“
A passionate look, touch or a hug on a plant is enough to open your inner eyes than going for a serious yoga and other therapies
”
”
Karthikeyan V
“
Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.
”
”
May Sarton
“
There's something satisfying about getting your hands in the soil.
”
”
E.A. Bucchianeri (Vocation of a Gadfly (Gadfly Saga, #2))
“
You can get attached to plants when you lose faith in people.
”
”
Manuele Fior (5,000 Kilometers Per Second)
“
In forty years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical ‘therapy’ to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens.
”
”
Oliver Sacks (Everything in Its Place: First Loves and Last Tales)
“
Modern life is, for most of us, a kind of serfdom to mortgage, job and the constant assault to consume. Although we have more time and money than ever before, most of us have little sense of control over our own lives. It is all connected to the apathy that means fewer and fewer people vote. Politicians don’t listen to us anyway. Big business has all the power; religious extremism all the fear. But in the garden or allotment we are king or queen. It is our piece of outdoors that lays a real stake to the planet.
”
”
Montagu Don (My Roots: A Decade in the Garden)
“
The strongest and most mysterious weeds often have things to teach us.
”
”
F.T. McKinstry (Ascarion (Chronicles of Ealiron, #4))
“
Consider the whole thing as occupational therapy. Power as cottage industry for the mad. The shepherd is slave to the sheep. A gardener is in thrall to his carrots. Only a lunatic would want to be president. These lunatics are created deliberately by those who wish to be presided over. You've seen it a thousand times. We create a leader by locating one in the crowd who is standing up. This may well be because there are no chairs or because his knees are fused by arthritis. It doesn't matter. We designate this victim as a 'stand-up guy' by the simple expedient of sitting down around him.
”
”
Katherine Dunn (Geek Love)
“
Each of us is like seed, planted by the Good Gardener so we might grow into something majestic.
”
”
Seth Adam Smith (Rip Van Winkle and the Pumpkin Lantern)
“
To speak of creativity is to speak of profound intimacy. It is also to speak of our connecting to the Divine in us and of our bringing the Divine back to the community. This is true whether we understand our creativity to be begetting and nourishing our children, making music, doing theater, gardening, writing, teaching, running a business, painting, constructing houses, or sharing the healing arts of medicine and therapy.
”
”
Matthew Fox (Creativity)
“
At the bottom of freshly dug holes, I bury my problems alongside the waxen seeds.
”
”
Kelseyleigh Reber (If I Resist (Circle and Cross, #2))
“
Spring time is nature at its best.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita (Think Great: Be Great! (Beautiful Quotes, #1))
“
Wisteria hangs over the eaves like clumps of ghostly grapes. Euphorbia's pale blooms billow like sea froth. Blood grass twists upward, knifing the air, while underground its roots go berserk, goosing everything in their path. A magnolia, impatient with vulvic flesh, erupts in front of the living room window. The recovering terrorist--holding a watering can filled with equal parts fish fertilizer and water, paisley gloves right up over her freckled forearms, a straw hat with its big brim shading her eyes, old tennis shoes speckled with dew--moves through her front garden. Her face, she tells herself, like a Zen koan. The look of one lip smiling.
”
”
Zsuzsi Gartner (Better Living Through Plastic Explosives)
“
Stopping at a damask rose bush laden with pink flowers, she cuts several stems, laying them in her basket before bending to breathe in their fragrance, sweet and pungent like Turkish delight. Further on, she trims bunches of ruffled sweet-pea blossoms, growing in spirals around tall cane pyramids.
”
”
Hannah Richell (The Peacock Summer)
“
I have always thought of urban gardens - most gardens - as islands, where we create our own kingdoms, acting out our need for land, nurture and nature. On this weekend all these tiny islands wake again, each one crammed with insects, birdsong (often far better in town than country) and slow-moving people emerging into this gift of extra light.
”
”
Montagu Don (My Roots: A Decade in the Garden)
“
Plants bloom with flowers, people bloom with smiles
”
”
Hank Bruce (Gardens for the Senses, Gardening as Therapy Revised and Expanded Editon)
“
Oh, my child, can you not see? You must let go of yourself. For if a seed wishes to live, it must sacrifice itself and grow outward, not inward.
