Zen Garden in Druid Hill Park/Coldspring Labyrinth

Last month I visited the Zen Garden by walking from the southeast along the maintenance road that borders the north side of the zoo. I'd noticed the Zen Garden on the map of the park on its north side (quadrant B1) and got the idea to finally take a look after I read an article shared by one of my FB organizations.  The author of the Baltimore Sun piece, "Reviving Druid Hill's 'Zen Garden'," April 15, 2017, Craig Phillips, found that the garden hadn't really been developed or maintained much since it was started, which I think was in 2010. On his own he created a labyrinth and added some Buddhist-related pieces. Although his intentions are nice, this kind of individual initiative on parkland could backfire, such as because of First Amendment issues.

An easier way to reach the Zen Garden is from the north pedestrian/bicycle entrance, Parkdale Avenue from the Woodberry/Clipper Mill neighborhood. This picture is from inside the park toward that entrance. To get to the Zen Garden from the path, turn left at the gate post, that is, right in this picture.

I took the path just beyond the gate, although Phillips suggests a dirt path a little further down. According to the map, a stream runs between the Parkdale Road path and the path to the Zen Garden, but it seemed dry to me.

Lining this path are concrete remains that I guess maintenance dumped here. It's a short walk to the Zen Garden.

In the garden are two circles--one to the north with a Buddha statue sitting on two slabs and a labyrinth to the south.

Sign below the prayer wheel

One idea I get from walking the labyrinth is when the path takes me away from the destination just as it seems close. This reminds me of how we can face setbacks in our lives and the need for knowing how to handle them or possibly prevent them.

                                                                              

On the left side of the labyrinth is this circle to the left in the ground. The left part of it is the character for winter (冬),  but I don't know what the right part means. The circle on the right has the character for spring (春).

The bench was placed here during the initial work on the garden about seven years ago. Phillips placed that wooden face on the tree.

Baltimore Green Map has created interactive maps along with paper maps of Druid Hill Park and Jones Falls Trail. I used the latter on Tuesday when I walked to Cylburn Arboretum then north through the Mount Washington neighborhood, which has a bunch of large houses, many of which look like they could be used for haunted mansions. 

Just before the Arboretum I stopped at another labyrinth--the Coldspring Labyrinth, which sits by the Coldspring Community Center at 4800 Tamarind Road. Across the street is a Waldorf School. [The map on the Coldspring Newtown website is very good. The labyrinth is between the bird sanctuary and the ball field.]

I'd wrongly assumed that I could walk a circle back to my place after visiting the Arboretum by taking Northern Parkway east to Roland Avenue, but I discovered that stretch lacks sidewalks and is too dangerous to walk along. It has now occurred to me that my detour through Mount Washington to reach another way across I-83, Kelly Avenue, was a setback like in a labyrinth, with the setback actually a blessing in disguise. This reminds me of a useful Chinese saying 塞翁失马，焉知非福 (Sai Weng Shi Ma Yan Zhi Fei Fu--Sai Weng lost his horse - who knows if this is bad or good?/When the old man from the frontier lost his horse, how could one know it is not good fortune?). One way of translating that is this: "It can be difficult to foresee the twists and turns which compel misfortune to beget fortune, and vice versa." Chinese sayings like this tend to have background stories that help explain them. Short version for this saying. 

So many setbacks in life are much worse--making it almost impossible to find any blessing in disguise, which requires some other way to try to understand or forget what happened and move forward. I've been thinking too much lately about my mistakes and don't easily see the blessings in disguise. One way for me to deal with that is to try to use the positives to outweigh the negatives. Walking around and talking with others are among those positives. A short example of that was when I talked with a nice manager of an apartment complex I walked by and was wondering about. She gave me suggestions on how to get around the Northern Parkway obstacle.

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Added on July 13, 2018
The Zen Garden has changed since I posted this. The main difference is the area around the little statue.

This seems to be a platform for meditation.

This peace sign is to the left in the above picture.

While sitting on the bench last week, I felt that the clear area beside this plot helped make this place relaxing because my eyes kept looking in that direction.

People place objects on the round block in the middle of the labyrinth.

It's been more than a year since I was here. Someone who found this entry messaged me that the Zen Garden had been improved, so last week I walked from near Penn Station along Jones Falls to Woodberry then over to the back entrance of Druid Hill Park. I felt overcome while at the Zen Garden by thoughts of how I'd thought I was getting closer to a destination last year but was actually leading myself away. Near the end of what I wrote in May 2017, I tried to rationalize going in circles, but sometimes cutting through directly is best, and I wish I'd done that.