Jasmine Flower Quotes

To be the other woman is to be a season that is always about to end, when the air is flowered with jasmine and peach, and the weather day after day is flawless, and the forecast is hurricane.

The wind, one brilliant day, called to my soul with an odor of jasmine. "In return for the odor of my jasmine, I'd like all the odor of your roses." "I have no roses; all the flowers in my garden are dead." "Well then, I'll take the withered petals and the yellow leaves and the waters of the fountain." the wind left. And I wept. And I said to myself: "What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?

Meanwhile, spring came, and with it the outpourings of Nature. The hills were soon splashed with wild flowers; the grass became an altogether new and richer shade of green; and the air became scented with fresh and surprising smells -- of jasmine, honeysuckle, and lavender.

I do not feel like writing verses; but as I light my perfume burner with myrrh and jasmine incense, they suddenly burgeon from my heart, like flowers in a garden.

When you go to a garden, do you look at thorns or flowers? Spend more time with the roses and jasmine.

The sun goes down and the sky reddens, pain grows sharp, light dwindles. Then is evening when jasmine flowers open, the deluded say. But evening is the great brightening dawn when crested cocks crow all through the tall city and evening is the whole day for those without their lovers.

Until recently, I believed all horses were alike. They’ve been giant, four-footed animals with ugly dispositions and alarmingly large teeth for so long that it’s a bit startling to notice how different they are from each other. Mara’s mare, for instance, is a chestnut bay except for a wide white blaze down her nose that makes her seem perpetually surprised. My huge plodding mount is a dark brown near to black creature, with the most unruly mane I’ve ever seen. Her shaggy forelock covers her right eye and reaches almost to her mouth. Mara’s mare head-butts her in the chest. Grinning, Mara plants a kiss between her wide, dumb eyes, then murmurs something. “Have you named her?” I ask. “Yes! Her name is Jasmine.” I grimace. “But jasmine is such a sweet, pretty flower.” Mara laughs. “Have you named yours?” “Her name is Horse.” She rolls her eyes. “If you want to get along with your mount you have to learn each others’ languages. That means starting with a good name.” “All right.” I pretend to consider. “What about Imbecile? Or Poops A Lot?

When she is crowned in jasmine, in needle-flower, in smoke and in fire, he will kneel before he and name her," repeated Rao, in common Zaban. And suddenly Malini was shivering, every inch of her afire with a mad elation that rose up, up in her blood. "He will give the princess of Parijat her fate: He will say..." He swallowed. Raised his eyes, which were fierce and wet. "Name who shall sit upon the throne, princess. Name the flower of empire. Name the head that shall reign beneath a crown of poison. Name the hand that lit the pyre." The silence was deep; a drumming tense silence, drawn taut as a bowstring. "He will name her thus," finished Rao. "And she will know.

Mexico admits you through an arched stone orifice into the tree-filled courtyard of its heart, where a dog pisses against a wall and a waiter hustles through a curtain of jasmine to bring a bowl of tortilla soup, steaming with cilantro and lime. Cats stalk lizards among the clay pots around the fountain, doves settle into the flowering vines and coo their prayers, thankful for the existence of lizards. The potted plants silently exhale, outgrowing their clay pots. Like Mexico's children they stand pinched and patient in last year's too-small shoes.

Jasmine flowers are so pale, so delicate. You think they couldn't survive in this relentless tropical heat. But they thrive on it. They go strong and gorgeous, and they bloom. Their perfume is . . . intoxicating, so strong that it leaves its mark on you long after you've left behind.

The words that make the rose bloom were also said to me. The words told to the cypress to make it grow strong and straight. The instructions whispered to the jasmine. And whatever was said to the sugarcane to make it sweet. And to the pomegranate flowers to make them blush. The same thing is being said to me.

One of Francie's favorite stores was the one which sold nothing but tea, coffee, and spices. It was an exciting place of rows of lacquered bins and strange, romantic, exotics odors. There were a dozen scarlet coffee bins with adventurous words written across the front in black China ink: Brazil! Argentine! Turkish! Java! Mixed Blend! The tea was in smaller bins: beautiful bins with sloping covers. They read: Oolong! Formosa! Orange Pekoe! Black China! Flowering Almond! Jasmine! Irish Tea! The spices were in miniature bins behind the counter. Their names marches in a row across the shelves: cinnamon-- cloves-- ginger-- all-spice-- ball nutmeg--curry-- peppercorns-- sage-- thyme-- marjoram.

Sweet-briar and southern-wood, jasmine, pink, and rose have long been yielding their evening sacrifice of incense: this new scent is neither of shrub nor flower; it is—I know it well—it is Mr. Rochester’s cigar.

The estate grounds, like the surrounding farmland, were beautifully maintained, with deep mature hedges and old stone walls covered with climbing roses and soft, fluttery bursts pf purple wisteria. Jasmine and honeysuckle perfumed the air where the carriages came to a slow halt in front of the portico.

Aubade " There was one summer that returned many times over there was one flower unfurling taking many forms Crimson of the monarda, pale gold of the late roses There was one love There was one love, there were many nights Smell of the mock orange tree Corridors of jasmine and lilies Still the wind blew There were many winters but I closed my eyes The cold air white with dissolved wings There was one garden when the snow melted Azure and white; I couldn’t tell my solitude from love— There was one love; he had many voices There was one dawn; sometimes we watched it together I was here I was here There was one summer returning over and over there was one dawn I grew old watching

WHAT WAS TOLD, THAT What was said to the rose that made it open was said to me here in my chest. What was told the cypress that made it strong and straight, what was whispered the jasmine so it is what it is, whatever made sugarcane sweet, whatever was said to the inhabitants of the town of Chigil in Turkestan that makes them so handsome, whatever lets the pomegranate flower blush like a human face, that is being said to me now. I blush. Whatever put eloquence in language, that's happening here. The great warehouse doors open; I fill with gratitude, chewing a piece of sugarcane, in love with the one to whom every that belongs!

The empress of the perfumer's palette, jasmine must be harvested before the rising sun to retain the full force of its delicate fragrance. Fragile and fleeting, jasmine is a fair nymph of a flower with a potent perfume. A world without jasmine? Simply unimaginable. -DB

It is a beautiful March morning. The pink gillyflowers beneath my window are in bloom, filling the room with their sweet and heady scent. If I lean close to the windowsill and peer down at the garden bed, I can see the outermost petals, bright with sun. The peach blossom will be next, then the jasmine. Each year it is the same, will continue to be the same for years to come. Long after I am here to enjoy them. Eternally fresh, eternally hopeful, always ingenuous.

Come slowly, Eden! Lips unused to thee, Bashful, sip thy jasmines, As the fainting bee, Reaching late his flower, Round her chamber hums, Counts his nectars—enters, And is lost in balms!

It would be foolish to try to take what was not hers to take. Royal sons were the ones who wore the crown. Royal women were... Well. She thought of her fellow princess Alori, and of highborn Narina, and how they had screamed when the flames had touched them. How they smelled as they burned, as their crowns of stars splintered around their skulls, as even the sweetness of perfume and flowers could not block out the acrid scent of burnt hair and silk, or the smell of flesh, fat, marrow burning and burning and burning. Royal women are only crowned in death, Malini thought furiously.

She is a one in a billion girl. When you meet her, you will feel a serene breeze engulf you. When she smiles at you, the world pauses for a while. When she speaks, it feels like the nightingales are singing. She is extraordinarily pretty. She is beautiful as the rose flower. She is the fragrance of a million jasmine flowers. She is the sensitivity of the dew drops. She is the innocence of the blooming llily, ily. She is the calm of the sylvan lake. She is the beautiful light of the candle flame. She is the wildness of the Kadupal flower. She is the magic of the full moon night! When you meet her, you will forget all other girls that you ever met in the world. She is the prettiest girl in the whole world. She is the most amazing and wonderful girl in the whole world. She is the Poet's Muse.

