Kame Jima - The Tortoise Island

As a result of moving some rocks around when installing the stroll garden stepping stones and fountain grass, I ended up with several unused rocks. One was very large and heavy. 

I hadn't noticed at first, but when I went to move them into storage, I realized that it looked like a tortoise shell in shape, especially when I saw it next two to smaller stones, one which looked remarkably like a head piece and the other a tail.

 

I knew that many Zen gardens have stone placements that are meant to represent islands, and that often one of the islands was referred to as a tortoise island, or kame-jima (亀島). The idea originated with the cult of immortality, a Daoist inspired belief from China in which the tortoise is a symbol of longevity representing 10,000 years. 

I already had a small little stone tortoise elsewhere in the garden.

However, I could now consider creating a moss island with these stones as a metaphor, rather than an actual turtle statue. Seeing the tortoise should be an experience of discovery and contemplation. You either see it or you don't, it all depends on your level of consciousness. 

Again, I was familiar with this aspect of Zen gardens and have seen it employed in several gardens:

Ryōan-ji  - Kyoto, Japan

Isshidan (Rtogen-in) - Kyoto, Japan

kinkakuji - Kyoto, Japan

 Ninomaru Teien (Nijō-jō) - Kyoto, Japan

 Tenshin'en - Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Gibbs Garden - Atlanta, Georgia

So, over the next few weeks I will consider what to do. Now that the stroll garden is complete, I have  begun to seriously consider the front half of the garden area alongside the driveway. 

I am ready to start seriously reworking that area to make it a dry-landscape garden, the type of garden most people in the west associate with a Zen garden.

It will take some time. I have to fence it off from the neighbor's yard and his hideous white rail plastic fence. That will have to wait until next spring due to time and monetary constraints. However, the Kame-jima idea has potential, and I already have some wonderful stones, so the planning can start now.