Planting Seeds Of Love Quotes

Plant seeds of happiness, hope, success, and love; it will all come back to you in abundance. This is the law of nature.

When you plant a seed of love, it is you that blossoms.

I carry the seeds of death within me and plant them wherever I linger long enough to love.

Mom told me that love is like a seed. You've got to plant it to grow. But that's not all. You need to water it. The sun needs to shine enough, but not too much. The roots have to take hold," he continued, narrowing his eyes in concentration. "And from there, if it pops its head above the surface, there are about a million things that could kill it, so it takes a whole lot of luck too.

Love is not a hot-house flower, but a wild plant, born of a wet night, born of an hour of sunshine; sprung from wild seed, blown along the road by a wild wind. A wild plant that, when it blooms by chance within the hedge of our gardens, we call a flower; and when it blooms outside we call a weed; but, flower or weed, whose scent and colour are always, wild!

Nothing happened. And everything did. Your whole life you can be told something is wrong and so you believe it. Why should you question it? But then slowly seeds are planted inside of you, one by one, by a touch or a look or a day skateboarding in a park, and they start to burst out of old hulls shells and they start to sprout. And pretty soon there are so many of them. They are named Love and Trust and Kindness and Joy and Desire and Wonder and Spirit and Soulmate. They grow into a garden so dense and thick that it starts to invade your brain where the old things you were once told are dying.

I am inclined to pray, but on principle, I don't. God is not for women. He is for the fruit. He makes you want and he makes you wicked, and while you sleep, he plants a seed in your womb that will be born to die.

Happiness will grow if you plant the seeds of love in the garden of hope with compassion and care.

Love is a seed that we diligently plant and requires tender care and watering in order for the tree to ever grow. Just as we cannot foresee the future and what is to become of this love later in life, the tree cannot tell what the weather will be like in the future. The strongest of winds and pouring rain may befall on the tree, however as long as the foundation and roots remains strong, love is able to exist.

He shook his head pityingly. “This, more than anything else, is what I have never understood about your people. You can roll dice, and understand that the whole game may hinge on one turn of a die. You deal out cards, and say that all a man's fortune for the night may turn upon one hand. But a man's whole life, you sniff at, and say, what, this naught of a human, this fisherman, this carpenter, this thief, this cook, why, what can they do in the great wide world? And so you putter and sputter your lives away, like candles burning in a draft.” “Not all men are destined for greatness,” I reminded him. “Are you sure, Fitz? Are you sure? What good is a life lived as if it made no difference at all to the great life of the world? A sadder thing I cannot imagine. Why should not a mother say to herself, if I raise this child aright, if I love and care for her, she shall live a life that brings joy to those about her, and thus I have changed the world? Why should not the farmer that plants a seed say to his neighbor, this seed I plant today will feed someone, and that is how I change the world today?” “This is philosophy, Fool. I have never had time to study such things.” “No, Fitz, this is life. And no one has time not to think of such things. Each creature in the world should consider this thing, every moment of the heart's beating. Otherwise, what is the point of arising each day?

Hate is suck a prodigious feeling. It´s hot and oppressive like fire. It starts by burning through your God-given reason until there is nothing left of it but a mound of ash. It moves on to your humanity next, hot tongues flicking across the few remaining threads of innocence until they melt into each other and morph into something ugly. Then, in the rubble of what you were, hate plants a seed of bitterness. The seed grows to a vine chokes what it touches.

Books can change minds and change worlds, open doors and open minds, and plant seeds that can grow into magical or even terrifying things. Stories are things to be loved and respected at the same time; never underestimate the power of them.

Friendship plants itself as a small unobtrusive seed; over time, it grows thick roots that wrap around your heart. When a love affair ends, the tree is torn out quickly, the operation painful but clean. Friendship withers quietly, there is always hope of revival. Only after time has passed do you recognise that it is dead, and you are left, for years afterwards, pulling dry brown fibres from your chest.

You will hurt people. You will hurt, and you will be hurt. However, you will also love, and you will be loved in the most magnificent ways. To live life is to understand that together these extremes thrive within us — our heart is both a blessing and a blade. To put our soul into the hands of someone who could wound it or heal it is quite possibly the most courageously beautiful risk we take. It is like looking someone right in the eye and saying “You may hurt me, but you may also love me, and I am willing to take that chance. I am willing to trust.

My life has changed. I’ve changed, but my love for you is constant. If anything, it’s grown. You planted a seed inside of me, and it’s spread like ivy over my heart. There’s no room for anybody else.

Plant a good seed in people who have fertile hearts. When you are away, they'll miss you. When you are coming again, they can't wait!

One day you will meet someone who crashes into your bones like a wildfire, setting your heart ablaze, and together you will burn and spark and love until you wake up one morning beside the ashes of what was. However, it won’t end there – for just as wood still holds an ember long after a blaze, you will always taste forest fires in the back of your throat whenever you hear their name.

I never asked my mother where babies came from but I remember clearly the day she volunteered the information....my mother called me to set the table for dinner. She sat me down in the kitchen, and under the classic caveat of 'loving each other very, very much,' explained that when a man and a woman hug tightly, the man plants a seed in the woman. The seed grows into a baby. Then she sent me to the pantry to get placemats. As a direct result of this conversation, I wouldn't hug my father for two months.

Succes doesn't not come from having one's work recognised by others. It is the fruit of a seed that you lovingly planted.

There will always be people who will be there to plant negative seeds in your garden, if you make yourself available for that.

To be of the Earth is to know the restlessness of being a seed the darkness of being planted the struggle toward the light the pain of growth into the light the joy of bursting and bearing fruit the love of being food for someone the scattering of your seeds the decay of the seasons the mystery of death and the miracle of birth.