Like a thief, the image of her taut, well-formed body crept into his mind next. His hair swept backwards, shot up like long needles in the rush of the air and his thoughts grew bolder. He marveled how beautifully her body arched as she stood and gave commands. Vishwakarma, the god of all craftsmen, in an exalting moment had threaded a wire through it to give it that elegant curve. From that instant, the memories of a wife, of dear daughters waiting back in the village seemed hazy as in a dream. Inhibitions became soft barriers. He remembered the gestures of Chanda Bai’s two hands as she talked; her palms like delicate seashells; her elegant fingers. Flashes of her jewel studded ears, another pair of shells; and her long hair lovingly braided by her servants with thick strands of white and yellow jasmine flowers interlaced in them. He wanted to caress those flowers with his finger.

I was travelling through a tunnel of light. The more I travelled, the lighter I felt. I was filled with a kind of ecstasy that I had never known before. I was moving closer and closer to the source of this beautiful light. All I wanted was to merge with that light. But suddenly I fell, like a flower falling off its stem, and returned to my body.

Her voice turned wistful. “You’ve never seen me how I really am. I wish you could. I used to wear the most lovely silk saris in Parijat, and flowers twined in my hair like a crown. I was beautiful then.” Priya swallowed. You still are.

What a shame the lilac flower jealously guards its aroma, refusing to share its magic. Relying on alchemy, a perfumer recalls its impression with a blend. Together, the essences of jasmine, ylang-ylang, neroli, and vanilla plot to mimic the fair lilac flower. —

Sitt Shadid scoops me up in a bear hug, sweeping me into her round softness. I haven't been hugged, really hugged, in so long... But Sitt Shadid pats and rubs my back, and I relax. I reach across her wide arms, my cheek to her neck. She smells like jasmine flowers and olive soap.

It was strange to be outside on a summer’s evening. Rachel breathed in the scent of the delicate white flowers on the star jasmine and looked up at the sky. She saw what at first she thought was a bird, then realised it was a bat, and beyond that, in the sky, she saw thousands of stars.

I am not thorny," Malini said. "I cried." "Weeping does not make you any less yourself," her mother replied. She touched her fingertips to Malini's shorn hair. "Be careful with your tears," her mother added, in a voice of cultivated restraint. "They're blood of the spirit. Weep too much, and it will wear you thin, until your soul is like a bruised flower." Her mother had been wrong, though. Weep enough and your nature becomes like stone, battered by water until it is smooth and impervious to hurt. Use tears as a tool for long enough, and you will forget what real grief feels like. That was some small mercy, at least.

Flowers floating down the river; yellow and scarlet cannas, roses, jasmine, hibiscus. They are placed in boats made of broad leaves, then consigned to the waters with a prayer. The strong current carries them swiftly downstream, and they bob about on the water for fifty, sometimes a hundred yards, before being submerged in the river. Do the pursued prayers sink too, or do they reach the hearts of the many gods who have favoured Hardwar - 'door of Hari,or Vishnu'- these several hundred years?

Recently painted a deep plum color, the shutters folded back across the glass like a gentle accordion. As they did, a large bay window, framed by hanging baskets of wispy honeysuckle and Persian jasmine, revealed itself to the morning sun. The flowers in the baskets matched the dewy blossoms planted in two deep barrels directly below the ledge.

When you meet her, you will feel a serene breeze engulf you. When she smiles at you, the world pauses for a while. When she speaks, it feels like the nightingale is singing. She is extraordinarily pretty. She is beautiful as the rose flower. She is the fragrance of a million jasmine flowers. She is the sensitivity of the dew drops. She is the innocence of the blooming lily. She is the calm of the sylvan lake. She is the beautiful light of the candle flame. She is the wildness of the kadupul flower. She is the magic of the full moon night! When you meet her, you will forget all other girls that you ever met in the world. She is the most amazing and wonderful girl in the whole world. She is the Poet's Muse.

She is the fragrance of a dozen jasmines.

My name is Violette Toussaint. I was a level-crossing keeper, now I’m a cemetery keeper. I savor life, I sip at it, like jasmine tea sweetened with honey. And

The Genesis Of Butterflies The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers The tearful roses; lo, the little lovers That kiss the buds, and all the flutterings In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings, That go and come, and fly, and peep and hide, With muffled music, murmured far and wide. Ah, the Spring time, when we think of all the lays That dreamy lovers send to dreamy mays, Of the fond hearts within a billet bound, Of all the soft silk paper that pens wound, The messages of love that mortals write Filled with intoxication of delight, Written in April and before the May time Shredded and flown, playthings for the wind's playtime, We dream that all white butterflies above, Who seek through clouds or waters souls to love, And leave their lady mistress in despair, To flit to flowers, as kinder and more fair, Are but torn love-letters, that through the skies Flutter, and float, and change to butterflies

I said we’re cool,” I repeat, but I misjudged the distance between my lips and Summer’s ear. The two collide, and I feel a shiver run up her frame. I shiver too, because my mouth is way too close to hers. She smells like heaven, some fascinating combo of flowers and jasmine and vanilla and—sandalwood, maybe? A man could get high on that fragrance. And don’t get me started on her dress. White, strapless, short. So short it barely grazes her lower thighs. God fucking help me. I quickly straighten up before I do something stupid, like kiss her. Instead, I take a huge gulp of my beer. Only it goes down the wrong pipe, and I start coughing like it’s the eighteenth century and I’m a tuberculosis patient. Smooth move.

For eight years I dreamed of fire. Trees ignited as I passed them; oceans burned. The sugary smoke settled in my hair as I slept, the scent like a cloud left on my pillow as I rose. Even so, the moment my mattress started to burn, I bolted awake. The sharp, chemical smell was nothing like the hazy syrup of my dreams; the two were as different as Carolina and Indian jasmine, separation and attachment. They could not be confused. Standing in the middle of the room, I located the source of the fire. A neat row of wooden matches lined the foot of the bed. They ignited, one after the next, a glowing picket fence across the piped edging. Watching them light, I felt a terror unequal to the size of the flickering flames, and for a paralyzing moment I was ten years old again, desperate and hopeful in a way I had never been before and never would be again. But the bare synthetic mattress did not ignite like the thistle had in late October. It smoldered, and then the fire went out. It was my eighteenth birthday.

Atop the nearby table, flowers I had picked from the estate garden only that morning, blooms of pink rhododendrons, creamy clematis and sprigs of jasmine, now wept from their vase in sad despondency. The fragrance of jasmine filled the closed room with a pungency that threatened suffocation.

Spring time in Florida is not a matter of peeping violets or bursting buds merely. It is a riot of color, in nature--glistening green leaves, pink, blue, purple, yellow blossoms that fairly stagger the visitor from the north. The miles of hyacinths are like an undulating carpet on the surface of the river and divide reluctantly when the slow-moving alligators push their way log-like across. The nights are white nights as the moon shines with dazzling splendor, or in the absence of that goddess, the soft darkness creeps down laden with innumerable scents. The heavy fragrance of magnolias mingled with the delicate sweetness of jasmine and wild roses.

