”The lantern is present in all places”. That might be a rash assertion! Yet the obliquitous lantern is present in a stroll garden inside an Imperial Villa or a courtyard garden in a non-public residence. I really feel the lantern affords nice symbolism in a Japanese garden. The lantern presents a light supply and a vertical image (Yang). The lantern suggests mild after dark and illumination of an object worthy of reflection. The lantern guides the way and gives the realm’s emptiness one thing of life (Yang) and substance. It has meaning. The lantern dissociated from plants 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. No doubt every shape represents a historical past and legacy steeped into time. And whatever the web site requires no doubt a lantern style could be discovered to fill that space. Some lanterns no more than 30cm in top and others observed in Kyoto as much as 1.6-1.8 metres tall. There have to be lantern factories somewhere. Smaller lanterns seen nearer to the pathway and bigger ones set into the distance. Maybe set onto the bottom inside a clump of bushes to intensify change.

Lantern constructed normally of stone or marble and containing a hood. A coronary heart for the placement of the flame, a stem to elevate it from the bottom and a base for attachment. It possibly 3 sided, 4 sided coned hood, pyramid hood, round or rectangular stem, single leg or treble leg. Suggesting the lantern affords a flexible inclusion to a Japanese styled garden.

But why is it a essential inclusion? To guide 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 to add life after dark (and the Yin world of darkness)? Is the lantern an emblem of life or inclusion of human intervention upon a setting?

The lantern affords Yang to reduce the dominance of Yin. The white circle within the black. The fireplace to shield 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’ll consider all that.

The lantern is perfect . It affords Yang in a Yin environment. The lantern postures. It represents timeliness. Evening and day, yr after year. It transcends time and its bodily construction and design completely attune to the climate of Japan by providing a hood for the snow and ice and a roof and partitions to protect the flame. The lantern can sit beside a pond, within the pond, inside a nook of the garden, alongside a pathway. I would not locate it where the sha (detrimental) energy can extinguish it e.g., uncovered on a hill in a gully or swamp where the constant damp will extinguish the flame or if used in a low place lifted above it on a pedestal to turn out to be a beacon much like a light on a seashore guiding ships at sea.