”
”
Seth Adam Smith (Rip Van Winkle and the Pumpkin Lantern)
“
Working in garden is like digging knowledge from the earth.
”
”
Karthikeyan V
“
It's reassuring to know that the garden birds are there, even when I'm not.
”
”
Joe Harkness (Bird Therapy)
“
There is something soothing about working in the yard. Planting seeds and seeing them poke green out of the dirt. And it gets you out of the house with out going too far.
”
”
Michael Lee West (Crazy Ladies)
“
Absence of that knowledge has rendered us a nation of wary label-readers, oddly uneasy in our obligate relationship with the things we eat ... Our words for unhealthy contamination--"soiled" or "dirty"--suggest that if we really knew the number-one ingredient of a garden, we'd all head straight into therapy. I used to take my children's friends out to the garden to warm them up to the idea of eating vegetables, but this strategy sometimes backfired: they'd back away slowly saying, "Oh man, those things touched dirt!" Adults do the same by pretending it all comes from the clean, well-lighted grocery store. We're like petulant teenagers rejecting our mother. We know we came out of her, but ee-ew.
”
”
Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life)
“
Each new human life retraces this ancient story. Young children are the very essence of human innocence. They run, play, and feel—and, as in Genesis, when they are naked they are not ashamed. Children provide a model for the assumption of healthy normality, and their innocence and vitality are part of why the assumption seems so obviously true. But that vision begins to fade as children acquire language and become more and more like the creatures adults see reflected every day in their mirrors. Adults unavoidably drag their children from the Garden with each word, conversation, or story they relate to them. We teach children to talk, think, compare, plan, and analyze. And as we do, their innocence falls away like petals from a flower, to be replaced by the thorns and stiff branches of fear, self-criticism, and pretense. We cannot prevent this gradual transformation, nor can we fully soften it. Our children must enter into the terrifying world of verbal knowledge. They must become like us.
”
”
Steven C. Hayes (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Process and Practice of Mindful Change)
“
I dial her mum's number, then sit down cross-legged, facing the wall. When she comes on the line, she sounds uncertain, hesitant.
'Hey! Guess where I am?' I ask, my voice loud with false cheer.
'Rami told me. The Wellesly Hospital in Worthing. What's it like?'
'For a loony-bin it's actually quite decent,' I reply. 'I don't have Sky or an en-suite, and the menu isn't exactly à la carte, but you know...' I tail off.
There is a silence.
'Do you have your own room?' Jenna asks,
'Oh yeah, yeah. I have a lovely view of the sea between the bars of my window.'
She doesn't laugh.
'Have you started' -there is a pause as she searches for the right word -'threatment?'
'Yeah, yeah. We had group therapy today. Tomorrow we'll probably have art therapy - maybe I'll draw you a hourse and a garden. I know, perhaps they'll teach us to make baskets! Isn't that why they call us basket cases?'
'Flynn, stop,' Jennah softly implores.
'And we'll probably have music therapy the day after. Maybe I'll get to play the tambourine. Or the triangle. I've always wanted to play the triangle!'
'Flynn-'
'No, I'm serious! I'll ask for some manuscript paper and see if I can write a composition for tambourine and triangle. Then I can post if off to you to hand in for my next composition assignment.'
'Flynn, listen-'
'Hold on, hold on! I'm making a note to myself now: Find fellow insane musician and start composing the Flynn Laukonen Sonata for Tambourine and Triangle.'
'Flynn-'
'And then, when they let me out, if they ever let me out, perhaps you could pull a few strigns and organize for me and my tambourine buddy to give a recital. I'm not sure where though -how about the subway at Marble Arch tube? Nice and central, good acoustics-'
'What are the other people like?' Jennah cuts in, an edge to her voice. I notice she doesn't use the word patients. Clever Jennah. For a moment there you almost made me forget I was locked up in a mental institution.
'Round the bend, just like me,' I reply. 'I'm in excellent company. We'll be swapping suicide tips in no time at all!' I give a harsh laugh.