Coda Perhaps to love is to learn to walk through this world. To learn to be silent like the oak and the linden of the fable. To learn to see. Your glance scattered seeds. It planted a tree. I talk because you shake its leaves.

I promise to plant kisses like seeds on you body, so in time you can grow to love yourself as I love you.

Do not hide your wounds – for even flowers bloom within concrete fractures and damaged fragments make up the most intricate mosaics. Promise me that you will never conceal your cracks, for I will only ever see them as places in which to fill with love.

Let your heart crumble into an infinite amount of tiny, precious seeds. Then plant love everywhere you go

Happiness will bloom With fragrance and beauty If you plant the seeds of love With a deep driving desire in the garden of hope And nurture with tenderness, Compassion, and care; If you are always eager to share.

A man who seeks only the light, while shirking his responsibilities, will never find illumination. And one who keep his eyes fixed upon the sun ends up blind..." "It doesn't matter what others think -because that's what they will think, in any case. So, relax. Let the universe move about. Discover the joy of surprising yourself." "The master says: “Make use of every blessing that God gave you today. A blessing cannot be saved. There is no bank where we can deposit blessings received, to use them when we see fit. If you do not use them, they will be irretrievably lost. God knows that we are creative artists when it comes to our lives. On one day, he gives us clay for sculpting, on another, brushes and canvas, or a pen. But we can never use clay on our canvas, nor pens in sculpture. Each day has its own miracle. Accept the blessings, work, and create your minor works of art today. Tomorrow you will receive others.” “You are together because a forest is always stronger than a solitary tree,” the master answered. "The forest conserves humidity, resists the hurricane and helps the soil to be fertile. But what makes a tree strong is its roots. And the roots of a plant cannot help another plant to grow. To be joined together in the same purpose is to allow each person to grow in his own fashion, and that is the path of those who wish to commune with God.” “If you must cry, cry like a child. You were once a child, and one of the first things you learned in life was to cry, because crying is a part of life. Never forget that you are free, and that to show your emotions is not shameful. Scream, sob loudly, make as much noise as you like. Because that is how children cry, and they know the fastest way to put their hearts at ease. Have you ever noticed how children stop crying? They stop because something distracts them. Something calls them to the next adventure. Children stop crying very quickly. And that's how it will be for you. But only if you can cry as children do.” “If you are traveling the road of your dreams, be committed to it. Do not leave an open door to be used as an excuse such as, 'Well, this isn't exactly what I wanted. ' Therein are contained the seeds of defeat. “Walk your path. Even if your steps have to be uncertain, even if you know that you could be doing it better. If you accept your possibilities in the present, there is no doubt that you will improve in the future. But if you deny that you have limitations, you will never be rid of them. “Confront your path with courage, and don't be afraid of the criticism of others. And, above all, don't allow yourself to become paralyzed by self-criticism. “God will be with you on your sleepless nights, and will dry your tears with His love. God is for the valiant.” "Certain things in life simply have to be experienced -and never explained. Love is such a thing." "There is a moment in every day when it is difficult to see clearly: evening time. Light and darkness blend, and nothing is completely clear nor completely dark." "But it's not important what we think, or what we do or what we believe in: each of us will die one day. Better to do as the old Yaqui Indians did: regard death as an advisor. Always ask: 'Since I'm going to die, what should I be doing now?'” "When we follow our dreams, we may give the impression to others that we are miserable and unhappy. But what others think is not important. What is important is the joy in our heart.” “There is a work of art each of us was destined to create. That is the central point of our life, and -no matter how we try to deceive ourselves -we know how important it is to our happiness. Usually, that work of art is covered by years of fears, guilt and indecision. But, if we decide to remove those things that do not belong, if we have no doubt as to our capability, we are capable of going forward with the mission that is our destiny. That is the only way to live with honor.

Let the love grow. Your mistake would be to rush it. Never allowing the seeds you've planted to grow, is all you'll be doing. Everything takes time. Nothing blooms overnight. If you want that man to stay in your life you must be the woman in the relationship. Men if you want that woman to stay, you must be the man in the relationship. Nothing just comes to you. If you want it, you have to try and even sacrifice. No pain, no gain. That's life, whether you accept it or not it's going to always stay the same.

I ain't a lover, but I want to love all your crazy imperfections, I ain't a diver, but I want to dive into your deep warm emotions, I ain't a reader, but I want to read messages send by your eyes, I ain't a skylark, but I want to sing for your mesmerizing smile, I ain't a gardener, but I want to plant seeds of ecstasy in your heart, I ain't a writer, but I want to write about how special you're.

She bent forward to look, then gave a startled little cry and drew back. There was indeed a seed lying in the palm of his hand, but it was shaped exactly like a long, sharply-pointed thorn… ‘The seed looks very sharp,’ she said shrinkingly. ’Won’t it hurt if you put it into my heart?’ He answered gently, ‘It is so sharp that it slips in very quickly. But, Much-Afraid, I have already warned you that Love and Pain go together, for a time at least. If you would know Love, you must know pain too.’ Much-Afraid looked at the thorn and shrank from it. Then she looked at the Shepherd’s face and repeated his words to herself. ’When the seed of Love in your heart is ready to bloom, you will be loved in return,’ and a strange new courage entered her. She suddenly stepped forward, bared her heart, and said, ‘Please plant the seed here in my heart.’ His face lit up with a glad smile and he said with a note of joy in his voice, ‘Now you will be able to go with me to the High Places and be a citizen in the Kingdom of my Father.’ Then he pressed the thorn into her heart. It was true, just as he had said, it did cause a piercing pain, but it slipped in quickly and then, suddenly, a sweetness she had never felt or imagined before tingled through her. It was bittersweet, but the sweetness was the stronger. She thought of the Shepherd’s words, ‘It is so happy to love,’ and her pale, sallow cheeks suddenly glowed pink and her eyes shown. For a moment Much-Afraid did not look afraid at all.

