As we walked, I kept thinking about "reading the stones." This is an interesting concept. It is really like getting a feel of a place through my connection to the earth itself. I was focusing alot of my feet and how they felt as I walked over the stone paths. Each rock had an individual character and feel to it that was in someway different from every other rock. As I was walking I came to the conclusion that the rocks were like life. Sometimes it is smooth and very structured, but other times it is bumpy or crooked. Anyway, I am sitting by the pond with the huge fish. The pond itself is very beautiful. On the surface vibrantly colored waterlilies and lilypads are scattered about making it a water garden. Swimming in the water are sleek orange and white fish. They are so mindful of each other, yet seemingly unaware that the others exist. I just watched 2 fish about to crash into each other veer slightly from their course and avoid each other completely. I really liked the thought "what you resist, persists." I think Im going to make it my mantra when things are annoying me. I really like the mix of eastern and western influences here. For example, There is a hill below me covered in Bamboo, yet above me is a hill covered in ivy and huge trees. It just makes one more aware that the universe is a whole. I also really liked what tanaguchi said about bringing all different aspects of nature together to make a garden. This place is like living art. It is a tapestry with hundreds of different threads brought together to make a whole picture. Even the loud soccer players are a thread, the fish and rocks and water are all seperate threads. But they all make up a unique expierence that is the "garden." I could see how the mother tree would inspire tanaguchi. It was such an old tree and it died giving its life to "the spirit of the garden." It was like the tree really was a mother, sacrificing herself so that the garden could continue to live and prosper. A very tragicly beautiful thought.