”
”
Tabitha Suzuma (A Voice in the Distance (Flynn Laukonen, #2))
“
We may find ourselves in a role similar to that of a gardener as we cultivate a space in which healing can naturally unfold.
In terms of neurobiology, this stance encourages us to lean into the reassuring awareness that our systems already contain seeds awaiting our attention.
For some examples, we humans are always seeking the warmest possible attachments we can imagine (Cozolino, Siegel), our brains are continuously yearning for the arrival of a co-organizing other (Badenoch, Cozolino, Schore), emotional regulation flows naturally from being in the presence of someone we trust (Beckes & Coan) and even our nervous systems have a preference for the social engagement circuitry that sustains connection (Porges).
With this kind of support from the biology inherent in both practitioner and patient, our bodies may begin to open into a welcoming state as others come towards us, with a sense of partnership being established rather than someone doing something to us.
However this also means letting go of the potential certainty that comes from feeling we are in charge.
”
”
Bonnie Badenoch (The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology))
“
…we encourage you to trust your coping plan over the long haul. It is useful to acknowledge your small and daily successes, such as facing things you would typically avoid. There will likely be daily examples of slipups, too, but, similar to looking at a garden, we encourage you to focus on the flowers as much, if not more so, than you do the weeds.
As an aside, both of us have taken up bike riding in the past few years. In our appreciation of the multiday, grand stage races in Europe, such as the Tour de France, we have seen a metaphor that helps to illustrate the goal of coping with ADHD. These multiple stage bike races last from 3 or 4 days on up to 3 weeks. Different days are spent climbing steep mountain roads, traversing long flat stages of over a hundred miles that end in all out sprints to the finish line, and individual time trials where each rider goes out alone and covers the distance as quickly as possible, known as “the race of truth.” The grand champion of a multiday race, however, is the rider whose cumulative time for all the stages is the fastest. That is, if you ride well enough, day-in and day-out, you will be a champion even though you may not be the first rider to cross the finish line on any single day’s race.
Similarly, managing ADHD is an endurance sport. You need not cope perfectly all day, every day. The goal is to make progress, cope well enough, handle setbacks without giving up, and over time you will recognize your victory.
Just keep pedaling.
”
”
J. Russell Ramsay (The Adult ADHD Tool Kit)
“
Since when do you care, Cam?” I set my whisky glass down and stepped up to her, meeting her toe to toe. Her breath hitched as she met my gaze, our bodies almost touching. “I care about you,” I whispered. “It may be crazy. I may not have a single shot in hell with you. But I care, Hal. I care a lot. And I like you more than I should.” She swallowed hard, her gaze dancing with something I couldn’t quite read. “It is crazy. Because if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you want me.” “I do want you. I want you like a garden wants the sun. When I see you, I can’t see anything else. I want you and no one else. Maybe I’ve always wanted you.” I didn’t care if I sounded like some crazy country poet saying those things, I meant every word. “So you bullied me? Because you liked me?” “I wasn't raised to express my emotions in a healthy way, I was terrible to you for a lot of reasons, Haley. Reasons it took me years of therapy to figure out. Some of those reasons had nothing to do with you. One of those reasons was that I liked you but I also felt threatened by you. And my teenage, dumbass, hormone-riddled brain didn't know how to process more than one feeling at a time. I'm not that guy anymore, though. I've grown up.” “Threatened by me? What did I ever do to threaten you?” I sucked in a breath. This conversation had gone through my head a thousand times, and now it was here. Being honest fucking sucked sometimes, but I was going to be truthful. “You didn't do anything. It was more that you represented change. Nothing ever changes in Citrus Cove. People are born, live, and die here. But one day the Bently girls show up out of nowhere. And, let me tell you it took dozens of hours and thousands of dollars of therapy to figure out why it was only ever you I was terrible to, but you coming to town, it meant that things don't stay the same forever. I didn't know that was why at the time, but you represented the possibility of more, but also the possibility of loss. And we had just lost my grandmother and I couldn't deal with something new. All that, and I had a stupid boyhood crush on you. But I'm not a boy anymore.” “No, you’re not,” she said, the corner of her mouth tugging. “You’ve grown up.
