Spring!

Spring: Magnolia Tree Flowers - Jubilee Garden, Mississauga

[Photo By: KPA]

"Better Positioning Addis Ababa"

[Click "See More" for English Translation]

In May 2019, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed hosted the ‘Dine for Sheger’ initiative to mobilise funds for city projects aimed at better positioning Addis Ababa as an urban tourism site. In a short one year period since the activity, both Sheger and Entoto parks are near completion; have created many jobs; are facilitating service economies and changing the look and feel of the city. [Source: Office of the Prime Minister-Ethiopia]

Jubilee Peonies

Jubilee Peonies
Photo By: KPA
In the Jubilee Garden, Mississauga

"We Will Make Addis Ababa a Flower that Flourishes, Like Her Name"

In my previous post, I posted the Facebook dancing fountains of PM Abiy's Addis Ababa Riverside Project.

The "translation" on this Abiy's Facebook page Amharic note:

አዲስ አበባን እንደ ስሟ የምታፈራ አበባ እናደርጋታለን::

is...

We will make Addis Ababa a flower that fears Addis Ababa like its name.

This is slightly wrong!

The actual translation is:

We will make Addis Ababa a flower that flourishes, like her name.

I suppose in some ways it is good to fear Addis Ababa, to prevent enemies and ill-wishers from getting on her streets.

And, Abiy's philosophy of peace, for which he won the Nobel Prize for Peace, and his persistent strategies to ward off war with malcontent ethnic groups, makes his wish ring true:

We will make Addis Ababa a flower that flourishes, like her name.

Magnolia in the City

Saucer Magnolia by the Mississauga Civic Centre
[Photo By: KPA]

Magnolias

The Magnolias at Mississauga's Jubilee Garden
[Photo By: KPA]

These magnolias are closer now to full bloom.

Winter Garden

Photo By KPA
March 18, 2020

A winter garden, in the lovely Jubilee Garden in Mississauga.

First Day of Winter: 5:23pm (Southern Ontario)

Jubilee Gardenm Mississauga
December 21, 2018
[Photo By: KPA]

Entry Into Winter

Glass wall at the entrance to the Jubilee Garden, Mississauga
November 20, 2018
[Photo By: KPA]

"Thy Wondrous Works"

[Photo By: KPA]
Entrance to the Jubilee Garden
Mississauga

Psalms 145:5

I will speak of the glorious honour of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous works.

Birds of the Air

Mourning Dove
Mississauga Jubilee Garden Entrance
Fall 2018
[Photo By: KPA]

Matthew 6: 26

Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns;
yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

Tropical September

[Photo By: KPA]

Lush flowers and vegetation at the Jubilee Garden Mississauga!

Like a Watered Garden

Jubilee Garden, Mississauga
June 2018
[Photo By: KPA]

Isaiah 58:11:

And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

---

Isaiah 58

Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.
2 Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.
3 Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours.
4 Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.
5 Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?
6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
8 Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward.
9 Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;
10 And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day:
11 And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.
12 And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.
13 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:
14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

Hidden Garden

Below is a post on the Jubilee Garden in Mississauga from 2014 (here is a post from today on the magnolia trees in the garden)

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Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Hidden Garden


Queen Elizabeth Jubilee Garden, Mississauga, Ontario
[Photo By: KPA]

The Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Garden is a tiny space located behind Mississauga's City Hall. The grass needs patching, and a blue bench in the far corner needs some paint. This is indicative of the absence of recently retired Mayor Hazel McCallion, the forceful, formidable leader of Mississauga, who never lost an election, and who had to retire when (because) she reached her nineties. The entire city center is full of her touches, giving this rather bland Toronto suburb a character of its own. I fear, though, like the park, there may not be other dedicated leaders to continue McCallion's legacy. They are more interested in promoting multiculturalism. The link leads to Mississauga's yearly festival Carassauga which tells us that "Over 72 countries [are] represented at 28 Pavilion Locations, throughout Mississauga" - note the 72 countries all represented in Canada! This is not an international event, but a local and national one. This clearly refers to the multicultral and not international nature of the event. Dedicating parks to English monarchs is far from the agenda of Mississauga's, and Canada's, leaders.

