G'day OZ Heads!
i heard about a place on the
Big Island called the Galaxy
Garden from a yahoo club. i
thought this was funny, 'cause
i been here for 2 yrs now
and never heard of it. So
i clicked their web site:
http://www.galaxygarden.net/index.html
And immediately recognized the artist's
Galaxy painting that had appeared
yrs ago in Sky & Telescope magazine.
As read on i was amazed at what
Jon Lomberg had created. Being a
landscaper for over 20 yrs i had
a deep infinity with him. Soon
an eMail went out to him entitled
"Cosmic Connections" and in a few
days my wife and i went to the
Paleaku Peace Gardens Sanctuary...
http://www.paleaku.com/
...for a private tour of Jon's
Galaxy Garden. The layout is
a perfect setting: 100ft =
100,000 light yrs. So the
garden is measured out to this
scale including the arms etc...
Jon's choice of plants and flowers
to represent different celestial
objects is very imaginative, to say
the least! For instance he uses lg.
hibiscus for large nebulas and the
sm. vinca flowers sm. neb. But
among many things that blew my mind,
was his use of a water fountain in
the center of the Galaxy Garden
that represents the black hole.
It has a single "jet" shooting
straight up.... the fountain also
has the "event horizion" & the
"accretion disk" built into
it's black lava rock.
While walking on the black &
red cinders, that fill-in the
areas in-between the arms and plants
he said; "Hear that? That's the
sound of back round radiation."
Then he took 3 or 4 big steps;
"Now thats the sound of a pulsar."
This guy is more out-there than
i am!
Even the selection of these plants
that have speckles all over their
leafs has a reason. Yes stars, he
leaned over and showed us a leaf
then pointed to a bunch of yellow
specks and a bunch of stud earrings
attached to the leaves...... "heres
our sun and the stars around us..."
Then off to the next near-by leaf;
"here is the Pleadies cluster."
This was too much! To say he blew my
mind was an understatement ....Jon
then pointed to a tall blooming
leaf..."this is a giant globular
cluster" It went on like this for
an hour!
Here is a comment from an admirer of the
Galaxy Garden, Steve Pauley, i think this
say's it all:
"Jon has come close to getting people
to really understand the nature of things.
Since we are made of star dust, we are
connected to the greater whole and we have
the memory of the universe within ourselves.
The same is true for all things, living
and inanimate. The interconnectedness
of humans, flowers, plants, and rocks,
to the whole of things is what makes
the Garden so remarkable."
i knew that Jon Lomberg was the
guy who created & designed the
record with all the pictographs
that was attached to the Voyager
spacecraft! From:
http://www.jonlomberg.com/
"The artist has created some
of the most unusual, durable,
and far-flung artifacts ever
produced by the human species.
Lomberg's design for the cover
of the Voyager Interstellar
Record, predicted to last for
over a thousand million years,
may be the longest lived piece
of human art ever made. He also
designed a 10,000 year nuclear
waste marker for the United
States Department of Energy.
Lomberg is the world's most
experienced designer in creating
messages for other times and
other beings."
WOW! After the Galaxy tour
he then showed us all around
the larger garden in which the
"galaxy" is but a small part
of the 9 acre ocean view
Paleaku Peace Gardens Sanctuary.
As it's center piece is the
Kalachakra Stupa.......
http://www.paleaku.com/html/stupa.htm
...and many other "power points"...
when i got home late that night
after spending the entire afternoon
with Jon and Barbara, the director of
Paleaku, i unwrapped the latest issue
(Jan. 08) of Sky & Telescope magazine.
As i thumbed thru' it, i was hit by an
article entitled:
"A Hawaiian Galaxy Garden"
Man, talk about a Cosmic Connection!
May you & yours always be in fine health and
great calm, with gratitude and warm aloha,
Lance aka "abellhunter"
