SILVIA KARAMFILOVA

“THE KEY TO THE ENCHANTED GARDEN. TWO WORLDS APART” is another one in the cycle “Windows, Doors and Bridges”. It was also painted during the first lockdown in France in the spring of 2020. It contains one of the components of the cycle – a door.

The painting represents two distinct worlds separated by a massive stone wall. One world is dark, cold, raw and unfriendly, covered in stone. The other – is a place of peacefulness, quiet, beauty, airiness, bright light, meditation, stillness, illumination and feeling of freedom. It is a world organically connected with nature and experiencing the elements, discovery, communication, socializing, regeneration of the senses and thriving. The tired soul has been hard pressed by the “stone clad walls” of the gray daily grind. The stone covered world is one of closure, isolation, loneliness, rigidness and desolation.

In between the two worlds stands a door. It is a symbol deeply ingrained in our psyche – the idea representing the passage of borders or their closure. A door facilitates the entry from one space or time to another. It is a threshold, a metamorphosis, a potential opportunity or a new beginning. However, it can also be seen as a boundary, barrier or the keeper of a secret. Sometimes gaining access may be as simple as turning the handle, but at other times the door remains locked and presents us with a choice to either try to enter peacefully or overcome it forcibly. We may need to knock or ring the bell or negotiate with the guardian of the door or submit the correct password which will secure our passage.

In this specific case, the door separating the two worlds is open. In most cases, we are the ones holding the key deep down inside us and it is our own choice whether to use it or not. In the 13th-century, the Persian poet, scholar, theologian, the Sufi mystic Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī Mevlana wrote “You suppose that you are the lock on the door. But you are the key that opens it.”

I would like to emphasize that, on the one hand, the painting is an allusion to the story in the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett “The Secret Garden” (first published in 1911), considered one of the most enduring classics of children’s literature. On the other hand, it implies to the lockdowns we have all been experiencing as of late.

Similarly to the main character in the novel, a spoiled little girl from a wealthy British family, who became orphaned as a result of a cholera epidemic in India and found herself living in an isolated estate with her uncle in England, we too became isolated from family, friends, work and the outside world.

In the story, the little girl finds out about the existence of this garden which was locked many years ago after her uncle’s wife had died and she becomes determined to find it. In a while she discovers the key and eventually the doorway into it. She finds that it is overgrown with dormant rose bushes and vines, but she spots some green shoots, and she begins clearing, weeding and tending to it. Her caring for the plants spurs a transformation in her: she becomes kinder, more considerate, more curious and outgoing. With the passing of time she also meets her uncle’s wheelchair-ridden son and another boy-gardener in the estate. The three children plant seeds to revitalize the garden, her uncle’s son slowly starts walking and through their friendship and interaction with nature they grow healthier and happier.

After the lockdowns, many of us have found a new love of being outside and appreciating Nature and the contrast with our previous way of living, characterized by the rat race for sustenance and material goods. What we took for granted in the past has now attained a different value for many of us. This has led us to embark on a road towards an amazing transformation of our souls and a newly rejuvenated outlook on life with the help of nature of which we are an inseparable part of. Some of us will continue on this pathway, other will not. It depends on who manages to find the “key” to the enchanted garden and transform it into a real garden by caring and tending to it…