I promise to plant kisses like seeds on your body, so in time you can grow to love yourself as I love you.

When you create a soul, plant the seeds of love with your thoughts, words, and actions . The soul flourishes among the flow-ers of love.

I believe in the power of love, and planting positive thought seeds into the collective consciousness.

May the seeds of love you plant today, grow into the tree of happiness you enjoy tomorrow.

I believe in my heart that a seed planted with love never dies" ("An Enduring Love," pg. 141).

Let us grow strong roots Watering and nurturing Each other daily.

Open yourself up, do not harden yourself to the world, and be bold in who, and how, you love. There is courage in that.

When they ask why we stayed together for so long I say, I don’t know. I just know that we cried at the exact same time in every movie. I know we blushed everyday for the first two years. I know I always stole the covers and she never woke me up. I know the exact look on her face, the first night she used my toothbrush. The next day, I brushed my teeth like thirtysome times, ‘cause I didn’t want to let her go. You have to understand when it hurt to love her, it hurt the way the light hurts your eyes in the middle of the night, but I had to see, even through the ruin, if what we were burying were seeds. There were so many plants in our house, you could rake the leaves even through that winter when I was trying to make angels in the snow of her cold shoulder. She was still leaving love notes in my suitcase; I’d always find them.

Today you are planting seeds to your dream. Be patient because it will be a large harvest.

Success does not come from having one's work recognized by others. It is the fruit of a seed that you lovingly planted.

People often ask me what one thing I would recommend to restore relationship between land and people. My answer is almost always, “Plant a garden.” It’s good for the health of the earth and it’s good for the health of people. A garden is a nursery for nurturing connection, the soil for cultivation of practical reverence. And its power goes far beyond the garden gate—once you develop a relationship with a little patch of earth, it becomes a seed itself. Something essential happens in a vegetable garden. It’s a place where if you can’t say “I love you” out loud, you can say it in seeds. And the land will reciprocate, in beans.

If God gives you a seed, He expects you to plant it;if He plants it for you, He expects you to water it; if He waters it for you, He expects you to prune it; if He prunes and keeps it for you, He expects you to harvest it; if He harvest it for you, He expects you to store it; if He stores it for you,He expects you to keep it safe from getting rotten and if He keeps it from getting rotten for you, He expects you to account for the seed.Yes!Life is all about purposefully fulfilling a purpose. We are expected to be doing something at each moment in our life or we live without purposefully living.

Your body is a sanctuary, a place where love and grief flow like crashing rapids against your spine. Its time to take your hands off of your thighs, and your gaze off of the marks that adorn your hips like ornaments.   The universe gave up celestial pieces of itself to sculpt you. It is time to honor that.

We search for happiness across every landscape, if only we knew that the seed in which it first grows, is planted within ourselves...

Trust me when I say that I will love you in your humanness. I will love you for your twists, I will love you for your faults. Trust me when I say that I will love it all.

Karma is simply the law of cause and effect. If you plant an apple seed, you don’t a get a mango tree. If we practice hatred or greed, it becomes our way and the world responds accordingly. If we practice awareness or loving-kindness, it becomes our way and the world responds accordingly." "We are heirs to the results of our actions, to the intentions we bring to every moment we initiate. We make ripples upon the ocean of the universe through our very presence.

The beautiful thing about love is that it cannot be manufactured or destroyed. It is carnal, it is raw; it cannot be discovered where it does not exist, it cannot be concealed where it thrives. Use this to your advantage. If you do not feel it where you lay, I hope you have the strength to walk away, but if you do, my god – I hope you have the strength to fight.

It took us years to understand that love was not meant to justify hurt.

Might I,” quavered Mary, “might I have a bit of earth?” In her eagerness she did not realize how queer the words would sound and that they were not the ones she had meant to say. Mr. Craven looked quite startled. “Earth!” he repeated. “What do you mean?” “To plant seeds in—to make things grow—to see them come alive,” Mary faltered. He gazed at her a moment and then passed his hand quickly over his eyes. “Do you—care about gardens so much,” he said slowly. “I didn’t know about them in India,” said Mary. “I was always ill and tired and it was too hot. I sometimes made little beds in the sand and stuck flowers in them. But here it is different.” Mr. Craven got up and began to walk slowly across the room. “A bit of earth,” he said to himself, and Mary thought that somehow she must have reminded him of something. When he stopped and spoke to her his dark eyes looked almost soft and kind. “You can have as much earth as you want,” he said. “You remind me of some one else who loved the earth and things that grow. When you see a bit of earth you want,” with something like a smile, “take it, child, and make it come alive.

Treat dating like gardening instead. Plant the most promising seeds. Water them all. Taste what each has to offer. And when you find one that produces fruit you could eat every single day, give a little more love to it and start pruning the rest.

Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the good soil of freedom, spontaneity, and love.

At times poetry is the vertigo of bodies and the vertigo of speech and the vertigo of death; the walk with eyes closed along the edge of the cliff, and the verbena in submarine gardens; the laughter that sets on fire the rules and the holy commandments; the descent of parachuting words onto the sands of the page; the despair that boards a paper boat and crosses, for forty nights and forty days, the night-sorrow sea and the day-sorrow desert; the idolatry of the self and the desecration of the self and the dissipation of the self; the beheading of epithets, the burial of mirrors; the recollection of pronouns freshly cut in the garden of Epicurus, and the garden of Netzahualcoyotl; the flute solo on the terrace of memory and the dance of flames in the cave of thought; the migrations of millions of verbs, wings and claws, seeds and hands; the nouns, bony and full of roots, planted on the waves of language; the love unseen and the love unheard and the love unsaid: the love in love.

