I was born in Siberia in 1957 in a family of deportees. When our family returned to Lithuania in 1958, they had to start their life anew and overcome a lot of difficulties. Everything got especially complicated when I against my will was sent to the war to Afghanistan. This war deeply wounded both my body and soul. The memory of it has still remained as a bleeding scar. I started balancing at the edge of being and nonbeing. In order to resist ruin and degradation, I had to find something to occupy myself which could encourage me for meaningful life. At first I tried to occupy myself so much that I wouldn’t have any time to remember the nightmare which I had experienced in Afghanistan. I used to sleep just a few hours per day and devote all my time for my work and studies, especially the studies of philosophy. However, misfortunes did not leave me alone, five times I had found myself in nearly lethal situations, but I survived. And then I understood that something was protecting me and at the same time encouraging me to look for something that could help me overcome all my disasters. My spirit had not found what it was seeking for a long time but was gradually approaching it. Everything was changed in 1996, when I was on vacation at the seaside in Palanga. Quite accidentally I saw a photo of a Japanese garden which changed my future life. While I was looking at a picture of a distant country, I felt as if a hurricane was erupting in my body and mind. I did not know what had happened but I felt intuitively that I had to use my heart and hands and create a garden similar to that. It seemed to me that creating a garden was the only way to find harmony of my inner world. I did not finish my vacation at the seaside, instead I came home and started working. I felt as if I had been helped by nature itself and something supernatural. The vegetable garden that used to be near my house was gradually becoming smaller and smaller, and instead of it the outline of the future garden was showing up. The beginning was very difficult. There was no literature in Lithuania about gardens without flowers and fruit trees where there is little space for one’s eye but immeasurable space for your heart. While creating my garden most often I had to rely on my intuition. I was overflowed by thoughts and ideas. Most of them used to lighten my consciousness at night or early in the morning. Then I could not fall back asleep and went to work in my garden even though it was 3 a.m. I have given all myself to my garden. Little by little I started forgetting my past, and I could relax and be alone with nature as now. Nature itself helped me to come close to it and opened to me understanding of a lot of things which is difficult to explain.

   There are a lot of stones in my garden. The most beautiful of them look as if they had come from a fairy tale. One of these stones as calling me for a long time: “Come and take me”. I found it far in the forest where I hadn’t ever been before. One early spring morning my family and I went to the forest to pick violets. On entering the forest I felt a strong attraction and surrendered to it. I had gone for about 300 metres through streams, bushes as if knowing where to go. It seemed that nature itself had guided me to one of the most beautiful of my stones. At first I could see just about 3 centimetres of it. While I was trying to remove the earth from it, the stone was gradually disclosing its beauty and power. When I dug it out, I found that its weight was about 400 kilograms. Taking the stone to my garden its another story. Since then various stones have been coming to my garden. Being the lowest form of life, stones have the most energy of all other forms. Each stone has found it place in my garden and together with me rejoice the morning sun.

   I am interested not only in stones but also in trees, not usual but low which suit the garden of Japanese style. In 1989 I bought the first miniature tree bonsai from my friend. Bonsai have been grown for several hundred years in the Far East, China, Japan and other countries. Thus my acquaintance with this miracle began. It is a tree which can grow in a flower pot. I started studying literature about art of growing and forming bonsai. A man who grows bonsai is a gardener and artist together. The gardener knows how the tree grows, how we can plant, replant, form, water and take care of it so that it should live as long as in natural inhabitation. The artist sees the beauty of the tree and makes it look as real and natural as possible. I felt a desire to grow bonsai myself. It was very important to find young trees that were suitable for growing bonsai. I was looking for them in the forest, in stalls where I could pick various damaged trees. After several years of hard work I turned them into unique miracle. I have collected quite a big collection of my bonsai which supplemented my garden and matches it perfectly.

Kestutis Ptakauskas Bonsai Demonstration 2009