At Padovani Beach the dance hall is open every day. And in that huge rectangular box with its entire side open to the sea, the poor young people of the neighborhood dance until evening. Often I used to await there a a moment of exceptional beauty. During the day the hall is protected by sloping wooden awnings. When the sun goes down they are raised. Then the hall is filled with an odd green light born of the double shell of the sky and the sea. When one is seated far from the windows, one sees only the sky and, silhouetted against it, the faces of the dancers passing in succession. Sometimes a waltz is being played, and against the green background the black profiles whirl obstinately like those cut-out silhouettes that are attached to a phonograph's turntable. Night comes rapidly after this, and with it the lights. But I am unable to relate the thrill and secrecy that subtle instant holds for me. I recall at least a magnificent tall girl who had danced all afternoon. She was wearing a jasmine garland on her right blue dress, wet with perspiration from the small of her back to her legs. She was laughing as she danced and throwing back her head. As she passed the tables, she left behind her a mingled scent of flowers and flesh. When evening came, I could no longer see her body pressed tight to her partner, but against her body alternating spots of white jasmine and black hair, and when she would throw back her swelling breast I would hear her laugh and see her partner's profile suddenly plunge forward. I owe to such evenings the idea I have of innocence. In any case, I learn not to separate these creatures bursting with violent energy from the sky where their desires whirl.

Dove smiled in satisfaction. “Something I picked up in the south of France. It’s the purest jasmine from Grasse, which makes it very special indeed.” “Why?” Evie sniffed again. The scent was rich and sensual, curling against her like a cat and warming itself on her skin. “Child, jasmine is one of the most seductive scents imaginable, and the stuff from Grasse is the finest in the world. In the little village where I collected that, the farmers won’t even let their nubile daughters walk through the fields when the flowers are ripe for fear they won’t be able to control themselves.” “I can see why,” Evie murmured. The heavy fragrance was intoxicating, and she felt like someone entirely new.

Hands cling to hands and eyes linger on eyes: thus begins the record of our hearts. It is the moonlit night of March; the sweet smell of henna is in the air; my flute lies on the earth neglected and your garland of flowers in unfinished. This love between you and me is simple as a song. Your veil of the saffron colour makes my eyes drunk. The jasmine wreath that you wove me thrills to my heart like praise. It is a game of giving and withholding, revealing and screening again; some smiles and some little shyness, and some sweet useless struggles. This love between you and me is simple as a song. No mystery beyond the present; no striving for the impossible; no shadow behind the charm; no groping in the depth of the dark. This love between you and me is simple as a song. We do not stray out of all words into the ever silent; we do not raise our hands to the void for things beyond hope. It is enough what we give and we get. We have not crushed the joy to the utmost to wring from it the wine of pain. This love between you and me is simple as a song.

This garden was peaceful and calm. Pink cherry blossoms and violet plum blossoms graced the sweeping trees. The petals fell like snowflakes, dancing and swirling until they touched the soft, verdant grass. There was something familiar about this place. Her eyes traveled down the flat stone steps. She knew this path, knew those stones. The third one from the bottom had a crack in the middle- from when she was five and the neighbor's boy convinced her there were worms on the other side of the stones. She'd hammered the stone in half, eager to catch a few worms to play with. There weren't any, of course, but her mother had helped her find some dragonflies by the pond instead, and they'd spent an afternoon counting them in the garden. Mulan smiled wistfully at the memory. This can't be the same garden. I'm in Diyu. Yet no painter could have re-created what she saw more convincingly. Every detail was as she remembered. At the bottom of the stone-cobbled path was a pond with rose-flushed lilies, and a marble bench under the cherry tree. She used to play by the pond when she was a little girl, catching frogs and fireflies in wine jugs and feeding the fish leftover rice husks and sesame seeds until her mother scolded her. And beyond the moon gate was- Mulan's hand jumped to her mouth. Home. That smell of home- of Baba's incense from the family temple, sharp with amber and cedar; of noodles in Grandmother Fa's special pork broth; of jasmine flowers that Mama used to scent her skin.

As I walked, I became aware of the strong odor of peonies and jasmine. I inhaled deeply to draw in the lovely bouquet. The scent was from the fresh flowers of a lush garden. The path opened into a courtyard, a tangle of peonies and jasmine framing the entrance, blooming in spectacular fashion. Silky petals brushed against my skin. The tension building in my neck and shoulders melted away as I entered a fairyland. The rustle of the night breeze joined the familiar voice of Teresa Teng echoing from invisible speakers. Beneath my feet, a path of moss-covered stones led to a circular platform surrounded by a large, shallow pond. The night garden was bursting with a palette of muted greens, starlit ivories, and sparkling golds: the verdant lichen and waxy lily pads in the pond, the snowy white peonies and jasmine flowers, and the metallic tones of the fireflies suspended in the air, the square-holed coins lining the floor of the pond, and the special golden three-legged creatures resting on the floating fronds. I knew these creatures from my childhood. The feng shui symbol of prosperity, Jin Chan was transformed into a golden toad for stealing the peaches of immortality. Jin Chan's three legs represented heave, earth, and humanity. Statues of him graced every Chinese home I had ever been in, for fortune was a visitor always in demand. Ma-ma had placed one near the stairs leading to the front door. The pond before me held eight fabled toads, each biting on a coin. If not for the subtle rise and fall of their vocal sacs, I would have thought them statues.

She is a one in a billion girl. When you meet her, you will feel a serene breeze engulf you. When she smiles at you, the world pauses for a while. When she speaks, it feels like the nightingales are singing. She is extraordinarily pretty. She is beautiful as the rose flower. She is the fragrance of a million jasmine flowers. She is the sensitivity of the dew drops. She is the innocence of the blooming lilly. She is the calm of the sylvan lake. She is the beautiful light of the candle flame. She is the wildness of the Kadupul flower. She is the magic of the full moon night! When you meet her, you will forget all other girls that you ever met in the world. She is the prettiest girl in the whole world. She is the most amazing and wonderful girl in the whole world. She is the Poet's Muse.

Be careful with your tears," her mother added, in a voice of cultivated restraint. "They're blood of the spirit. Weep too much, and it will wear you thin, until your soul is like a bruised flower." Her mother had been wrong, though. Weep enough and your nature becomes like stone, battered by water until it is smooth and impervious to hurt. Use tears as a tool for long enough, and you will forget what real grief feels like.

For eight years I dreamed of fire. Trees ignited as I passed them; oceans burned. The sugary smoke settled in my hair as I slept, the scent like a cloud left on my pillow as I rose. Even so, the moment my mattress started to burn, I bolted awake. The sharp, chemical smell was nothing like the hazy syrup of my dreams; the two were as different as Carolina and Indian jasmine, separation and attachment. They could not be confused.

That's oak leaf, for bravery. I've got Veronica and Honeysuckle, for fidelity and affection. And that's Peony, for shame. She lives under this rock." "Did you make that up by yourself?" "'Course not. That's the language of flowers. Everyone knows that." "No, they don't. I don't." "Everyone used to know. They sent each other messages. Like Bluebells means, 'I'll always love you' and Jasmine means 'We're friends.' and Asphodels... Asphodels are for the dead.

I will always be the other woman. I disappear for a time like the moon in daylight, then rise at night all mother-of-pearl so that a man’s upturned face, watching, will have reflected on it the milk of longing. And though he may leave, memory will perfect me. One day the light may fall in a certain way on Penelope’s hair, and he will pause wildly… but when she turns, it will only be his wife, to whom white sheets simply mean laundry— even Nausikaä in her silly braids thought more washing linen than of him, preferring Odysseus clean and oiled to that briny, unkempt lion I would choose. Let Dido and her kind leap from cliffs for love. My men will moan and dream of me for years… desire and need become the same animal in the silken dark. To be the other woman is to be a season that is always about to end, when the air is flowered with jasmine and peach, and the weather day after day is flawless, and the forecast is hurricane.