The Bible speaks of the Word of God as added. Sometimes it's planted by the wayside, and nothing grows there. Sometimes it's sown among the thorns and represents the person who makes the decision an then goes back to his old life of bars and chasing women or whatever. A third seed is sown among the rocks. There's sand and dirt between the rocks, and when it rains you'll see a stalk of green coming up. But on the first day with sunshine it wilts because there is no room for roots. The fourth seed is planted on fertile soil, and finally it takes hold and has a chance to grow and live. That's what happened to me.

To the moon, Who loves so selflessly, That it wakes up to darkness every night For the waves that rely on its pull And the mad dreamers who rely on its light

Life is giving you another chance to plant your seeds. Take care of them by watering them, nurturing them throughout all seasons, and watch your flowers bloom.” ~Love is respect ♥~

Friendships are like plowed open fields ready for growth. What we plant is what will grow. If we plant seeds of reassurance, blessing, and love, we reap a great harvest of security. Of course, if we plant seeds of backbiting, questioning, and doubt, we reap a great harvest of insecurity.

My personal problems are seeds that I’ve planted. They do not sprout when they are supposed to. They tend to grow when I least expect it. That is when most of my problems occur. I have to work on planting my seeds at the right time. I also have to make sure they are getting enough sunshine, rain, and a lot of love—so they can sprout during the right season.

Many of us dream of a better, safer, more caring world, without recognizing that it all begins with creating and maintaining a deeper love in our own home. The seeds of world peace should be planted in our own backyard.

. . . Little one, you are the person you are meant to be. The years you worked diligently at the monastery will always be part of you. As will the years after, when you felt lost and afraid. And so will all years yet to come, when the seeds you have been planting with your kindness and friendship will come into bloom. Everything that happens is part of your wholeness. The sadness, the loss, the hurt, as well as the joy, the love, the friendship--it is all part of your tapestry. Minette . . . remember ,that you are already whole.

There is no regret in planting a seed of love in someone’s heart.

Plant the seeds of trust and compassion Make caring and sharing a life's mission Hold hand with dreams of greatness Peace will grow with beauty and fragrance.

Our lives are a work of art. Plant seeds of love and respect and reap a harvest of prosperity and peace.

When mental issues start to form seeds in our minds the only thing that grows is weeds from all of the dead plants that failed to bloom.

remember, the same day we plant our seeds is not the same day we eat the fruit.

Friendships are like plowed open fields ready for growth. What we plant is what will grow. If we plant seeds of reassurance, blessing, and love, we reap a great harvest of security.

Take your life back from what broke you. The past is meant to etch lessons into our bones, yet we huddle ourselves within the warmth of its familiarity, we cradle our bodies within its weighted grips because we allow for what broke us to build us. Promise me that you will never again run back to what cracked you, what fractured your heart, your mind, your soul. Promise me that you will no longer hand yourself over to the man or the woman who loved you like poison, that you will no longer give life to the experiences that haunt you like ghosts. Promise me that you will find what it is that will grow within you like wildfire and plant it within the depths of your scars. You will mend. Allow yourself to.

Burying and Planting The culmination of one love, one dream, one self, is the anonymous seed of the next. There is very little difference between burying and planting. For often, we need to put dead things to rest, so that new life can grow. And further, the thing put to rest—whether it be a loved one, a dream, or a false way of seeing—becomes the fertilizer for the life about to form. As the well-used thing joins with the earth, the old love fertilizes the new; the broken dream fertilizes the dream yet conceived; the painful way of being that strapped us to the world fertilizes the freer inner stance about to unfold. This is very helpful when considering the many forms of self we inhabit over a lifetime. One self carries us to the extent of its usefulness and dies. We are then forced to put that once beloved skin to rest, to join it with the ground of spirit from which it came, so it may fertilize the next skin of self that will carry us into tomorrow. There is always grief for what is lost and always surprise at what is to be born. But much of our pain in living comes from wearing a dead and useless skin, refusing to put it to rest, or from burying such things with the intent of hiding them rather than relinquishing them. For every new way of being, there is a failed attempt mulching beneath the tongue. For every sprig that breaks surface, there is an old stick stirring underground. For every moment of joy sprouting, there is a new moment of struggle taking root. We live, embrace, and put to rest our dearest things, including how we see ourselves, so we can resurrect our lives anew.

If You Love me.. -- Your love drove me towards the live volcano where i will be burnt and destroyed On your fake promises I made castles on air Oh! ! ! I was throwing some pearls in desert where oasis has value Pearls have no value just remember I am an ocean you are only a boat for a boat to explore ocean love need to be daring, desperate If You love me Plant a seed of truth make me part of your missing Just If you Love me.........

If you do your best in the search for personal freedom, in the search for self-love, you will discover that it’s just a matter of time before you find what you are looking for. It’s not about daydreaming or sitting for hours dreaming in meditation. You have to stand up and be a human. You have to honor the man or woman that you are. Respect your body, enjoy your body, love your body, feed, clean, and heal your body. Exercise and do what makes your body feel good. This is a puja to your body, and that is a communion between you and God. You don’t need to worship idols of the Virgin Mary, the Christ, or the Buddha. You can if you want to; if it feels good, do it. Your own body is a manifestation of God, and if you honor your body everything will change for you. When you practice giving love to every part of your body, you plant seeds of love in your mind, and when they grow, you will love, honor, and respect your body immensely. Every action then becomes a ritual in which you are honoring God. After that, the next step is honoring God with every thought, every emotion, every belief, even what is “right” or “wrong.” Every thought becomes a communion with God, and you will live a dream without judgments, victimization, and free of the need to gossip and abuse yourself.

