The spirit of bonsai

Bonsai is another way of life: today is tomorrow's yesterday,

Yesterday, today or tomorrow are all time relative; their succession in time may have or have not meaning. Sometimes we hear bonsai fans say: "Wait two years and this tree will be magnificent".

 Although most of the people not initiated in bonsai are unable to imagine how the tree will be in two year's time, the artist is able to see it and is already enjoying and admiring today tomorrow's results. From the above we can see that bonsai is really a way of life, and that the pleasure obtained from its practice, should be lived in the present. This applies to all persons irrespective of their age, if they are already experts or if they are thinking about beginning to learn bonsai.

The word bonsai, in its literal sense, means tree planted in a tray. But we would not grasp the real spirit of bonsai if we limit ourselves to this definition. The essence of bonsai is to reproduce a healthy miniature replica of a given tree. This can only be obtained observing carefully nature, the characteristics of the different species, the climate in which each tree lives, etc. All this has to be achieved within the frame of the bonsai techniques, in order to obtain a convincing and balanced result.

Making a bonsai is not only about reducing. A small tree does not necessarily express the force of a big tree. To mirror the essence of a 30 metre high tree in 30 centimetres on a tray is bonsai.

When we are in front of a bonsai we have to see the power of the wind and the storms to which these trees have been exposed in nature, how the weight of their fruits and of the snow in winter have made the branches bend down... Thus the path of the bonsai expresses the forces of nature.