Bamboo Beginnings
Ever since I got into the bamboo business, the most frequently asked question I hear is “What got you started in bamboo?” It’s funny because there are so many things to admire about bamboo, which makes it difficult to answer, and also because I love so many things besides bamboo. I’m crazy for seafood, for example, but no one ever asks how I got into jumbo prawns or spicy tuna rolls. And if I told you about my first incident with fish and chips, it would turn your stomach faster than you can say Shibataea kumasaca. Nevertheless, I have no qualms about pulling back the beaded curtain to reveal my origins.
Previously, I shared the story of my first attempt at delivering a bamboo workshop. Not my finest hour, but this time around, I’m delighted to recount a far more auspicious incident. I should preface that story, however, by stating that it’s impossible to trace my bamboo journey back to a single event or experience.
Growing up in the eighties, I spent many Saturday afternoons watching Gilligan’s Island, taking inspiration from the Professor’s brilliant inventions and the rugged carpentry of the fearless crew, in which bamboo no doubt featured prominently. In subsequent years, I acquired a distinct taste for Asian cuisine, especially Thai and Japanese, so I collected many splendid memories with fine food and dear friends amidst the Far Eastern aesthetic of sushi bars and Thai restaurants, where bamboo adorned the walls, the windows and the tableware. As a purveyor of industrial hemp products in the late nineties, I cultivated a deep appreciation for fast-growing plants with exceptional utility. Impossible to ignore, bamboo kept appearing and reappearing, time and time again, as this remarkably regenerative grass so famously does.
Instead of asking how I got into bamboo, I’m more inclined to wonder, how could I possibly not be into bamboo? But as any tried and true bamboo enthusiast will tell you, we don’t discover bamboo, it’s the bamboo that finds us. You might say that it had been stalking me for years.
Paradigm shift
Some years ago, I was traveling through southern Mexico, with the woman who would eventually make me her husband, when I had one of those life-changing experiences whose profound significance takes several years to recognize. It may sound cliche, but it came to me in a dream.
On the shore of a quiet lake, I was taking stones and skipping them across the surface of the water. It’s a universal pastime we can all relate to, and a simple setting for a dream. There I stood, stone in hand, surveying the lake, preparing to make the next throw. But instead, I looked up. I observed the night sky, lightly dusted with stars. Then, with all my strength, I hurled the rock into the sky and watched as it shattered the dome of darkness like a window pane. From behind the darkness, a more distant light shone in, and then I awoke.
Short but sweet, and it’s stayed with me for more than two decades, imperishable. I’ve revisited and reflected on this dream so many times that its meaning has almost grown mundane. And yet it carries what I consider one of the most important lessons in my life.
Indeed, we’ve all had the simple pleasure of skimming flat stones across the surface of a lake or a gentle stream. It is, quite literally, child’s play. And by very definition, it’s also superficial. In myths and poetry, as in dreams, bodies of water can symbolize many things, but fundamentally, water is the element of emotions, intuition, and the unconscious.
At the outset, I was holding onto a stone, clinging to the proverbial concrete. And I was merely skimming the surface. Metaphorically speaking, you could say my life had no depth. But then my perception shifted, as it often does in our 28th or 29th year. Aware of the shallowness, I stopped and looked around.
More importantly, I looked up, seeking something larger, perhaps in search of a higher power, perhaps not. And with the stone, propelled by my own effort and agency, I broke the facade and shattered the illusion. Nothing short of revelation, I discovered another world, beyond the ordinary realm of sight and touch, beyond the dimensions of earth and stone, beyond the opposites like night and day.
Dreams, I mean the really good ones worth remembering, often have archetypal parallels in fairy tales, myths, and great literature. The most obvious forerunner to this dream has to be Plato’s allegory of the cave. Dull and unenlightened, we are initially captivated by the shadows dancing on the wall of the cave. Then we think ourselves ever so wise when we realize that our fire is the source of light, and the shadows nothing more than an illusion without substance. Until finally, we step outside to experience the light of day, a thousand times brighter than the man-made fire, and our understanding of the world (and our place in it) transforms radically.
In the words of Nikolai Tesla: “The day that science begins to study non-physical phenomenon, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”
Implications for the Biosphere
On the surface, the connection between this metaphysical realization and my passion for bamboo would appear oblique, at best. But that’s what it’s all about, peering behind the facade and identifying those obscure connections. Materially speaking, bamboo has extraordinary usefulness, with applications in carpentry, construction, textiles, musical instruments and more. For the health of our planet and its atmosphere, bamboo offers alternatives to deforestation and heavy pesticide use, while absorbing and retaining CO2 with unsurpassed efficiency.
Beyond the tangible benefits, this perennial grass also has what I would call a particularly high vibration. Walk through a forest of bamboo, savor the tranquility behind a set of sliding bamboo panels, bring an element of bamboo into your life, and with your senses heightened, you will surely feel its energy. Some will brush it off as a load of hippy-dippy baloney, but then maybe they just haven’t spent enough time dreaming under the Mayan pyramids.
Continue the quest
To learn more about the invisible advantages of bamboo, check out some of these other esoteric articles.