Ashok had not been worried. He'd known he was strong enough, because he had looked at the carvings of the temple elders from the Age of Flowers, those men and women who had conquered the subcontinent on the yaksa's behalf. Who had held terrible, incalculable power. He had looked and thought, I am not going to be like our elders, holding only a shadow of power, a faint echo of what once was. I won't sit with the regent or bow to the emperor in Parijat. I am going to be like you.

Peonies are a gift from the heavens above. I mean, just look at this flower, so big and round. The ruffled petals that look like they belong on a ball gown? Absolute perfection. That scent? It always reminds me of rose and jasmine. I sell these stems at the Sweetplace, but there's no better place for them than in a wedding bouquet, since peonies represent a happy marriage and a happy life. Mix them with some good stock in a bouquet, and well, you're kicking married life off right.

The small pergola that Michael had built was covered in loops of jasmine, and Lara's flower beds were blazing with color. Blowsy white peonies, dusky purple irises with golden stripes, pale orange poppies with sooty centers. The first tea roses of the year were budding. Elinas, pink petals tipped with crimson, and the ivory Jeanne Moreaus that smelled faintly of lemons. Lara wanted to pick one and put it on the breakfast tray, but Michael hated cut flowers. She went back inside and began to set the tray. Her mother's blue Venetian glass dish filled with raspberries. Orange juice in a white jug. A honey pot with a wooden dipper. Sunshine streamed in through the window, warming the terra-cotta tiles beneath her bare feet. She could not have cut flowers in the house so she had pictures of them instead. Two huge framed Georgia O'Keefe poppy prints. An apron with a pattern of climbing roses. A wooden clock that Phil had given her with a pendulum in the shape of a red rose.

The Sparrow Sisters' roses still bloomed on New Year's Day, their scent rich and warm even when snow weighted their petals closed. When customers came down the rutted road to the small eighteenth-century barn where the sisters worked, they marveled at the jasmine that twined through the split-rail fence, the perfume so intense they could feel it in their mouths. As they paid for their purchases, they wondered (vaguely, it must be said, for the people of Granite Point knew not to think too hard about the Sisters) how it was that clematis and honeysuckle climbed the barn in November and the morning glories bloomed all day. The fruit trees were so fecund that the peaches hung on the low branches, surrounded by more blossoms, apples and pears ripened in June and stayed sweet and fresh into December. Their Italian fig trees were heavy with purple teardrop fruit only weeks after they were planted. If you wanted a tomato so ripe the juice seemed to move beneath the skin, you needed only to pick up a punnet at the Nursery.

Sugar-cube houses spilled down the last slope toward the sea. A full moon floated above the inky water; the air from the gardens they passed smelled of gardenias and jasmine. She slept as soon as she put her head on the pillow of the small white hotel room. When she opened the creaky blue shutters the following morning, brilliant sunlight fell in through the window and the hum of the bees on the vines below filled the room. The sea was every color of delphinium and larkspur. The smell of food drifted up from the small restaurant below her balcony. Bacon, fresh bread, coffee, cinnamon.

Aunt Dove stepped behind her and looked at her reflection in the cheval glass. “You haven’t been to India, pet, but in the Nilgiri Hills, there’s a flower called a kurinji flower. It doesn’t bloom often. In fact, you can go a dozen years or more without seeing a single blossom. But then, just when you’ve given up hope of ever seeing one, they burst into flower, whole mountainsides at the same time, carpeted in the most astonishing shades of purple. It’s as if God himself shook out a rug of petals and spread it at your feet. It’s unexpected and magnificent, and very much worth the wait.

We were young and the focus on human suffering gave our retreats gravitas. But suffering is not the goal, it is the beginning of the path. Now in the retreat I teach, I also encourage participants to awaken to their innate joy. From the very beginning I encourage them to allow the moments of joy and well-being to deepen, to spread throughout their body and mind. Many of us are conditioned to fear joy and happiness, yet joy is necessary for awakening. As the Persian mystic Rumi instructs us, ‘When you go to a garden, do you look at thorns or flowers? Spend more time with roses and jasmine.

The path of a high tier sorceress was risky. On certain nights, Amonette found herself courting a stress that would break any normal human. Even with the spellwork she wove to bolster her frame, she was barely able to keep herself together, always teetering on the edge of sanity. Vain as it sounded, she would do well to establish some type of human bond. The light from the candles cast long shadows on the wooden walls as the compounds from them activated: jasmine, myrrh, cinnamon, and scents from trees indigenous to the Mersi forest— Hamallallia branches and flowers from the Asmodean Drachla. As Amonette waited for the composite fragrance to fill the room, she heaved her dress over her head, feeling the numbness setting into her muscles. It's about time to begin, she thought. Amonette shivered slightly against the cold breeze nipping at her naked, ever desensitizing flesh. The light was just bright enough to reveal the sigils snaking the length of her stomach and torso-- lines carved into her flesh in moments when the spirit of Satharchon occupied her entirely. She was his most loyal, and hence she was blessed to hear his voice in her head on occasion, counseling her. She hoped he would find her entire body fit to occupy tonight.

She forced herself to stroll casually and appraise her plants. The wisteria was shedding its final leaves, the jasmine had long lost its flowers, but the autumn had been mild and the pink roses were still in bloom. Eliza went closer, took a half-opened bud between her fingers and smiled at the perfect raindrop caught within its inner petals. The thought was sudden and complete. She must make a bouquet, a welcome-home gift for Rose. Her cousin was fond of flowers, but more than that, Eliza would select plants that were a symbol of their bond. There must be ivy for friendship, pink rose for happiness, and some of the exotic oak-leaved geranium for memories...

The hedge allowed us a glimpse, inside the park, of an alley bordered with jasmine, pansies, and verbenas, among which the stocks held open their fresh plump purses, of a pink as fragrant and as faded as old Spanish leather, while on the gravel-path a long watering-pipe, painted green, coiling across the ground, poured, where its holes were, over the flowers whose perfume those holes inhaled, a vertical and prismatic fan of infinitesimal, rainbow-coloured drops. Suddenly I stood still, unable to move, as happens when something appears that requires not only our eyes to take it in, but involves a deeper kind of perception and takes possession of the whole of our being.

In awe at the sheer beauty of the setting, Celina stepped onto the balcony, which overlooked a terrace garden of fruit trees. "It's so beautiful here." She breathed in, catching the scent of fruit trees below. "What type of fruit are you growing?" "Mostly lemon," Sara said. "But also olive, grapefruit, orange, fig, and pomegranate. With our temperate climate, most everything thrives." Celina peered over the balcony's edge. To one side, a cliff dropped to the sea, while on the other, a terrace sprawled along the hilltop perch. Flaming pink bougainvillea and snowy white jasmine curled around the corners of grapevine-covered archways that framed the shimmering ocean view.

A Rakshasi did not live here. A princess did. I was staring into the most dazzling garden I had ever seen. Cobblestone pathways meandered between rows of salmon-hued hibiscus, regal hollyhock, delicate impatiens, wild orchids, thorny rosebushes, and manicured shrubs starred with jasmine. Bunches of bougainvillea cascaded down the sides of the wall, draped across the stone like extravagant shawls. Magnolia trees, cotton-candy pink, were interspersed with coconut trees, which let in streaks of purplish light through their fanlike leaves. A rock-rimmed pond glistened in a corner of the garden, and lotus blossoms sprouting from green discs skimmed its surface. A snow white bird that looked like a peacock wove in and out through a grove of pomegranate trees, which were set aflame by clusters of deep orange blossoms. I had seen blue peacocks before, but never a white one. An Ashoka tree stood at one edge of the garden, as if on guard, near the door. A brief wind sent a cluster of red petals drifting down from its branches and settling on the ground at my feet. A flock of pale blue butterflies emerged from a bed of golden trumpet flowers and sailed up into the sky. In the center of this scene was a peach stucco cottage with green shutters and a thatched roof, quaint and idyllic as a dollhouse. A heavenly perfume drifted over the wall, intoxicating me- I wanted nothing more than to enter.

