Xu Ruomin's new Chuchen series: tiny rivers and mountains, a beautiful distillation

Xu Ruomin's bonsai

Tiny rivers and mountains, a beautiful distillation

- reading Xu Ruomin's new "Chuchen" series

Original author | Ke Xiaoren

Xu Ruomin's bonsai "Chuchen: Four Waters Return to the Hall" (pot length 45 cm)

Returning to Jiangnan from afar, back to the old home in Jiangnan. Packing up footprints, packing up the singing of childhood??

"Four waters return to the hall" is the special highlight of the old home. Only those who have lived in a water town understand the delicacy and care of water - and thus "life is like duckweed, drifting freely across the vastness." On those sandy grounds: lush river bamboo, scattered flowers and grasses, playing water birds?? content in their own tranquility.

Whenever the sun's shadow shifts east, those who have returned to the old home always like to stand on a hillock or a big tree outside the village and peer at the village, guessing whose chimney smoke rises the straightest and highest? Whose laughter first runs back to their own hall? Green waves shimmering, those memories on the water, forgetting, remembering?? Who can easily erase the invisible "traces"? Who, with endless expectation, studs the sound of waves?

Xu Ruomin's bonsai "Chuchen: Embracing Autumn" (bonsai 40 cm)

"The hand of the wind kneads the water surface, so patiently, so quietly." The setting sun is reluctant to leave, draping itself over the lake - vegetation glowing with color, the mountain body brilliant?? I cannot be sure, is this the illusion of autumn?

Boats come ashore one after another. Some, masts solemn, sails lowered, combing through the scenery of the journey, happy in their own happiness. Some, at their doorstep and in no hurry to go ashore, continue to color the thoughts of autumn clouds filling the sky, arranging with the koi about to drift away to wish each other good night, leisurely and carefree...

At this hour, there is a water-skimming gull, its unhurried and orderly voice seeming to call its kind to no longer cry out in inexplicable panic, but to roam freely in that ease of autumn water sharing the sky.

"A small bow, a light boat, dreaming into the lotus inlet." "Chuchen: Embracing Autumn" has become my longing, my beloved.

Xu Ruomin's bonsai "Chuchen: Gazing at Cloud Piebald Horse" (pot length 40 cm)

Clouds in the water, clouds in the sky, flowing and depending on each other, freely arising.

Gazing at cloud piebald horse, "whether meat or vegetable, whether lively or quiet, not speaking and not showing, silently cultivating." Letting nature take its course.

Piebald horse, gazing at clouds, crossing time and space, standing at the center of life. Not taking it to heart, not needing to measure, releasing itself, gazing freely - in the picturesque tranquility, freezing the encounter of Chuchen into lines of poetry after a spirit journey through cloud dreams. Water and sky one color, wind and clouds meeting, the piebald horse is no longer just a horse with mixed pale coat colors.

Xu Ruomin's bonsai "Chuchen: Late Spring Fishing Joy" (pot length 40 cm)

March's mountain hollows carry wind. March's wind is like a dream, gentle, light, calm and unhurried. The wind's dream in the water town perceives the fishing joy of March.

??

Water, clear and honest. The mountain's reflection stagnates. Only the fishing boat singing in the evening goes upstream, casting nets again and again; behind the flower-like water traces, is there a red carp in close pursuit, eager to try its own beautiful time: imagining the love of leaping through the dragon gate, silent as a kind of quietness.

Wind, beating transparent wings, simple dreams let moonlight reveal the water town's undying heart lamp (fishing joy).

Xu Ruomin's bonsai "Magpie Bridge Return Road" (pot length 40 cm)

"Magpie Bridge Return Road" - "an ancient story, its vivid plot being pulled out section by section." Thinking back to those years, the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, their love arbitrarily abstracted and ruthlessly separated by an "invisible river," only on the seventh day of the seventh month each year could the "magpie bridge" in their dreams relieve the helplessness and shabbiness of "raising their heads in expectation and straining their eyes to see."

And now, the two have returned together to the mortal world (this is a breakthrough in spiritual ecology). The Cowherd no longer herds cattle, and devotes himself to what he likes: casting nets to catch fish. The Weaver Girl also no longer spins and weaves, but teaches children at home and cares for the elderly??

Magpie bridge return road, the earth's heart remains. Magpie calls in waves, folding up the vicissitudes. A dream, like a play. New era, new atmosphere?? The old temple's steps extend toward May, morning dew crystalline, nobility begins again, the colors of grass and trees written across water and sky. The Cowherd and Weaver Girl's new version of home life - "days pass more and more plainly, like a lake surface untouched by wind." Harmony and peace, the heaven of Chuchen.

Xu Ruomin's bonsai "Chuchen: Huai Mountain Spring Evening" (pot length 40 cm)

Huai Mountain spring evening. Greening grass and trees, carefully coloring, as calm as water, composed, unhurried, handling weight as if it were light. "A fishing song patched again and again, a stretch of wind, a stretch of rain, dressing the curling kitchen smoke of the twenty-li water town."

Battlements and ferry crossings, full of lingering tenderness, towering vibrantly. At this time, standing on what is and is not a bridge, a careless faint light tucks away an amorous figure, making the boatman passing under the "bridge" stop rowing, hesitant in heart yet hoping the fatigue of the whole journey can be dispelled as soon as possible, letting a mood that has never come before share this chance of spring evening. Perhaps this is the stupidest reason to stop rowing - failing to measure up to Van Gogh? Yet because the colors here are very kind!

Xu Ruomin's bonsai "Chuchen: Clear Joy" (bonsai 40 cm)

Reading "Clear Joy" arranged by "Bonsai World," feeling the meaning contained in the word "Chuchen": I seem to hear the heartbeat of water, the breathing of mountains... as if ancient persistence is innate.

Chuchen just settling, green grass is implanting hair for the soil; a glance from the spring wind, waves of light flicker. The index of "happiness" rises from this - "harvest has no size, the water surface has generous waiting."

No need to hesitate, before the water town misty reasons are everywhere. A small sampan comes to ask again: "Is the body staying, or the heart staying?" - reminding oneself to be "just right."

Time passes like flowing water, lamenting that nothing remains. Waves unalarmed, affection for Jiangnan. Human connections and earthly spirit, courteous reception long enduring.

Postscript:

This is a new work by Teacher Xu Ruomin of Shanghai. She is an educator who usually likes to grow some flowers and plants, and later discovered these flowers and plants could serve as material for making bonsai, so she created these small bonsai. Not long ago they were published in "Bonsai World," and after reading them, I felt the meaning was profound, so I wrote down these reflections to share with bonsai friends, and ask for your guidance. Thank you.

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