”
”
Clio Evans (Broken Beginnings (Citrus Cove, #1))
“
And the ladies dressed in red for my pain and with my pain latched onto my breath, clinging like the fetuses of scorpions in the deepest crook of my neck, the mothers in red who sucked out the last bit of heat that my barely beating heart could give me — I always had to learn on my own the steps you take to drink and eat and breathe, I was never taught to cry and now will never learn to do this, least of all from the great ladies latched onto the lining of my breath with reddish spit and floating veils of blood, my blood, mine alone, which I drew myself and which they drink from now after murdering the king whose body is listing in the river and who moves his eyes and smiles, though he’s dead and when you’re dead, you’re dead, for all the smiling you do, and the great ladies, the tragic ladies in red have murdered the one who is floating down the river and I stay behind like a hostage in their eternal custody.
I want to die to the letter of the law of the commonplace, where we are assured that dying is the same as dreaming. The light, the forbidden wine, the vertigo. Who is it you write for? The ruins of an abandoned temple. If only celebration were possible. A mournful vision, splintered, of a garden of broken statues.
Numb time, time like a glove upon a drum. The three who compete in me remain on a shifting point and we neither are nor is. My eyes used to find rest in humiliated, forsaken things. Nowadays I see with them; I’ve seen and approved of nothing.
Seated at the bottom of a lake. She has lost her shadow, but not the desire to be, to lose. She is alone with her images. Dressed in red, and unseeing. Who has reached this place that no one ever reaches? The lord of those dead who are dressed in red. The man who is masked in a faceless face. The one who came for her takes her without him. Dressed in black, and seeing. The one who didn’t know how to die of love and so couldn’t learn a thing. She is sad because she is not there.
There are words with hands; barely written, they search my heart. There are words condemned like the lilac in a tempest. There are words resembling some among the dead, and from these I prefer the ones that evoke the doll of some unhappy girl.
Ward 18
when I think of occupational therapy I think of poking out my eyes in a house in ruin then eating them while thinking of all my years of continuous writing,
15 or 20 hours writing without a break, whetted by the demon of analogies, trying to configure my terrible wandering verbal matter, because — oh dear old Sigmund Freud — psychoanalytic science forgot its key somewhere:
to open it opens but how to close the wound?
for other imponderables lovelier than the smile of the Virgin of the Rocks
the shadows strike blows
the black shadows
of the dead
nothing but blows
and there were cries
nothing but blows
”
”
Alejandra Pizarnik
“
Children who grow what they eat will often eat what they grow
”
”
Melanie Charlene
“
When I am grieved in spirit, or vexed in temper, by the unavoidable cares of my little world, I go out and -work- in my garden; and in the healthful exercise of body, and the beautiful soul-subduing quiet that pervades the place, and steals like a healing balm over my mind, I soon forget my troubles.' -- ELIZABETH CARRINGTON MORRIS, Article for -American Agriculturalist-, April 1846.
”
”
Catherine McNeur (Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science)
“
Wait just a moment, please.” He looked around as if making sure they weren’t observed, then led her rather forcefully to the side of the house where the moon and lamplight did not touch them.
“Let go!”
He did. “Miss Erstwhile, I believe it is in your best interest to tell me what you are doing out here.”
“Walking.” She glared. She did not particularly enjoy being dragged by her arm.
His eyes darted to the servants’ quarters. To Martin’s exact window. It made her swallow.
“You are not doing something foolish, are you?”
In fact, she was, but that didn’t mean she had to stop glaring.
“I don’t know if you realize,” he said in his unbearably condescending tone, “but it is not proper for a lady to be out alone after dark and worse to cavort with servants…”
“Cavort?”
“When doing so might lead to trouble of the worst nature…”
“Cavort?”
“Look,” he said, slipping into slightly more colloquial tones, “just stay away from there.”
“Aren’t you all righteous concern, Mr. Nobley? Five minutes ago, I’d planned on changing careers and becoming a dairymaid, but you’ve saved me from that fate. I’ll kindly release you back to the night and return to my well-bred ways.”
