A designer of Japanese gardens contemplates wildness, humanity, beauty, the liquid state of the world.

From his vantage point as a garden designer and writer based in Kyoto, Marc Peter Keane examines the world around him and delivers astonishing insights through an array of narratives. How the names of gardens reveal their essential meaning. A new definition of what art is. What trees are really made of. The true meaning of the enigmatic torii gate found at Shinto shrines. Why we give flowers as gifts. The essential, underlying unity of the world.

'For a thoughtful romp through Kyoto's aesthetic delights-from the utterly mundane to the exquisitely ineffable- I can't think of a better guide than Marc Peter Keane. I highly recommend his newest volume, Of Arcs and Circles.'- Leonard Koren, author of Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers