Can You Imagine Giant Trees Reduced To A Few Centimeters For Humans To "Raise?"

CIEGO DE AVILA – Kyuzo Murata, one of the fathers of the modern Bonsai, would enjoy visiting the Gallery of Art in the city of Ciego de Avila, 420 kilometers from Havana, where the most eminent Cuban Bonsai sculptors participated in the 3rd 2005 CubaBonsai Convention.

Thirty representatives from nearly all the country’s provinces discussed this living art that penetrates to the depths of one’s soul and captivates those who cultivate it.

LIFE IN MINIATURE

It could be said that the world fits into a Bonsai; and those who agree are not without reason. These diminutive lives, by definition, are semi-perennial living plants, placed in a pot, atop a rock or slab."
"Each plant not only represents the beauty of nature, but its aspect brings to mind something more: a forest scene, a majestic solitary tree, a marine landscape, a lake, river, a pond..."
The Bonsai simulates the abundance of nature and expresses its eternity of slow changes. It is the result of centuries of development and continual evolution.
It is a convergence point for diverse disciplines such as art, botany, and philosophy, which all share a drive toward perfection.
I say that the world fits into a Bonsai and I think of the Maquette of the City of Havana, a large metropolis reduced to only 22 meters in length and 10 in width; or the Monólogo del Bonsái (Bonsai Monologue), interpreted by Carlos Luis de la Tejera, who with subtle political humor compares Latin America to a small garden in which the International Monetary Fund is the gardener.
The tale of the origin of these miniature trees comes from a Chinese legend claiming that during the Han dynasty (206 b.c.-220 A.D.) an emperor ordered the construction on his patio of a landscape representing the mountains, rivers, valleys and lakes of the empire. Afterwards, he stood ecstatically gazing through the windows of the palace, as if he had the world at his feet.
More recently, in 1971, the oldest testimonies of the plant were discovered in the tomb of Zhang Huai, of the Tang dynasty.
These writings describe that in the year 552 A.D. Buddhism arrived in Japan and with it, the tiny trees. Thus, Japan Islands assimilated the culture of China, including its architecture, literature, calligraphy, ceremonies, etc.
Even the theatrical piece Hachi-no-ki (The Model Trees), one of the world’s most relevant works treating this theme, appeared on stage. The piece is based on a much loved Chinese folk story.

BADLY-RAISED CHILDREN IN CU BA

Hijos malcriados (badly-raised children) is a very Cuban saying and an apt one in the case of these little living beings. "We have to provide all their needs if we want them to grow and develop, from food to adequate education", commented several cultivators questioned by Granma International during the Convention.
Raciel Méndez Gómez, with 16 years experience in this art, explains that as far as she knows, the first trees appeared in the house of a couple who lived in the town of La Fe, on Cuba’s Isle of Youth.
She claimed that in the early 70’s her friend Enrique Cuenca had seen the plants, which disappeared a short while after the couple died. "It’s not known what happened to them."
Raciel also said that in Santiago de las Vegas, Havana province, many books on the subject appeared in an abandoned house. The books were passed on though many people, some of whom may have begun cultivating the tree.
The history of the Bonsai, like life itself, is full of mystery and conjecture. So much so that there are 300 known cultivators in Cuba, a figure that is growing as others, still anonymous, are incorporated.
For Dimitri Gómez González, president of the Convention organizing committee and who has given life to the project in recent years, the cultivation of this living art could be another pathway to integration among nations in the year of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas. He notes: "The president of the Latin American Bonsai Federation is in Venezuela."

THEIR OWN HISTORY

Alejandro Moya Valdés, a beginner, acquired his first specimen after spending four hours with a chisel and hammer extracting it from the coast. Perhaps this is the reason for his belief that the fundamental element of cultivating and educating the plant is discipline.
The participants of the conference each summed up their definition of the art in one word: "spirit," said Lorenzo González Casuso; "addiction," Leonel Monzón García; "harmony," Asley Hernández Sánchez; "peace," Jovany Borrego Mejías; "emotion," Raciel Méndez Gómez; "tranquility," Nancy Gutiérrez Gárciga; "spirituality," Jorge Guerra; "thought or passion," Leonardo Rodríguez Triana.
Without thinking about monks, empires, civilizations, nomads and dynasties, the Cuban cultivators have their own history, which with the passage of time will be told by others keeping this 1,000-year-old art alive.

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