“Don’t be a fool, Miss Erstwhile.” He returned the way he’d come, from the back of the house.
“Insufferable,” she said under her breath.
No, she wasn’t going to go to Martin’s, curse him, but she wasn’t going to run back to her room either, if just to spite Mr. Nobley. The man deserved to be spited. Or spitted. Or both. Though boring and cold and hateful, Mr. Nobley was the most Darcy-esque of them all, so she despised him with vigorous enthusiasm. Perhaps, she hoped, the exercise would count toward therapy and her ultimate Austenland recovery.
“Grab my arm, will he?” she said, getting a speck of satisfaction by muttering like an old crazy woman. “Call me a fool…”
She walked around the park in angry circles. Her fingers were cold, and her thoughts wandered to memories of spending so much time in the bath as a kid that her fingertips crinkled like raisin skin. Wrinkly skin reminded her of Great-Aunt Carolyn, with her extravagantly soft fingers and conspiratorial eyes.
She bought me this gift, Jane thought. Use it well, you floppy-brained, hopeless idiot, and stop trying to fall in love with gardeners. With anyone.
”
”
Shannon Hale (Austenland (Austenland, #1))
“
But whatever we may suffer as we await the renewal of all things, the promises of God can outperform the amusements and even the therapies of this world in keeping our souls and our marriages alive. The key to a lasting romance is not endless sex but believing hearts. God has given us a wonderful promise of restoration by his grace. We most certainly will get back to the garden someday, led by one who through his suffering opened the way for Adam and Eve and us and millions more (Rev. 22:1–5).
”
”
Raymond C. Ortlund Jr. (Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel)
“
We’re all given gifts in life, it’s what we do with them that shows us what we’ve learned.
”
”
Lise-Lotte Loomer (Greenhouse Hygge: The House of My Growing Dreams)
“
It’s safer to use foods in the most natural form, combined and mixed by nature and raised, if possible, by an organic gardening process, thus obeying the laws of nature.
”
”
Charlotte Gerson (The Gerson Therapy: The Proven Nutritional Program for Cancer and Other Illnesses)
“
One important lesson that I’ve learned in doing therapy is that creating change is a bit like gardening. Just as a gardener doesn’t reach into a seed and pull out a plant, a therapist doesn’t reach into people and make them change. Rather, therapists provide people with what they need to grow. I listen to people, share my perceptions about them and their situation, offer compassion, and provide guidance. In response, they (hopefully) learn to see themselves differently; respond to themselves in new, more positive ways; feel encouraged to risk change (the unknown is always at least a little scary); and learn to be different. But all of this must happen at its own pace; it can be encouraged, but it cannot be forced.
”
”
Leslie Becker-Phelps (Insecure in Love: How Anxious Attachment Can Make You Feel Jealous, Needy, and Worried and What You Can Do About It)
“
I let Annabel show me how to do it, and together we planted the tomatoes. Once I'd done one or two, I discovered that I liked it, and that furthermore tomato plants smelled good. Not a pretty smell, but an interesting one, peppery and green. I could smell it on my hands, and in the sunny air.
”
”
Abbi Waxman (The Garden of Small Beginnings)
“
The study, which was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2018, was the first horticultural therapy trial to be included in the journal, and its inclusion is an indication that gardening is gaining credibility
”
”
Sue Stuart-Smith (The Well-Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power of Nature)
“
The Origins of Suffering, according to the Judeo-Christian Tradition The Bible is very clear about the original source of human suffering. In the Genesis story, “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness’ ” (Gen. 1:26 [New International Version]), and Adam and Eve were placed in an idyllic garden. The first humans were innocent and happy: “The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Gen. 2:25). They are given only one command: “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” (Gen. 2:17). The serpent tells Eve that she will not die if she eats from that tree, but rather that “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). The serpent turns out to be correct, to a degree, because when the fruit is eaten, “The eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked” (Gen. 3:7).
”
”
Steven C. Hayes (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Process and Practice of Mindful Change)
“
I say: Once you go green
You won't let the blues in.