Once I was chastising Maharajji for giving photos to people who were worldly and didn’t care about him. He said, “You don’t understand me. If I tell a man he is a great bhakta (devotee). I am planting a seed. If a person already has the seed planted and growing, why should I plant another?” I said, “You are telling these drunkards, liars, and dacoits that they are real bhaktas. They will just go home and carry on their old behaviors.” Maharajji said, “Some of them will remember what I said of them, and it will make them want to develop this quality in themselves. If ten out of a hundred are inspired in this way, it is a very good thing.

This world does not grow from violent roots. It flowers from the seeds of love and respect planted in our hearts. It arises in people who hold the dignity of others in equal measure to their determination for justice. It emerges in the hearts of those who remember that the greatest courage is to move from love instead of hate.

You'll love me yet!--and I can tarry Your love's protracted growing: June reared that bunch of flowers you carry, From seeds of April's sowing. I plant a heartful now: some seed At least is sure to strike, And yield--what you'll not pluck indeed, Not love, but, may be, like. You'll look at least on love's remains, A grave's one violet: Your look?--that pays a thousand pains. What's death? You'll love me yet!

There are millions of shayaris and ghazals and songs that spin beautiful words about what love is: fire, wine, pain," he goes on. "But that is all passion. Feeling. Love, on the other hand, is an act. A practice. A descision." "Are you saying who you love is a choice?" "No, no. Who you have feelings for-that is not a choice. Feelings happen whether you want them to or not. But love isn't a feeling; it's the act of planting a seed and putting in the time and care it needs to grow. It demands hard work and renewal to survive. It demands commitment. By necessity, it cannot be take lightly.

she never asked for recognition, because she wasn't doing it to be recognized. she did it because it filled her up. she just carefully planted those seeds. she just kept picking up those pieces. she just kept visiting those old ones. she just kept speaking her language and sitting with her mother. she just kept on lighting that seventh fire every time it went out. she just kept making things a little bit better, until they were.

This is how it is to come near you A wave of light builds in the black pupil of the eye. The old become young. The opening lines of the Qur'an open still more. Inside every human chest there is a hand, but it has nothing to write with. Love moves further in, where language turns to fresh cream on the tongue. Every accident, and the essence of every being, is a bud, a blanket tucked into a cradle, a closed mouth. All these buds will blossom, and in that moment you will know what your grief was, and how the seed you planted has been miraculously, and naturally, growing. Now silence. Let soul speak inside spoken things.

Plant the seeds of love to enjoy the beauty of life.

Plant the seeds of gratitude to grow and enjoy the abundance of life.

There will always be people who will be there to plant negative seeds in your garden, if you make yourself available for that

She left, never to return. I planted a tree and a seed each time I thought of her. I grew a small forest and a large garden and had no one to give the orchids to.

Plant the seeds of gratitude, water them with love and intention and see happiness blossom".

Generosity is an act of love.

Believe in the magic within you; believe in the love that abides in you, the hope that rises like dawn, the peace planted as a seed, and the grace whose light burns like a flame within.

The Queen dried her tears and looked at him, smiling like a spring shower. In a minute they were kissing, feeling like the green earth refreshed by rain. They thought that they understood each other once more – but their doubt had been planted. Now, in their love, which was stronger, there were the seeds of hatred and fear and confusion growing at the same time: for love can exist with hatred, each preying on the other, and this is what gives it its greatest fury.

You don’t need to be a fortress to be strong. You don’t need to build walls to keep yourself safe. Open the windows and let the breeze breathe life into your bones. Go outside, touch the earth with your bare hands, and remind yourself how it feels to plant the seeds of love and watch them bloom into something beautiful. Water those flowers well; your garden will reawaken in the sun.

Meanwhile, someplace in the world, somebody is making love and another a poem. Elsewhere in the universe, a star manyfold the mass of our third-rate sun is living out its final moments in a wild spin before collapsing into a black hole, its exhale bending spacetime itself into a well of nothingness that can swallow every atom that ever touched us and every datum we ever produced, every poem and statue and symphony we’ve ever known—an entropic spectacle insentient to questions of blame and mercy, devoid of why. “In four billion years, our own star will follow its fate, collapsing into a white dwarf. We exist only by chance, after all. The Voyager will still be sailing into the interstellar shorelessness on the wings of the “heavenly breezes” Kepler had once imagined, carrying Beethoven on a golden disc crafted by a symphonic civilization that long ago made love and war and mathematics on a distant blue dot. But until that day comes, nothing once created ever fully leaves us. Seeds are planted and come abloom generations, centuries, civilizations later, migrating across coteries and countries and continents. Meanwhile, people live and people die—in peace as war rages on, in poverty and disrepute as latent fame awaits, with much that never meets its more, in shipwrecked love. I will die. You will die. The atoms that huddled for a cosmic blink around the shadow of a self will return to the seas that made us. What will survive of us are shoreless seeds and stardust.

Good food and good love are cultivated the same way - plant a seed in fertile soil, water it, care for it daily, protect it from negative elements and watch it rise up to nourish your body and soul.

All it takes is one seed, my love,” she told me. “One sprout to push through the earth, to dig its roots deep and wide. If I have to plant a million seeds to find that one, that’s exactly what I’ll do.

Sometimes your garden surprises you. You don't remember planting strawberries or mint, but there it is, rising up in the middle of the carrot patch. Maybe the seeds blew in from the neighbor's garden. Or maybe they were buried in the dirt and you unearthed them when you tilled the soil. Or maybe you're reaping what you've sown. However it happened, you now have unexpected bounty. Accept it with gratitude.

