Growing communities or building them?

I love spring, March and April, so almost any excuse will do for pictures of flowers but there is a theme of growth. These were on top of a wall just on the path from the carpark to Falkland Palace which if you're in these parts I can't recommend enough. We did an Easter trail there recently. The National Trust for Scotland which is deputy keeper of this property has reciprocal arrangements with similar organisations in the UK and abroad.

Returning to a recent theme - what do you do if you can’t trust a dance teacher?  I would say find people, find good dancers you can trust who are not trying to sell you something. Those human connections made through warmth, openness, real trust and respect all exchanged freely create more of a community, grown organically, than any false construct built by people with a financial vested interest in having such a “community”. Healthy communities grow naturally from individual inclination.  "Built" communities, built by someone for some purpose of their own which often involves control, do not have the same authenticity. Nor I think do they last except in some cultish way when they become staffed by servile drones more than by thinking humans. Watch the tango forums online. People - usually organisers or teachers - nearly always talk about building communities. But people like a reason to come together (e,g. the  milonga), freely, organically. They generally like less being put together unnaturally (e.g. partner rotation in class).  People just do like to dance. Most of the practicas I have been to whether guided or not are effectively turned into milongas by the people who go. It's a natural inclination taking root. No surprise then that you get regulars at milongas but an endless turnover of short-lived beginners in tango class.

Such fragile beauty in the photo of the flowers appears random, created from what just happened to be the right conditions and, it would seem, the conditions don't even have to be much.  

On the other hand, despite being labour intensive and costly, building doesn't always work: 

Falkland Palace, East Range to the left

That corner of stonework in the left hand side is apparently the site of the original building. It is now a herb bed. I believe the foundations were discovered and marked out when the 3rd Marquess of Bute made extensive renovations in the late 19th century. When Cromwell's troops left here to build in Perth a citadel on the park opposite where I live now, there was a fire. The East Range was destroyed.and the place became essentially derelict for over two hundred years. So the building has changed through accident and circumstance and been adapted over time because the purpose for which it was originally built did not endure, as little does. Under the curation of the National Trust for Scotland there is an attractive orchard, a willow maze and arresting willow sculpture, lovely gardens, the oldest tennis court in the world etc.

Falkland palace orchard

So I think I prefer the idea of curation of good natural circumstances. Falkland Palace and the charitable organisations that preserve and maintain such historic properties to share with the interested public are good examples.

Another even more literal example of the success of growing an enterprise is Branklyn Gardens in Perth which my younger son and I visited over Easter to do another trail.  

Branklyn garden

A couple bought these two acres in 1922 and the house to live in. The intention in the gardens was originally private - to create an attractive background to the house for its owners. But the result today are gardens famous among those who enjoy such things. The point again is they didn't set out to "build" these gardens. They grew them literally, and just for the pleasure. The success was almost incidental. Indeed the sheer variety of spring flowers coaxed from the Scottish ground at this still inhospitable time of year and in this small space I find remarkable and inspiring.