”
”
Ana Claudia Antunes (A-Z of Happiness: Tips for Living and Breaking Through the Chain that Separates You from Getting That Dream Job)
“
garden Materials needed Paper, felt-tip pens, pencils, ballpoint pens. Instructions The therapist leads the visualisation: Get into a comfortable position and close your eyes if you want to. Come with me. We are going into the garden. (PAUSE) It is morning in the middle of winter. (PAUSE) Put warm clothes on. (PAUSE) Coat. (PAUSE) Boots. (
”
”
Roger Day (Stories That Heal: 64 creative visualisations for use in therapy)
“
That fall, they moved in a greyhound named Target, a lapdog named Ginger, the four cats, and the birds. They threw out all their artificial plants and put live plants in every room. Staff members brought their kids to hang out after school; friends and family put in a garden at the back of the home and a playground for the kids. It was shock therapy.
”
”
Atul Gawande (Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End)
“
That means that however funds are raised for community projects, the highest amount goes to educational facilities and teachers. The curriculum would be based on learning what it means to be a human being, or rather, a spiritual being living in a human body/world. Courses taught would include how to develop creativity, what it means to clear the psychological and emotional self, how to be in relationship with others, what steps must be taken to ensure basic needs are met for all souls in physical embodiment, the study of different soul paths for the purpose of understanding the viewpoints and perceptions of each group, etc. Second, resources would be devoted to scientific research and application. Specifically, funding would be allocated for alternative energy projects, agricultural advances, transportation systems, cleanup of the environment, and exploration of the cosmos. Third, emphasis would be placed on cultural advancement, including creative architecture, community gardens, cooperative building and re-building projects, implementation of new economic paradigms including enlightened currencies, and providing of the latest technological systems in every household that desires them (but not necessarily with emphasis on the latest gadgets for hours of mind-numbing entertainment). The priority here is to enable more efficient communication and awareness of world events for all souls. Also, it is important to be sure and include entertainment and down time. Fourth, opportunities would be provided to help individuals express their spiritual freedom. Encouragement and support will be given for souls to build churches, mosques, temples, synagogues, monasteries, healing retreat centers, therapy and holistic bodywork facilities, and more. The truth may be within, but it is helpful to have an outer environment that reflects the inner truth.
”
”
Sal Rachele (Earth Awakens: Prophecy 2012–2030)
“
Mum had often said she was closest to God when in her garden, and as the years rolled by I understood what she meant: crafting beauty generates tender thoughts. And isn’t that what creation is all about?
”
”
David Scott (Stargazer)
“
The Sedative Garden atop the Therapy Building was a triumph of therapeutic planning. Every perspective, every color, every contour had been designed to placate hostility, soothe resistance, melt anger, evaporate hysteria, shore up melancholia and depression.
”
”
Alfred Bester (The Stars My Destination)
“
The point is that this is all gardening. The garden runs through our lives like a river through a field, like air in our lungs. The garden does not end in space any more than it does in time. The flowers grow as much in our minds as in the soil. There are very few nights when I do not lie in the dark, everyone else sleeping inside this creaking, bony house, and go through the garden, seeing it with the clarity of a dreamer, taking it to pieces and putting it together again, mending everything in my head.
”
”
Montagu Don (My Roots: A Decade in the Garden)
“
I enjoy cooking. It’s therapy for me. Louise’s therapy is her rose garden. You may note, Polly, that we don’t have any roses.
”
”
Madeleine L'Engle (An Acceptable Time (Time Quintet, #5))
“
When we create a garden, no matter how small or where it is in the world, we enrich the world as a whole.
”
”
Bhuwan Thapaliya
“
Each pile of compost is a story of transformation.
”
”
Andrew Schmitz (Black Gold Composting Guide: Gardener’s science behind making your own sustainable fertilizer)
“
The horror the Japanese have of the unexpected and the decisions is requires.
The Japanese will become the most aesthetic people in the world.
Six Buddhist sects have sprung from the interpretation of the scriptures and on ceremonial days, their priests wear tunics of raspberry, saffron, pistachio or violet, which create a lovely effect on the gray-brown-green of the Japanese landscape.