I think love is a seed. We choose to plant it, nurture it, and at the end of our lives, if we end up with a glorious old oak tree, with huge branches and plenty of shade, then that’s on us, not the cosmos.

Do you not remember how your mother kissed a sunrise into your cheek every morning, for that light is still trapped within your skin, and you are soft there. Do not fashion yourself in the image of restraint or tarnished steel, do not turn to brick in the midst of uncertainty. May the wild bird within your heart fly, and may you dip your wings in ink so that your words fall from the sky, staining the Earth with love.

The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects … Snub-nosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses. That man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was a part of the monster, a robot in the seat … The driver could not control it – straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the ‘cat, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that sent the tractor out, had somehow gotten into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him – goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the land as it smelled; his feet did not stamp the clods or feel the warmth and power of the earth. He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did not know or own or trust or beseech the land. If a seed dropped did not germinate, it was no skin off his ass. If the young thrusting plant withered in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the tractor. He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the tractor – its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders; but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth with blades – not plowing but surgery … The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

A Wild Woman Is Not A Girlfriend. She Is A Relationship With Nature. But can you love me in the deep? In the dark? In the thick of it? Can you love me when I drink from the wrong bottle and slip through the crack in the floorboard? Can you love me when I’m bigger than you, when my presence blazes like the sun does, when it hurts to look directly at me? Can you love me then too? Can you love me under the starry sky, shaved and smooth, my skin like liquid moonlight? Can you love me when I am howling and furry, standing on my haunches, my lower lip stained with the blood of my last kill? When I call down the lightning, when the sidewalks are singed by the soles of my feet, can you still love me then? What happens when I freeze the land, and cause the dirt to harden over all the pomegranate seeds we’ve planted? Will you trust that Spring will return? Will you still believe me when I tell you I will become a raging river, and spill myself upon your dreams and call them to the surface of your life? Can you trust me, even though you cannot tame me? Can you love me, even though I am all that you fear and admire? Will you fear my shifting shape? Does it frighten you, when my eyes flash like your camera does? Do you fear they will capture your soul? Are you afraid to step into me? The meat-eating plants and flowers armed with poisonous darts are not in my jungle to stop you from coming. Not you. So do not worry. They belong to me, and I have invited you here. Stay to the path revealed in the moonlight and arrive safely to the hut of Baba Yaga: the wild old wise one… she will not lead you astray if you are pure of heart. You cannot be with the wild one if you fear the rumbling of the ground, the roar of a cascading river, the startling clap of thunder in the sky. If you want to be safe, go back to your tiny room — the night sky is not for you. If you want to be torn apart, come in. Be broken open and devoured. Be set ablaze in my fire. I will not leave you as you have come: well dressed, in finely-threaded sweaters that keep out the cold. I will leave you naked and biting. Leave you clawing at the sheets. Leave you surrounded by owls and hawks and flowers that only bloom when no one is watching. So, come to me, and be healed in the unbearable lightness and darkness of all that you are. There is nothing in you that can scare me. Nothing in you I will not use to make you great. A wild woman is not a girlfriend. She is a relationship with nature. She is the source of all your primal desires, and she is the wild whipping wind that uproots the poisonous corn stalks on your neatly tilled farm. She will plant pear trees in the wake of your disaster. She will see to it that you shall rise again. She is the lover who restores you to your own wild nature.

Love is no hot-house flower, but a wild plant, born of a wet night, born of an hour of sunshine; sprung from wild seed, blown along the road by a wild wind. A wild plant that, when it blooms by chance within the hedge of our gardens, we call a flower; and when it blooms outside we call a weed; but, flower or weed, whose scent and color are always, wild!

Fill. The third phase of dominion is to “fill” or “replenish” the earth. Bearing fruit, refining our gift, and mastering the use of our resources create demand and lead naturally to wider “distribution.” To “fill the earth” means to expand our gift, our influence, our resources, just as a growing business would by continually improving its product, opening new outlets, and hiring more employees. Another way to look at it is to think once again of an apple tree. A single apple seed grows into an apple tree, which then produces apples, each of which contains seeds for producing more trees. Planting those seeds soon turns a single apple tree into a whole orchard. This expansion to “fill the earth” is a joint effort between the Lord and us. Our part is to be faithful with the resources He has given. He is the one who brings the expansion. The more faithful we are with our stewardship, the more resources God will entrust to us. That is a biblical principle.

In life, we plant seeds everywhere we go. Some fall on fertile ground needing very little to grow. Some fall on rocky soil requiring a tad bit more loving care. While others fall in seemingly barren land and no matter what you do; it appears the seed is dead. Nevertheless, every seed planted will have a ripple effect. You could see it in the present or a time not seen yet. So be wise about where you plant your seeds. Be very mindful of your actions & deeds. Negativity grows just as fast if not faster than positivity. Plant seeds of kindness, love and peace And your harvest will be abundant living.

We cannot change the past, but we can change our attitude toward it. Uproot guilt and plant forgiveness. Tear out arrogance and seed humility. Exchange love for hate—thereby, making the present comfortable and the future promising. —Maya Angelou

Plant the seeds of peace and happiness Water it with true love and kindness Flowers of harmony will grow with hue Birds of peace will sing for all and you With love and with beauty With passion and with duty Plant the seeds of trust and compassion Make caring and sharing a life's mission Hold hand with dreams of greatness Peace will grow with beauty and fragrance.

