Bonsai on My Mind

What a thrill to participate in the Bonsai Society’s 50th Anniversary Show! Wow! To be in the presence of so much beautiful Bonsai and welcome all those people who came to celebrate our 50 years of success. Double Wow! I say.

I must confess that we Hosts at the door, Deborah and Gerard and I still feel the warm glow of those visitors. So this is my apology for having been ill prepared for the unexpected test we had to confront! No doubt Deborah and Gerard probably knew all the answers, but not me, alas.

Sometimes I felt the Visitors had planned to get us. But all I could do was to smile even more than ever. Later that week, to atone for my sin of ignorance, I spent several hours at the Internet and learned quite a few answers to the most pressing questions they threw at me.

First question: “What does the word Bonsai mean? I suppose most of you readers of this Fog City Journal know the answer easily,– but I only learned this week that it’s a Japanese word for “a tree or bush growing in a pot or shallow bowl” It is NOT a dwarf, I read in several sources. It’s a natural tree or bush trained by cutting back and wiring branches to bring beauty to the beholder.

Second question: What are its origins? Easy to find that Bonsai, the name of the art, as well as the artfully cultivated tree, originated in China about 1000 year ago, and was the pastime of the nobility who were interested in bringing small examples of trees out of the forest, with their trunks in odd shapes suggesting demons, dragons, birds and animals. In the 12th century when Buddhist monks brought the Buddha’s Dharma (his teachings) from China to Japan, the Japanese aristocracy were converted to accept the philosophical concept that Buddhism, as well as the art of Bonsai served to express the harmony between man, the soul, and nature.

I further learned that to this day Bonsai are cultivated by converted individuals in almost every country in the world, with Japan in the lead. A family’s Bonsai are considered their living treasure to be faithfully handed down from generation to generation. (Or bequeathed to the Bonsai Society to be auctioned off with the proceeds to fill the Society’s coffers). In Japan, the Bonsai live in the fresh air of a well kept garden, to be brought indoors to celebrate special occasions like the coming of Spring, or the Autumn Moon, or New Year’s Day. They are placed in the family’s tokonoma, a special niche in the main room of the Japanese home where the family’s works of art, or objects of spiritual importance are displayed for guests to appreciate and enjoy.
It was in the 17th-18th centuries that Bonsai, along with other Japanese arts reached their peak in Japan. In the 19th century, when Japan finally opened its doors to the western world, Japanese culture influenced the arts of Europe, most notably among the Impressionist painters at the turn of the century in Paris.

At our next show I will be better prepared to explain to visitors that these minimalized trees are not tortured by having their branches wired and shaped . For all we know, the little tree may enjoy all that man-handling attention as it grows up, as much as we do at a beauty salon or a message at the gym. I have learned from not a few experienced Bonsai artists that they talk with gentle words of admiration and encouragement to their beloved Bonsai all through the year, except of course in the chill of winter when the trees are getting their rejuvenation in their dormant winter sleep.

-Rachmael Ben-Avram

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