Danielle wore a simple bias-cut gown of the palest blush silk- one of her own designs- with white roses and jasmine braided into her thick auburn hair swept up from the nape of her neck, onto which she'd applied a new perfume she'd blended with a corresponding harmony just for the wedding. She carried the flowers of Bellerose: mimosa, rose, jasmine, violet, and orange blossom, twined into a voluptuous bouquet that spilled from her hand. Jon stood before her, his velvety brown eyes sparkling with flecks of gold. She drank in the delicious, virile smell of him, loving how the scent of his skin melded with the perfume she had blended for him for this day- blood orange and orange blossom, patchouli and sandalwood, cinnamon and clove. She had devised a salty note, too, and added the sea's airy freshness.

What if I had made different choices from the start? What if I had stuck around to watch another year of seasons spin here in Oxford, staying to see the daffodils bloom or to wander beneath the privet tunnel hand in hand with Fisher? What if we had kept right on kissing until the naked ladies emerged near the Osage orange? What if I had lingered long enough to see cape jasmine arrive, her voluptuous white bundles an aromatic call for summer love? Or even longer, when the spider lilies burst open in the fall and the yellow autumn light fell low among missy roots? What if I had stayed through winter, forming snow angels with my lover beneath the icy cedar boughs? What if I had not let fear defeat me after Fisher knelt before me in my mother's backyard garden, ring in his hand and happy-ever-after in his heart?

At the lawn's edge, a grand set of graystone stairs led into Lady Ashbury’s rose garden. Pink blooms hugged the trellises, alive with the warm drone of diligent bees hovering about their yellow hearts. I passed beneath the arbor, unlatched the kissing gate and started down the Long Walk: a stretch of gray cobblestones set amongst a carpet of white alyssum. Halfway along, tall hornbeam hedges gave way to the miniature yew that bordered the Egeskov Garden. I blinked as a couple of topiaries came to life, then smiled at myself and the pair of indignant ducks that had wandered up from the lake and now stood regarding me with shiny black eyes. At the end of the Egeskov Garden was the second kissing gate, the forgotten sister (for there is always a forgotten sister), victim of the wiry jasmine tendrils. On the other side lay the Icarus fountain, and beyond, at the lake’s edge, the boathouse.

Spread over what must have been at least a hectare or two was the most beautiful garden he had ever seen. There was an entire miniature forest of cedar, cypress, and other sweet-smelling pines that couldn't normally live in the hot and dry Agrabah. There were formal rows of roses and other delicately petaled flowers. There was a garden just of mountain plants. There was a pool filled with flowering white lilies and their pads, and pink lotuses taller than most men. There was a fountain as big as a house and shaped like an egg. There was a delicate white aviary that looked like a giant's birdcage. Strangely, there were no birds in it. And everywhere, entwined around every tiny building and every balustrade and every topiary ball, was jasmine. White jasmine, pink jasmine, yellow jasmine, night-flowering jasmine... the smell was heady enough to make Aladdin feel a little drunk. Jasmine. This was her garden.

Kee Li Tong was one of my favorite chocolatiers in New York. Years earlier, I had a fleeting addiction to her otherworldly crème brûlée truffle, a dainty yet dangerous homemade bonbon that you have to pop into your mouth whole, or suffer the consequences of squirting eggy custard all over your blouse. Now, I discovered, she was handcrafting macarons in wild and wonderful flavors like blood orange, sesame, and rose. How did she create her recipes? What inspired her expanded repertoire? And how did hers compare to Paris's best? Emboldened as I was by my new French history lessons, I asked Kee in her Soho boutique: why macarons? "Because they're so pretty!" Kee laughed. "They're so dainty. I think it's the colors." And, standing as we were above the glass display case, I had to agree. Her blueberry macarons were as bright as the September sky. The lotus flower was the kind of soft pink that's the perfect shade of blush. Kee's favorite flavor, passion fruit, was a snappy corn husk yellow. These were surrounded by greens (lulo and jasmine green tea) and purples (lavender, which was dotted with purple sugar crystals) and some neutral shades as well (white truffle oil and mint mocha).

A fresh, uplifting mélange of Italian bergamot, mandarin, and raspberry that comprised the opening accord filled her nostrils with the carefree scents of spring. Her imagination soared with memories. The gardens of Bellerose, picnic baskets bursting with summer fruits on sunny Mediterranean beaches, summers spent on the Riviera, yacht parties, and the casino in Monte Carlo. The plain little bottle held the essence of the happy life she had known. She inhaled again, closed her eyes, and allowed her mind to wander, to visualize the images the aroma evoked. Excitement coursed through her veins. She imagined a glamorous, luxurious lifestyle of exotic locales, mysterious lovers, sandy beaches, glittering parties, elegant gowns, and precious jewels. And amid it all, sumptuous bouquets of fabulous flowers, enchanting and romantic, intense aromas of pure, bridal white jasmine and sultry tuberose, and the heady, evocative aroma of rose. Seductive spices, clove with musk and patchouli, smoothed with sandalwood and vanilla, elegant and sensual, like a lover in the night. And finally, she realized what was missing. A strong, smooth core, a warm amber blend that would provide a deep connection to the soul. Love.

Benjamin Munro was his name. She mouthed the syllables silently, Benjamin James Munro, twenty-six years old, late of London. He had no dependents, was a hard worker, a man not given to baseless talk. He'd been born in Sussex and grown up in the Far East, the son of archaeologists. He liked green tea, the scent of jasmine, and hot days that built towards rain. He hadn't told her all of that. He wasn't one of those pompous men who bassooned on about himself and his achievements as if a girl were just a pretty-enough face between a pair of willing ears. Instead, she'd listened and observed and gleaned, and, when the opportunity presented, crept inside the storehouse to check the head gardener's employment book. Alice had always fancied herself a sleuth, and sure enough, pinned behind a page of Mr. Harris's careful planting notes, she'd found Benjamin Munro's application. The letter itself had been brief, written in a hand Mother would have deplored, and Alice had scanned the whole, memorizing the bits, thrilling at the way the words gave depth and color to the image she'd created and been keeping for herself, like a flower pressed between pages. Like the flower he'd given her just last month. "Look, Alice"- the stem had been green and fragile in his broad, strong hand- "the first gardenia of the season.

The walls behind the counter had deep floor-to-ceiling shelves for vases and jam jars and scented candles, and there was an old wrought-iron revolving stand for cards. But most of the space in the long, narrow shop was taken up with flowers and plants. Today there were fifty-two kinds of cut blooms, from the tiny cobalt-blue violets that were smaller than Lara's little fingernail to a purple-and-green-frilled brassica that was bigger than her head. The flowers were set out in gleaming metal buckets and containers of every shape and size. They were lined up on the floor three deep and stacked on the tall three-tier stand in the middle of the shop. The plants, huge leafy ferns and tiny fleshy succulents, lemon trees and jasmine bushes and freckled orchids, were displayed on floating shelves that were built at various heights all the way up to the ceiling. Lara had spent weeks getting the lighting right. There were a few soft spotlights above the flower displays, and an antique crystal chandelier hung low above the counter. There were strings of fairy lights and dozens of jewel-colored tea lights and tall, slender lanterns dotted between the buckets. When they were lit, they cast star and crescent moon shapes along the walls and the shop resembled the courtyard of a Moroccan riad- a tiny walled garden right in the middle of the city.

