'Stimulating and Sedative'

This phrase is used by Pico Iyer, in his travel memoir The Lady and the Monk: Four Seasons in Kyoto, in describing Japan. Here is a photo of a beautiful rock garden in Kyoto, adjacent to the Nijo Palace, if I recall correctly from a day of touring shrines, temples, and palaces. The rocks were gifts brought to the site, arranged artfully to look more natural than nature.