Brandymore Castle

I was talking with filmmaker Tom Davenport today and the discussion turned to my observations of a tree outside the window of my apartment, which over many years I have observed to display fascinating changes and cycles in response to climate. The conversation turned to haiku as he likened my noticing a leaf falling outside my window on a quiet day to haiku. I was startled when he said "in haiku, the tree and the person are not very separated." This is an idea very close to Zen. I won't go into the details of Zen belief here, but one idea of Zen is that individuals can reach a state where they feel as if there is no separation between the self and the things making up the world around them. Scientists and Zen masters may debate exactly how and why this feeling arises in the human mind, but what is interesting is the possibility haiku may represent a kind of expression or record of this kind of merging of the individual with things. I found myself agreeing with his observa...

What is Brandymore Castle? Brandymore Castle (also spelled Brandimore) is a limestone outcrop in Arlington, Virginia rising above the flood plain of Four Mile Run. In the eighteenth century, it was used by surveyors as a visual reference, although today the castle is worn down by time and vandalism, hidden in a small forest behind some homes. It once stood proudly and was probably the highest point on the surrounding flood plain of Four Mile Run when the forest had been cleared and farms filled the area. Today, the trees have grown back as farming ceased in Arlington beginning in the Great Depression and continuing as the suburbs grew and agriculture became the business of large corporate farms. When Interstate 66 was came through Arlington, a sound dampening wall was placed very near to the landmark, which now hems it in further. Brandymore Castle now sits crumbling and hidden, buried in a forest, surrounded by homes, wedged between the route 66 noise barrier and a basketball court wi...