The city had changed beyond recognition. Wrecking balls and bulldozers had leveled the old buildings to rubble. The dust of construction hung permanently over the streets. Gated mansions reached up to the northern foothills, while slums fanned out from the city’s southern limits. I feared an aged that had lost its heart, and I was terrified at the thought of so many useless hands. Our traditions were our pacifiers and we put ourselves to sleep with the lullaby of a once-great civilation and culture. Ours was the land of poetry flowers, and nightingales—and poets searching for rhymes in history’s junkyards. The lottery was our faith and greed our fortune. Our intellectuals were sniffing cocaine and delivering lectures in the back rooms of dark cafés. We bought plastic roses and decorated our lawns and courtyards with plaster swans. We saw the future in neon lights. We had pizza shops, supermarkets, and bowling alleys. We had trafric jams, skyscrapers, and air thick with noise and pollution. We had illiterate villagers who came to the capital with scraps of paper in their hands, begging for someone to show them the way to this medical clinic or that government officee. the streets of Tehran were full of Mustangs and Chevys bought at three times the price they sold for back in America, and still our oil wasn’t our own. Still our country wasn’t our own.

Marcelina loved that miniscule, precise moment when the needle entered her face. It was silver; it was pure. It was the violence that healed, the violation that brought perfection. There was no pain, never any pain, only a sense of the most delicate of penetrations, like a mosquito exquisitely sipping blood, a precision piece of human technology slipping between the gross tissues and cells of her flesh. She could see the needle out of the corner of her eye; in the foreshortened reality of the ultra-close-up it was like the stem of a steel flower. The latex-gloved hand that held the syringe was as vast as the creating hand of God: Marcelina had watched it swim across her field of vision, seeking its spot, so close, so thrillingly, dangerously close to her naked eyeball. And then the gentle stab. Always she closed her eyes as the fingers applied pressure to the plunger. She wanted to feel the poison entering her flesh, imagine it whipping the bloated, slack, lazy cells into panic, the washes of immune response chemicals as they realized they were under toxic attack; the blessed inflammation, the swelling of the wrinkled, lined skin into smoothness, tightness, beauty, youth. Marcelina Hoffman was well on her way to becoming a Botox junkie. Such a simple treat; the beauty salon was on the same block as Canal Quatro. Marcelina had pioneered the lunch-hour face lift to such an extent that Lisandra had appropriated it as the premise for an entire series. Whore. But the joy began in the lobby with Luesa the receptionist in her high-collared white dress saying “Good afternoon, Senhora Hoffman,” and the smell of the beautiful chemicals and the scented candles, the lightness and smell of the beautiful chemicals and the scented candles, the lightness and brightness of the frosted glass panels and the bare wood floor and the cream-on-white cotton wall hangings, the New Age music that she scorned anywhere else (Tropicalismo hippy-shit) but here told her, “you’re wonderful, you’re special, you’re robed in light, the universe loves you, all you have to do is reach out your hand and take anything you desire.” Eyes closed, lying flat on the reclining chair, she felt her work-weary crow’s-feet smoothed away, the young, energizing tautness of her skin. Two years before she had been to New York on the Real Sex in the City production and had been struck by how the ianqui women styled themselves out of personal empowerment and not, as a carioca would have done, because it was her duty before a scrutinizing, judgmental city. An alien creed: thousand-dollar shoes but no pedicure. But she had brought back one mantra among her shopping bags, an enlightenment she had stolen from a Jennifer Aniston cosmetics ad. She whispered it to herself now, in the warm, jasmine-and vetiver-scented sanctuary as the botulin toxins diffused through her skin. Because I’m worth it.

Tonight Ray will tape the the drenched oasis inside of the silver bowl that sits on the top of the candelabra and fill it with the pale green hydrangeas, pink English garden roses, lilies of the valley, and extravagant lavender sweet peas that R.L., the local florist/antique dealer, delivered a few hours ago. The flowers are all soaking in their respective sugar water jugs in her kitchen- out of the direct sunlight, of course- as is the oasis which she'll mold into every bowl and vase in the house with a similar arrangement. She's even going to make an arrangement in a flat sweetgrass basket to hang on the front door and a round little pomander of pale green hydrangea with a sheer white ribbon for Little Hilda to hold as she greets the guests in the foyer. Ray is tempted to snip the last blossoms of gardenias growing secretly behind Cousin Willy's shed. In her estimation they are the quintessential wedding flower, with their intoxicating fragrance and their delicate cream petals surrounded by those dark, waxy leaves. She bought the seedlings when R.L. and the gals weren't looking at the Southern Gardener's Convention in Atlanta four years ago, and no one has any idea she's been growing them. Sometimes she worries that the fragrance will give her away, but they bloom the same time as the confederate jasmine, which grows along the lattice work of the shed, and she can always blame the thick smell on them. It would take a truly trained nose to pick the gardenias out, and Ray possesses the trained nose of the bunch.

De cette assise sortent les spirales des liserons à cloches blanches, les brindilles de la bugrane rose, mêlées de quelques fougères, de quelques jeunes pousses de chêne aux feuilles magnifiquement colorées et lustrées ; toutes s’avancent prosternées, humbles comme des saules pleureurs, timides et suppliantes comme des prières. Au-dessus, voyez les fibrilles déliées, fleuries, sans cesse agitées de l’amourette purpurine qui verse à flots ses anthères presque jaunes ; les pyramides neigeuses du paturin des champs et des eaux, la verte chevelure des bromes stériles, les panaches effilés de ces agrostis nommés les épis du vent ; violâtres espérances dont se couronnent les premiers rêves et qui se détachent sur le fond gris de lis où la lumière rayonne autour de ces herbes en fleurs. Mais déjà plus haut, quelques roses du Bengale clairsemées parmi les folles dentelles du daucus, les plumes de la linaigrette, les marabous de la reine des prés, les ombellules du cerfeuil sauvage, les blonds cheveux de la clématite en fruits, les mignons sautoirs de la croisette au blanc de lait, les corymbes des millefeuilles, les tiges diffuses de la fumeterre aux fleurs roses et noires, les vrilles de la vigne, les brins tortueux des chèvrefeuilles ; enfin tout ce que ces naïves créatures ont de plus échevelé, de plus déchiré, des flammes et de triples dards, des feuilles lancéolées, déchiquetées, des tiges tourmentées comme les désirs entortillés au fond de l’âme. Du sein de ce prolixe torrent d’amour qui déborde, s’élance un magnifique double pavot rouge accompagné de ses glands prêts à s’ouvrir, déployant les flammèches de son incendie au- dessus des jasmins étoilés et dominant la pluie incessante du pollen, beau nuage qui papillote dans l’air en reflétant le jour dans ses mille parcelles luisantes ! Quelle femme enivrée par la senteur d’Aphrodise cachée dans la flouve, ne comprendra ce luxe d’idées soumises, cette blanche tendresse troublée par des mouvements indomptés, et ce rouge désir de l’amour qui demande un bonheur refusé dans les luttes cent fois recommencées de la passion contenue, infatigable, éternelle ? Mettez ce discours dans la lumière d’une croisée, afin d’en montrer les frais détails, les délicates oppositions, les arabesques, afin que la souveraine émue y voie une fleur plus épanouie et d’où tombe une larme ; elle sera bien près de s’abandonner, il faudra qu’un ange ou la voix son enfant la retienne au bord de l’abîme. Que donne-t-on à Dieu ? des parfums, de la lumière et des chants, les expressions les plus épurées de notre nature. Eh! bien, tout ce qu’on offre à Dieu n’était-il pas offert à l’amour dans ce poème de fleurs lumineuses qui bourdonnait incessamment ses mélodies au cœur, en y caressant des voluptés cachées, des espérances inavouées, des illusions qui s’enflamment et s’éteignent comme des fils de la vierge par une nuit chaude.

