''The lantern is present in all places''. That is likely to be a rash statement! 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-weight source and a vertical picture (Yang). The lantern suggests gentle after darkish and illumination of an object worthy of reflection. The lantern guides the way in which and gives the realm's vacancy something of life (Yang) and substance. It has meaning. The lantern dissociated from plants and residing 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 regardless of the web site requires little question a lantern style could be found to fill that space. Some lanterns no more than 30cm in peak and others noticed in Kyoto up to 1.6-1.8 metres tall. There should be lantern factories somewhere. Smaller lanterns seen nearer to the pathway and bigger ones set into the distance. Possibly set onto the ground inside a clump of trees to accentuate change.

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

But why is it a obligatory inclusion? To guide the customer along a pathway after dusk? To view from a distance to symbolise? To radiate gentle onto water for reflection or a plant or pebble or stone? Is the lantern a Yang intrusion so as to add life after darkish (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 hearth to defend 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 imagine all that.

The lantern is perfect . It affords Yang in a Yin environment. The lantern postures. It represents timeliness. Night and day, 12 months after year. It transcends time and its physical construction and design completely attune to the climate of Japan by offering 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 find it where the sha (detrimental) energy can extinguish it e.g., uncovered on a hill in a gully or swamp where the fixed 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 just like a light-weight on a seashore guiding ships at sea.