform your Consciousness is normal the noise is way from there and silence that the world noise and quiet yourself which is other words empty you are s of the EMP your heart and then here here is a real sound real inspiration real hope is coming up um I hope I have a time but uh let me uh guide you very quickly running to this garden with only I I can apply to four uh with a patient coming through across the street and the bamboo forest is can hear the Bamboo’s squeaking noise I hope something out the bamboo is you know that making a noise by wind but besides that come into and the little gate goes through which is humble yourself humility try to uh go through that little gate going somewhere is there by that time you have another something you have in your mind or patient mind is hopefully behind it and they be sloping up and I don’t have a plaque but there a ceiling area I would probably say in uh the the I’m in the the the nature is where is my heart is or something like that and then go to is a Gazo and there is a center is a some kind of the State uh English word is a God’s eyes but it’s a center is you you feel you are in the cent of the nature in the beside that is enjoy the how the running the creek and go through and the top of the this side of the top here is um that it’s said it’s a b be be silent let’s listen the story something like that then they go to to the more waterfall and the behind the waterfall is this m uh the ears the hear by ears and thisen by eyes that words there is you can hear the noise of of the waterfall and you have to sit down close this plaque meaning is much more different way imagination in your mind then come down to go down to the other side of the the pathway and uh uh this is I don’t have it but that’s the Gazo right here is sitting in looking at the pond and waterfall and whole garden is embracing you I am not alone with nature some kind of kind of word just suggesting this is the only suggestion but it’s a the garden going through is not item is a much more deeper sense of the the feeling experience is we we try to uh uh enforce the people and now I heard not by eyes but I heard very very strange place and the no nobody doesn’t want to go we made a two Waste Water treatment Garden but this is a little bit too much but I think about it and uh remember the silence and to hear real voice those inmates is a this facility is a 2,000 inmates and maximum security they don’t have anything and why bre shirt and the jeans and uh D time every day is a hamburger and uh but the boys came from one small group Asian Pacific family Club they come up something want to do good things we like to make a peace they on is a the when I meet meet is a healing Garden but uh they don’t have anything the silent from the world and they are pure heart something do of course they did the bad things pasted but most of the guy is a life sentence 27 years 32 years those kind of guy is want to do something I probably this is the probably my line of the the work so I met them wow those guys is happy and joyous I wonder where I am I am I’m come here is from my jail this is not the jail as in the penitentary or not is something I miss the thinking here that much atmosphere they had it because they don’t they have only want to do something good and 50 years 60 years I have been doing that this the Nature’s and the space to heal the people let’s do it and but they show me don’t go big because never never Administration yes so they show me they gather the twe from the the Playfield and then the make bridge and gather the the the the little Grable and this the equip which is just this much it’s okay will you design for us no let’s think big and I know from Pure Heart and willing to do something that good is no size is extreme big so actually we meet together I mean the heart together and decide to do it that Joy is before anything started is somebody hard in the 2,000 people it’s a really really uh group of the people there it’s but very joyous voice hi when you are going to do you know something like that it’s a change the whole spirit that much powerful of the coming from Pure Heart to desire something to do it uh measuring is this is the place uh will be the god garden and this is a the left hand side is a four story is a is a the jail and uh design this is the second time I believe the the design but it’s the state law you cannot plant more than three ft trees and you cannot use more than three ft borders and pond is you cannot deep Pond you cannot make the so our Japanese garden what I’m I’m the wishing they they can have it but but this design is along the way is healed Administration office and uh many other people of of course the friend the people is there is a 2,000 people some of them is really territorial but it’s they really having a starting good atmosphere and uh as I said this project is not I said let’s do it they want to do the garden not from me that came out from their Pure Heart came out end up it’s working hard is those guys is so strong uh it’s my leg is the arm you know kind of is a work hard and the Very Speedy way and we made the garden here this is from the top view but the little $500 Garden went to actually cross half million dollar Garden all they made effort to put the money together and also it affected to the other community and also Administration also give a permit to use a much bigger trees but it’s I don’t have have the picture but when we bring the trees inmate is crawling under knes of the pine trees I I didn’t see more than 40 years this one it’s it’s a crying and want to sleep with a tree that that much nature is has something power and uh um the biggest things is again is to remind you is healing Garden is the affecting or is a come out the power is many ways it’s a here is Administration is healed the group their friends healed and of course they they eles is even like a pure is the sense the heart but still more energetic in the dream and the Hope heal this is a the draw angle is a finishing there and uh um the pathway and the creek is a duck it’s is one of the inmate is a lifetime sentence guy is uh wrote a book and uh uh some the opening the book is Washington DC something well uh anyway is uh really they have uh as much as his power and the willingness the work the heart this left hand side guy is I believe is also sentenced Lifetime and he’s just digging to the soil and the loosing up the the tree bows something like that uh I can see how is the nature in the me Oneness is wonderful and powerful and inspirational opening day is one of the guy here is that his name is global it’s a huge huge guy but anyhow it’s that smile is never imagine is a member of the pen centuries that guy is a this smile is nothing to any hint of the agony or any propride or anything is like a life is enjoying that’s I I felt as I said is healing effect is many ways work she mentioned Anderson Garden Mr Anderson is one time or two times know just talk to me is H is uh the garden is uh strange things is many ways in yes he the garden is almost the finish and later on is Governor is noticed that and the governor is Washington DC Washington DC is of course Gathering the information went to Japanese Embassy and uh Japan is Ambassador that timeo is twice he came to Anderson’s actually House State and also the acquaintance and the business world is brought in multi multibillion companies Japan roll company is came to the Illinois so that power of the garden and uh that this Garden even went to Japan and here is Deering effect is so many affected neighbors and the communities devitalized the whole town we believe this power not only that a garden but this that if we understand the nature and the we have the take the barrier with nature and Us by silence be Oneness feeling with nature is a tremendous power has it this Garden Prov it and I I’m so happy what I have been screaming 60 years reproved by this Garden is certainly we know nature garden has a power and the they can do tremendous things and I have to be balanced to other side of the world AI we cannot ignore but we have to bring up this side of the our world you may say Nature’s understanding um this is that Garden which my teacher Garden this the garden changed my life and uh I look at every time is the tree is nice way leaning curving and ground is is dentry is arranged is uh I don’t I know it’s a a the individually even the not only business world or movement of the uh company but it’s individually change I tell you when I having a breakfast and have a tea is take the one hand and hold it and hold it and feel the Warmness of the the cup and close the eyes and the drink and to understanding that we are living whole thing together that’s different way of the express with the Oneness with nature this Garden Community people many help and the donation everything helped this Garden that’s far came and the tremendous effect we have but this we can go more and this this effect other community or world even in the Japan already came here but that let them know and I hope this you have done three Gardens is as a seed for the world to let them know how the Nature’s Oneness feeling if we understand it’s a tremendous power we have it thank you very much [Applause]