Rosalia was standing in a field of fragrant white jasmine flowers. It was the first week in June, and the sun was especially hot today. She could feel it warming her head through the cotton kerchief she wore. A large straw basket, slung around her arm, held the jasmines she was harvesting for the jasmine water that was needed to make Gelo di Melone- watermelon pudding. With the temperatures well in the eighties, the shop couldn't make enough of the watermelon pudding that was popular with the villagers during late spring and throughout the summer. As she picked the jasmines from their stems, she frequently took the time to smell them although she didn't need to do so since the fragrance surrounded her. But she loved holding the blossoms up to her nose and inhaling deeply.

Sugar had grown up in Charleston, South Carolina: possibly the most luscious of the world's garden cities. Behind every wrought-iron gate or exposed-brick wall in the picturesque peninsula blooming between the Ashley and Cooper Rivers lay a sweet-scented treasure trove of camellias, roses, gardenias, magnolias, tea olives, azaleas and jasmine, everywhere, jasmine. With its lush greenery, opulent vines, sumptuous hedgerows and candy-colored window boxes, it was no wonder the city's native sons and daughters believed it to be the most beautiful place on earth. In her first years of exile Sugar had tried to cultivate a reminder of the luxuriant garden delights she had left behind, struggling in sometimes hostile elements to train reluctant honeysuckle and sulky sweet potato vines or nurture creeping jenny and autumn stonecrop.

The Lord’s beautiful face appeared to them like the inside of a blue lotus, and the Lord’s smile appeared to be a blossoming jasmine flower. After seeing the face of the Lord, the sages were fully satisfied, and when they wanted to see Him further, they looked upon the nails of His lotus feet, which resembled rubies. Thus they viewed the Lord’s transcendental body again and again, and so they finally achieved meditation on the Lord’s personal feature.

Always For the First Time" Always for the first time Hardly do I know you by sight You return at some hour of the night to a house at an angle     to my window A wholly imaginary house It is there from one second to the next In the inviolate darkness I anticipate once more the fascinating rift occurring The one and only rift In the facade and in my heart The closer I come to you In reality The more the key sings at the door of the unknown room Where you appear alone before me At first you coalesce entirely with the brightness The elusive angle of a curtain It’s a field of jasmine I gazed upon at dawn on a road in the     vicinity of Grasse With the diagonal slant of its girls picking Behind them the dark falling wing of the planets stripped     bare Before them a T-square of dazzling light The curtain invisibly raised In a frenzy all the flowers swarm back in It is you at grips with that too long hour never dim enough     until sleep You as though you could be The same except that I shall perhaps never meet you You pretend not to know I am watching you Marvelously I am no longer sure you know Your idleness brings tears to my eyes A swarm of interruptions surrounds each of your gestures In a honeydew hunt There are rocking chairs on a deck there are branches that     may well scratch you in the forest There are in a shop window in the rue Notre-Dame-de Lorette Two lovely crossed legs caught in long stockings Flaring out in the center of a great white clover There is a silken ladder rolled out over the ivy There is By my lening over the precipice Of your presence and your absence in hopeless fusion My finding the secret Of loving you Always for the very first time André Breton (1934)

You’ve never seen me how I really am. I wish you could. I used to wear the most lovely silk saris in Parijat, and flowers twined in my hair like a crown. I was beautiful then.” Priya swallowed. You still are.

You Are My Spring Joy Where does life seek eternity? Not in daily struggles or toil, but in that endearing destiny, Where thoughts, pursuits, likings all merge to create a happy existence, Where happiness leaps from every act and every substance. Just like spring flowers that spread joy, To all alike: a woman, a man, a little girl and a young boy, They live for moments very brief, Yet they always manage to delight the heart immersed in grief. They last for a day or moments few, With a promise that next year they shall bloom anew, Leaving behind sweet memories and hopes profound, And even in a moment of existence they live in eternity that time’s snares can not confound. Similarly my love Irma, your smiles, your beauty nourish my existence, You, your love, your endless beauty are what I need for sustenance, My eternity lies in you, and only you, Eternity will be virtueless if it is not spent thinking about you and loving you. I seek thee with all my senses and my mind and heart, From me the reflections of your beauty never depart, And I lie wrapped in them day and night, Without the glimpse of your beautiful smile I cannot establish the brightness in any form of light. Perhaps someday the sun may not rise, And the Moon may not shine , to me it shall be no surprise, But for me living without loving you is not possible, As for the Moon to shine without the Sun is impossible. So let us be like the Sun and the moonshine, Where both exist to create the life giving sunshine and the romantic moonshine, You be a daffodil, winter jasmine, iris, primrose and be merry and always sing, And I promise, I will always be the unfailing Spring, just your Spring!

While Under the Mountain had been a series of halls and rooms and levels, this... this was truly a city. The walkway that Mor led us down was an avenue, and around us, rising high into gloom, were buildings and spires, homes and bridges. A metropolis carved from the dark stone of the mountain itself, no inch of it left unmarked or without some lovely, hideous artwork etched into it. Figures danced and fornicated; begged and revelled. Pillars were carved to look like curving vines of night-blooming flowers. Water ran throughout in little streams and rivers tapped from the heart of the mountain itself. The Hewn City. A place of such terrible beauty that it was an effort to keep the wonder and dread off my face. ... Mor led me down the avenue toward another set of stone gates, thrown open at the base of what looked to be a castle within the mountain. The official seat of the High Lord of the Night Court. Great scaled black beasts were carved into those gates, all coiled together in a nest of claws and fangs, sleeping and fighting, some locked in an endless cycle of devouring each other. Between them flowed vines of jasmine and moonflowers. I could have sworn the beasts seemed to writhe in the silvery glow of the bobbing faelights throughout the mountain-city.

It was then that a divine scent reached her nostrils. It was the most alluring fragrance she had ever smelled: sweet but not cloying, with a fresh undertone and a lingering spiciness. Like vanilla and jasmine and sweetbriar and sandalwood, but somehow more than all of those. She inhaled deeply, looking for the source of the intoxicating aroma. Two steps further on and then there it was, partly hidden behind an acacia bush. The most beautiful white flowers, petals striped with purple, bloomed along thick green stems. Drawing closer, she saw that the deep purple-black stamens were topped with orange pollen so vibrant it appeared to almost glow in the fading light.

take me to the garden where the birds whistle with delight and expect nothing in return, where the stems of each jasmine only bleed hope for our falling race, where the fast-moving river naturally composes poetry as it flows, where the bright blue butterflies comfort those who suffer, where the early-morning rain feels like being born again, and where the gentle fragrances guide us in every step that we take. take me to the garden so that i can find my peace again.

When Guru Nanak reached Multan, the local pirs, or holy men, gave him a bowl of milk which was full to the brim indicating that the town was already full of holy men and that it did not have space for another. The Guru took a jasmine flower and put it on the bowl of milk. The flower floated, without the milk spilling over. The traditional interpretation of this is that Guru Nanak had shown that one more man of God would only add to the fragrance of the garden. However, it can also be seen as saying that the milk of knowledge, if contained in a bowl, can go bad whereas the fragrance of knowledge, unfettered in any way, spreads far and wide.