Maybe Christ will come again. Maybe seeds will be planted, maybe there’ll be harvests then, maybe early figs to eat, maybe new life, maybe fresh blood, maybe companionship and love and protection, safety from what’s outside, maybe the door will hold, or maybe . . . Maybe the troubles will come, and the end will come, and the sky will collapse and there will be terrible rains and showers of poison light, or maybe my life is really fine, maybe Joe loves me and I’m only crazy thinking otherwise, or maybe not, maybe it’s even worse than I know, maybe . . . I want to know, maybe I don’t. The suspense, Mr. Lies, it’s killing me.

There was no insecurity, there was no need to compare myself to others or compete. The most awe-inspiring person I ever had the privilege of loving chose me every single day, and I chose him. When that wasn’t the case, we parted ways. We didn’t drag it out, we didn’t try to convince the other. We didn’t feel the need to grip, and chase something that did not fulfill us or inspire us. It was natural, and organic, and it allowed for me to feel deeply and confidently. That is the kind of love you want.

When Jim left the planet so suddenly, all of us who loved him, worked with him, were inspired by him, gathered in New York City. We were like dandelion seeds clinging to the stem and to each other. And on May 16th, [the day Jim died] the wind began to blow. There’s no stem any more. We’re all floating on the breeze. And it’s scary and exhilarating, and there’s nothing we can do about it. But gradually, we’ll all drift to the ground and plant ourselves. And no matter what we grow into, it’ll be influenced by Jim. We’re Jim’s seeds. And it’s not only those of us who knew him. Everyone who was touched by his work is a Jim-seed.

Left to themselves people grow their hair. Left to themselves they take off their shoes. Left to themselves they make love sleep easily share blankets, dope & children they are not lazy or afraid they plant seeds, they smile, they speak to one another. The word coming into its own: touch of love on the brain, the ear. We return with the sea, the tides We return as often as leaves, as numerous as grass, gentle, insistent, we remember the way, our babes toddle barefoot thru the cities of the universe.

Let us plant the seeds of love and harmony. Peace tree will grow and will vanish agony. Let us plant the seeds of trust and kindness. Children's will bloom with joy and happiness. Let us plants the seeds of education but not war. Our children will grow not a soldier but a philosopher. Let us plant the seeds of vision and compassion. Our children will learn to love with joy and passion.

You plant a seed thinking it's love. It's only when the thing starts putting down roots that you realise it's not growing the way it should. But by then it's too late. It has sprouted foliage, blossomed and borne demented fruit. What do you do with the sickness in you?

Love is a felt force when we become aware of it. Our cognition must be added to the reality of existence. This is the dance of love. We must cultivate our seeds that we plant in each other's lives. Only then we will enlarge our view of love, beauty, creativity, and purpose.

They say love cannot save you, that you must save yourself first. I don’t think that’s always true. I think you have to be the one to plant that first seed of salvation and allow love to water it until it grows into the most beautiful, strong flower capable of surviving it all.

Do not fret if you have yet to find it, this lucid and dreamlike love they speak of, this fervent and inspiring tenderness. Do not fret if you have yet to find it, rather, open your heart to an atlas and stretch your fingertips towards the sky – for the world is also capable of holding your hand, and my god, is it ever beautiful, the kind of love you find tucked away within yourself when the Earth opens your eyes.

Constant awareness that everything is born from change. The knowledge that there is nothing nature loves more than to alter what exists and make new things like it. All that exists is the seed of what will emerge from it. You think the only seeds are the ones that make plants or children? Go deeper.

We shall not always plant while others reap The golden increment of bursting fruit, Not always countenance, abject and mute, That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap; Not everlastingly while others sleep Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute, Not always bend to some more subtle brute; We were not made to eternally weep. The night whose sable breast relieves the stark, White stars is no less lovely being dark, And there are buds that cannot bloom at all In light, but crumple, piteous, and fall; So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds, And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.

M. Foss had advised me once to treat dating like gardening instead. Plant the most promising seeds. Water them all. Taste what each has to offer. And when you find one that produces fruit you could eat every single day, give a little more love to it and start pruning the rest... But the important thing to remember is that it's your garden. Nothing good can grow if you don't nourish your own soil. And only you can decide when to stop feeding dead things.

Corn, beans, and squash were once all my people needed. They were so essential to our everyday lives that we referred to them as our sisters. We would preserve each plant's seeds and pass them on to our children, knowing that with this gift, they would be able to provide the same nutritious food for their families that we provided for them. This was an act of absolute, undiminished intergenerational love. And if intergenerational trauma can alter DNA, why can't intergenerational love?

i dreamt i crawled on top of you and kissed your hips, one at a time, my lips a smolder. i straddled your waist and pressed both shaking hands against your torso. spongy, like an old tree on the forest floor. i push and your flesh sinks inwardly, collapsing with decay, a soft shushing sound. a yawning hole where your organs should be. maggots used to live here until your own poison killed them off. i laid my cheek into the loam and three little mushrooms brushed over my eyelid. peat, decomposing matter, all of it, whatever you wish to call it, rested in the cavity of your chest. and there i planted seeds in the hopes something good would come out of you.

I think about the pepper plant, the corn, cucumbers, tomatoes, and more plants. And I've noticed that while those seeds are living within the fruit or vegetable they can not grow. It is only when those seeds have died, that they can be planted and grow. And, I can relate this same process to the human body. In order to grow and thrive in the spirit, you must die to the flesh. Meaning, You have to rid your mind and body of toxic negative worldly things in order to grow and develop more spiritually.

I wonder if honeysuckles grow about the gates of heaven. I’ve heard they are made of precious jewels. I have thinks there will be flowers growing all about. Probably God brought the seed from heaven when he did plant the flowers here on earth. Too, I do think when angels bring babies from heaven to folks that live here below, they do also bring seeds of flowers, and do scatter them about. I have thinks that they do this so the babies may hear the voices of the loving flowers, and grow in the way of God.