The cemeteries are the fish ponds for the temples.
These foreign visitors demand that before they leave Japan, someone should wrap up the "soul of Japan" for them. What do they want? Suddenly, through a simple mental process, their ignorance should be transformed into knowledge, clear-cut and precise, please, so that they can discuss it when they get home. I judge them, but I too, would sometimes like to find my meal set in front of me and fast. We come to this thin and frugal country with our greedy metabolisms: the whole West is that way. The golden dishes, the maharajahs, the rubies as big as the duck eggs, that is what struck our first explorers, not the frugality that is truly one of the marks of Asia.
Have you ever drunk a good bottle of wine with a connaisseur? It is a form of torture.
Because of the rhythm of Noh, travel is so slow that winter always overtakes travelers en route. They travel in tiny steps across a sort of mental Tibet.
Japan: a self-sustaining island, rich in gold and in solver, excellent products, a disciplined and frugal population that carries cleanliness to the point of fanaticism, an always-appropriate alternation between honesty and hypocrisy, in short, the best governed state in the world.
Walking does help to support the insupportable.
When things turn bad, rather than expecting too much from people, one must sharpen one's relations with things.
The tao ( the philosophy of Lao-tzu, sixth century B.C ) taught that our mind is a troublemaker that interferes between life and us, that we are victims of our categories.
What exactly is Zen? For some it is a religion, for others a form of therapy, a means of liberation, a guide to character, a reaction of the Chinese spirit against the Indian spirit.
True saints are not always on hand for writers who are passing through, people who don't need what one knows. In the Orient, knowledge is given spoonful by spoonful to the people who are truly hungry and the word "secret" means nothing here.
In old Chinese Zen it was traditional to choose the gardener who knew nothing to succeed the master rather than one who knew too much.
In this style of decor, as in the food, there is an immateriality repeated again and again: make yourself small, don't hurt the air, don't would our eyes with your terrible colored shirts, don't be so restless and don't offend this slightly bloodless perfection that we have been tending for eight hundred years.
A crane preening his feathers, this elegant bird, so inexpressibly white, posed in the middle of the reeds, like a Ming vase.
”
”
Nicolas Bouvier (The Japanese Chronicles)
“
An avocado of hope
ripens in one corner,
while a pomegranate of faith
bursts open in another.
Vivid tulips unfurl
their petals of dreams,
as hybrid lilies embrace
the sturdy guava’s roots.
Mimosa of forgiveness,
Basil of kindness,
and mint of tolerance
sway in harmony,
whispering peace
to the passing breeze.
”
”
Bhuwan Thapaliyahapaliya
“
An avocado of hope
ripens in one corner,
while a pomegranate of faith
bursts open in another.
Vivid tulips unfurl
their petals of dreams,
as hybrid lilies embrace
the sturdy guava’s roots.
Mimosa of forgiveness,
Basil of kindness,
and mint of tolerance
sway in harmony,
whispering peace
to the passing breeze.
”
”
Bhuwan Thapaliya (Our Nepal, Our Pride)
“
I planted flowers,
and they planted hope in me.
”
”
Bhuwan Thapaliya (Slipping into another world)
“
I wanted a home, absolutely, but it was a garden that I needed.
”
”
Olivia Laing (The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise)
“
A rainbow always lets you know, without any shadow of a doubt, that you are never alone, you are eternally blessed, and you are dearly loved!
A rainbow is a shot from the heart of God, to the heart of a human. Never underestimate a rainbow’s presence. Because within its subtle, yet loving colours are the strength of the Divine.
A person will never be quite the same, after witnessing a rainbow’s presence. They will walk away somehow lifted and inspired, and with good reason. The rainbow comes from the hand of God.
Even after a rainbow is gone and you did not witness its presence, you will feel somehow uplifted. The atmosphere has been cleansed, with God’s love.
”
”
Sarah Rajkotwala (Fairy Sparkles)
“
My angels, what do you say about the earth’s healing of us?