Shall I get drunk or cut myself a piece of cake, a pasty Syrian with a few words of English or the Turk who says she is a princess--she dances apparently by levitation? Or Marcelle, Parisienne always preoccupied with her dull dead lover: she has all the photographs and his letters tied in a bundle and stamped Decede in mauve ink. All this takes place in a stink of jasmin. But there are the streets dedicated to sleep stenches and the sour smells, the sour cries do not disturb their application to slumber all day, scattered on the pavement like rags afflicted with fatalism and hashish. The women offering their children brown-paper breasts dry and twisted, elongated like the skull, Holbein's signature. But his stained white town is something in accordance with mundane conventions- Marcelle drops her Gallic airs and tragedy suddenly shrieks in Arabic about the fare with the cabman, links herself so with the somnambulists and legless beggars: it is all one, all as you have heard. But by a day's travelling you reach a new world the vegetation is of iron dead tanks, gun barrels split like celery the metal brambles have no flowers or berries and there are all sorts of manure, you can imagine the dead themselves, their boots, clothes and possessions clinging to the ground, a man with no head has a packet of chocolate and a souvenir of Tripoli.

There was a warm breeze blowing in the car as they passed the mansions in the Garden District and they could smell the sweet aroma of the night-blooming jasmine. Soft light fell on the neutral ground along the streetcar tracks.

As the Persian mystic Rumi instructs us, “When you go to a garden, do you look at thorns or flowers? Spend more time with roses and jasmine.

When you look to a field of flowers, do you see that one weed protruding out of the ground? Notice that it is your choice whether you remain fixated on that one weed, or rather choose to embrace the vast beauty among all of those flowers.

Almost as soon as I arrived back at Njoro, it began to rain for the first time in over a year. The sky went black, splitting open with a deluge that didn’t want to stop. Five inches fell in two days, and when the storm had finally cleared, and our long drought had ended, the land went green again. Flowers sprang across the plains in every colour you could think of. The air was thick with jasmine and coffee blossoms, juniper berries, and eucalyptus. Kenya had only been sleeping, the rain said now. All that had died could live again—except Green Hills.

The approach to the city was not the finest. For that we ought to have come from Baghdad, crossing the desert to find Damascus shimmering in its oasis with the snowy bulk of Mount Hermon looming up behind. But rolling through the orchards of olive and lemon, pomegranate and orange, we saw Damascus standing on the plain, a gleaming, jewelled city of white in a lush green setting. It smelled, as all ancient cities do, of stone and smoke and donkey and spices, but over it all hung the perfume of the flowers that spilled from private courtyards and public gardens. Sewage ran in the streets, yet to me it would always be the city of jasmine, the air thick with the fragrance of crushed blossoms.

The pleasant scent given off by many flowers, like orange blossoms and jasmine, contains a significant fraction (about 3 percent) of a protein called indole.

Okay, yes, I bought the damn flowers myself on the way over to Jasmine’s. Every time we hung out, she was always going on and on about Kendrick this and Kendrick that. I wanted her to see that I had a nigga sweating me too.

She’d had unsettling dreams like this. 'I’m wandering through Miryoku, but it’s not Miryoku. Or it is, but it’s been abandoned and overgrown, like no one’s lived here for decades. It’s become a dense forest with pieces of buildings showing through in spots. I hardly recognize anything. Fae and animals have moved in—there’s a raccoon family looking at me from an apartment window, a cluster of mushroom fae crawling all over a café sign—and it smells like wild plants and earth and flowers. It feels both familiar and unsafe, and it makes me so, so sad.

sonnet in my soul that spoke to you through the mist-covered fields that whispered to you from inside the swirling waves and the morning dew kissed your house once there was a perfect ballad filled with love, rain and rainbows even the dark clouds loved you once there was a perfect rhyme your hair decorated with white jasmine flowers your long white soft summer dress loose and free on your beautiful body once there was a love poem once there were you once there was a love poem once there was me once there were us a beautiful love song a beautiful love poem

The entire town comes together in comradery for the Blood Moon, with most shops giving away free gifts to everyone who passes by. Clair De Lune Bakery passes out lychee mooncakes, reminding me of my childhood celebrating the Lunar New Year. Petals Tea Shop hands out sachets of white peony tea and jasmine blossoms. Luna's Love Shack tosses free ribbons out at the front of the store, embroidered with metallic stars and moonflowers. A French restaurant, La Vie en Rose, offers moon water in polished wine glasses to anyone who stops to look at their menu. Some flower stands even hand out moonflowers for free instead of selling them.

Not the sweet smell of flowers, Not even the scent of sandal, rose or jasmine, Can stand against the wind. But the scent of the good person flows with the wind. Truly the good person’s flowery petals Reach in all directions with the smell of goodness.

I knelt on the cold ground, breathing cold air, but gently, ever so gently, the air changed. It held a hint of warmth, and I detected but couldn’t identify a slight scent. I didn’t dare move; I didn’t want to disturb it. I folded myself up on the ground and closed my eyes and waited. There was water in this air and a hint of jasmine and magnolia blossom. None of these features fit the time of year or the place. I knew this because I soon recognized what I was taking in: Louisiana; the air of soft evenings; the air before storms; the air that carried water and flowers and endowed even the grayest of days with possibility. My home.

To Merveilleuse's surprise she comes across a large ram in a clearing, with gilt horns and a garland of flowers round his neck, reposing on a couch of orange blossom beneath a pavilion of golden cloth. But still, a ram, with his nose like an ink blot, flies on his white lashes, wool the color of curds. Around him a hundred gaily decked sheep graze not on grass but coffee, sherbet, ices, and sweetmeats, whilst partaking in games of basset and lansquenet. Soon he takes her into a cavern, which is a gate to his underworld kingdom. It has meadows of a thousand different flowers; a broad river of orange-flower water; fountains of Spanish wine and liqueurs. There are entire avenues of trees, stuffed with partridges better larded and dressed than you would get them at the finest Paris restaurants; quails, young rabbits, and ortolans. In certain parts, where the atmosphere appears a little hazy, it rains bisque d'écrevisses, foie gras, and ragout of sweetbreads. His palace is formed by tangled orange trees, jasmines, honeysuckle, and little musk-roses, whose interlaced branches form cabinets, halls, and chambers, all hung with golden gauze and furnished with large mirrors and fine paintings.

These vines will be blooming by summer don't you remember? It's just the bones of the garden you're looking at right now." I thought of the trumpet vine and honeysuckle that would green and flower; the jasmine that would sweeten the air, its perfume drifting in the windows of our home.

Once my father-in-law, Loucif, smelled a perfume I made, Night Blossom, a bouquet of North African flowers, Egyptian jasmine, and Tunisian neroli, blooming open on a bed of sandalwood. It reminded him of an attar his mother once wore. This simple joy of smelling took him to a place back home, to his youth.

What if I had made different choices from the start? What if I had stuck around to watch another year of seasons spin here in Oxford, staying to see the daffodils bloom or to wander beneath the privet tunnel hand in hand with Fisher? What if we had kept right on kissing until the naked ladies emerged near the Osage orange? What if I had lingered long enough to see cape jasmine arrive, her voluptuous white bundles an aromatic call for summer love? Or even longer, when the spider lilies burst open in the fall and the yellow autumn light fell low among mossy roots? What if I had stayed through winter, forming snow angels with my lover beneath the icy cedar boughs? What if I had not let fear defeat me after Fisher knelt before me in my mother's backyard garden, ring in his hand and happy-ever-after in his heart?

Thefitfactory is a personal training studio in Modesto, California. They offer a variety of services including personal fitness trainer and weight loss programs.