Here is more from Mississauga.ca on the park:

The Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Garden is located at 300 City Centre Drive and was originally named Civic Garden Park or the Rose Garden. It is 0.17 hectares.

This garden has been part of the Civic Centre since it was originally dedicated on July 18, 1987 by The Duke and Duchess of York. Fifteen years later in October 2002, Buckingham Palace agreed to have the garden formerly named The Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Garden in commemoration of Her Majesty The Queen's 50th Anniversary of Her Accession to The Throne. (The full article is available at Mississauga.ca)

As always with beautiful things in our modern world, we have to deal with the ugly alongside it, competing for space and for attention.

Right in the middle of the garden, there is a hideous, rusted iron "sculpture." I tried to find its title, and its creator, and was able to do so at the Mississauga.ca website.


Anne Harris (1908)
Canadian
Northern Eye
Bronze
1995

Here is how the website describes it:

The sculpture the Northern Eye done by Anne Harris is cast bronze and steel and is a more humanized example of Harris' work which tends to be more geometric and mechanical in character. This piece evokes a definite sense of vulnerability and is a provocative and dynamic piece as it displays the artist's interest in interior and exterior space and also poignantly references the human body as a vessel and the body, metaphorically, as a wound.

The author of this description is at odds about how to describe a work he clearly dislikes, but he cannot be forthcoming about his opinion, where the Art God reigns supreme in modern culture.

Below is Harris's Monarch. A faceless head-like structure. I wonder why the park chose Northern Eye, other than its obvious Canadian reference? The park is after all commemorating Queen Elizabeth. Well, the committee which made this decision was wary even of the Northern Eye, and I would think that its members couldn't find it in them to put this lump of "monarch" bronze in the garden dedicated to their queen.

This little garden is hidden in many aspects. It is hidden from view. This diminishes its importance and its association with a British monarch. It is hidden in intent where codes and representatives have to be used to deflect, or to diminish, its original and true intent. Harris becomes its cover, and Queen Elizabeth is put on the periphery. It's grandeur is hidden, or diminished, where the flowers and plants are small and unassuming, considering it was set up to celelabrate Queen Elizabeth's jubilee.

I am therefore at odds about it. Its small size, and removal from a grand and open space, gives it charm and character. But it is too small for what it represents. It would have been better to have given it another name altogether, and to remove Queen Elizabeth's identity. Better to have no monarch at all than one with such diminished presence.


Anne Harris (1908)
Canadian
Monarch
Bronze
1974

Muskoka Chairs in the Jubilee Garden

The lovely Jubilee Garden, behind the City Hall in Mississauga, has benches which are designed after the summer Muskoka chair. But rather than a single seat they are double seated.

Some of the chairs were recently grouped at one end of the garden rather than scattered around. I'm not sure why, although I think it is just bad planning. I asked one of the summer student gardeners why this happened.

"I agree with you. They were better before."

"Could you ask your bosses to return them to their original places? But don't make an issue out of it..."

I didn't want him to get into trouble.



The sturdy wood and metal park bench has replaced a Muskoka chair (there are about four of five of these wood/metal benches along this pathway). Perhaps they took the Muskoka benches away for maintenance. I hope so.

Magnolias in the Garden

Magnolia Tree in the Jubilee Garden Mississauga
[Photo by KPA]

More Magnolias

[Photos By: KPA]

Christmas Wreath

Allan Gardens Conservatory, Toronto, 2011
[Photo By: KPA]

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

[Photo By: KPA
The Allan Gardens Toronto, Christmas decorations]

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

[Photo By: KPA
The Allan Gardens Toronto, Christmas decorations]