“Mother Earth just waits to have contact with you her beloved child, to cosset you, to love you, re-balance and heal anything that needs it. By touching the bare earth with your hands (such as with gardening, or by touching plants) or with your bare feet you will fully gain the blessings that she has for you in that minute. Just sit quietly for a few minutes, to soak up her healing and blessings. You will feel much calmer, more at peace and more ‘grounded’ after having direct contact with Mother Earth, your Earth Mother. While she is strong, her work is gentle and subtle and can’t be done through, the floors of houses or through an open window. You need to go outside, to feel the full benefits, of her subtle, but powerful healing.
”
”
Sarah Rajkotwala (Fairy Sparkles)
“
Spring, is a time of re-growth and renewal. It is a time when one has more garden chores to do, such as planting new seedings in the vegetable and flower gardens. Also, a time of great activity, when the grass and weeds start to grow and need to be chopped back. There is no mistake, that a lot of people start new businesses, in spring and even get married in spring. It is a time of great promise and forward movement in life.”
“So going back to the yellow flowers, they signify optimism, prosperity and action. So seeing and particularly going outside, when it is spring and spending time with the yellow flowers like the wattle and daffodils give one an increased optimism for the life and the coming season and helps people have more energy to go about the weekly jobs that spring most generously provides!
”
”
Sarah Rajkotwala (Fairy Sparkles)
“
View the sun as your mother, she loves you and only wants the very best for you. So each time you go outside, she beams her loving warm rays on your head, knowing that it will caress you with her love. The sun, being a celestial object, is far more powerful than your heater and her rays are nurturing and healing to all who inhabit earth and venture out in her. So even a few minutes of sun in the morning, or evening can last for many hours, warming, your blood, bones and systems and giving you a feeling of wellbeing like no other.”
There is no mistake, that many of the early forms of mental health treatment involved patients sitting out in the sun, for a prescribed number of hours. The sun has a natural anti-depressant effect, and when this is realized in studies in your future, the sun will again be prescribed as a good way of balancing and healing your body, mind and spirit. Along with gentle, walking and gardening daily in nature, all are ways of keeping on an even-keel mentally and emotionally.
”
”
Sarah Rajkotwala (Fairy Sparkles)
“
So, you know about fairies? Tell me about them.
“They are all around us, they are where plants are, and some are also where plants are not. They heal and beautify and sow seeds, they are the energy behind your beloved flowers, they pollinate, cultivate and talk to the stones. They hold great knowledge of magic, plants and earth magic and manifestation. They are happy joyful creatures, if it weren’t for them, we plants would not exist, and without plants you would not be able to exist. You see, it is all a symbiotic relationship, one entity helps the other who helps the other.” – Gum Trees
”
”
Sarah Rajkotwala (The Year of Talking to Plants: The Plants and Fairies Talk in Their Own Words)
“
Does it improve the atmosphere of the garden, the more flowers there are in a garden?
“Yes of course, we all have flowers for the contribution they make to the overall peace and happiness and harmony of an area. The more flowers there are the more peaceful, happy and harmonious the garden is. Who could stay grumpy or sad in a garden full of flowers? If the flowers are brought indoors in huge bunches, then the atmosphere inside the home is improved greatly with more harmonious relations between people, and peaceful and happy feelings encouraged.”
Then I asked the freesias, what are the roles of flower scent to humans in the garden?
“Fragrances lift the vibrational frequencies of an area, garden or room. If the fragrance is of a natural origin, preferably floral, then there are certain blessings attached to smelling it. It heightens the thoughts of humans in the vicinity and helps soothe bad moods or argumentative residents. Fragrance is also a bridge between the human and angelic worlds and helps communication between species. Do not underestimate the power of fragrance; it can change the mood and situations in whole regions. All the while, the residents remain oblivious, to the fragrance’s pivotal importance, in the natural world. Without fragrance, the world would be a poorer place.”
“Fragrance helps lighten one’s mood, and countenance and help lift depression and lethargy. Fragrance plays a big role in why people are more energetic in spring, once all the flowers in blossom come out en-masse.
”
”
Sarah Rajkotwala (The Year of Talking to Plants: The Plants and Fairies Talk in Their Own Words)