I write to tell stories of the transformation I know is possible. I know because I've lived it—once full of fear and striving, knowing nothing of grace. God taught me how to love without borders, and my life was never the same. Those seeds planted years ago have transformed into what I daily pray is a sheltering place for others to grow.

What good is a life lived as if it made no difference at all to the great life of the world? A sadder thing I cannot imagine. Why should not a mother say to herself, if I raise this child aright, if I love and care for her, she shall have a life that brings joy to those around her, and thus I have changed the world? Why should not the farmer that plants a seed say to his neighbour, this seed that I plant today will feed someone, and that is how I change the world today? […] This is life. And no one has time not to think of such things. Each creature in the world should consider this thing, every moment of the heart’s beating. Otherwise, what is the point of arising each day?

Plant seeds of kindness, and watch a garden of warmth bloom around you.

Love is no hot-house flower, but a wild plant, born of a wet night, born of an hour of sunshine; sprung from wild seed, blown along the road by a wild wind.

Success does not come from having one's work recognized by others. It is the fruit of a seed you lovingly planted. When harvest time arrives, you can say to yourself : ' I succeed

Jean planted seeds of self-love and positive thinking in my brain. She shut down my negative self-talk again and again and insisted that I believe in my talent and my future.

Remember, you have to plant a seed today if you want to promote growth tomorrow. Wishing you all a lovely summer full of reading.

Good can also feed on itself and get better and better the longer we spend planting seeds of mercy, forgiveness, love, and justice.

Love is a strong seed, planted in my soul of kindness to grow the plants compassion and flowers of happiness.

Love isn't a bucket one can fall in and out of. Love is a seed of trust deliberately planted in commitment and friendship. If tended to with respect and passion – it flourishes.

Honey, remember, the same day we plant our seeds is not the same day we eat the fruit. It takes time before the harvest comes.

I think the seeds of my love were planted there, in the ground that my father’s madness harrowed.

River Lily Meaning: Love concealed Crinum pedunculatum | Eastern Australia Very large perennial usually found on the edge of forests, but also at the high-tide level close to mangroves. Fragrant, white slender star-shaped flowers. Seeds sometimes germinate while still attached to the parent plant. The sap has been used as a treatment for box jellyfish stings.

Scene VI (1940) It is our fault we love only the skull of Beauty Without knowing who she was, of what she died. We have the thief's guilt, but not his booty, The liar's spasm without ever having lied. The sick locust scrapes his injured song, His thorax only partially destroyed. Retching is prohibited. It's wrong. The murderer feels no hate he can avoid. Now flies bite worst where the skin is broken. Illness triumphs. Lesions. Soon tumors sprout. The bloated plants quiver, the seeds will be shaken. 'Your head's bashed in, darling. Look out.

Yellow bells Meaning: Welcome to a stranger Geleznowia verrucosa | Western Australia A small shrub with great yellow flowers. Sun loving, drought tolerant and requiring a well-drained soil. Will grow in a little shade, but sun for most of the day is essential. Makes a wonderful cut flower, although fickleness in propagation and seed germination make this a rare plant.

You don’t need to be a fortress to be strong. You don’t need to build walls to keep yourself safe. Open the windows and let the breeze breathe life into your bones. Go outside, touch the earth with your bare hands, and remind yourself how it feels to plant the seeds of love and watch them bloom into something beautiful. Water those flowers well; your garden will reawaken in the sun.

Pressed between their covers were words that planted seeds in the garden of Tama’s mind. How magical that—even in Minidoka—such a small little library could fit so much inside of its four walls!

My life has changed. I’ve changed, but my love for you is constant. If anything, it’s grown. You planted a seed inside of me, and it’s spread like ivy over my heart. There’s no room for anybody else.” “I

She will not plant the seed in their mind, that a parent is capable of abandoning her children, of saying to them You are not enough. For Pari, the children and Eric have always been enough. They always will be.

It is a solemn duty to change lives positively.It is a noble honor to inspire and be there for others.It is an irresistible necessity to have empathy; to understand the situations and the reasons for the actions of others. Real mentoring is less of neither the candid smile nor the amicable friendship that exists between the mentor and the mentee and much more of the impacts. The indelible great footprints the mentor lives on the mind of the mentee in a life changing way. How the mentor changes the mentee from ordinariness to extra-ordinariness; the seed of purposefulness that is planted and nurtured for great fruits; the prayer from afar from the mentor to the mentee; and the great inspirations the mentee takes from the mentor to dare unrelentingly to face the storms regardless of how arduous the errand may be with or without the presence of the mentor

I wished for one heart in which I could pour unrestrained my plaints, and by the heavenly nature of the soil blessed fruit might spring from such bad seed. Yet how could I find this? The love that is the soul of friendship is a soft spirit seldom found except when two amiable creatures are knit from early youth, or when bound by mutual suffering and pursuits; it comes to some of the elect unsought and unaware; it descends as gentle dew on chosen spots which however barren they were before become under its benign influence fertile in all sweet plants; but when desired it flies; it scoffs at the prayers of its votaries; it will bestow, but not be sought.

The seed of the knowledge had been planted: the worst way to be alone is to be alone in the presence of the one person who is supposed to love you most, protect you most, but who decides instead to turn her back on you and fall asleep. I sat up against the pillows, every muscle tensed with effort. I could not move, but there was no stillness. Next to me, she slept, her breathing shallow, steady, and rhythmic. It was the loneliest sound.

Lust blooms in the soil of disengagement. Disengagement plants the seeds of lust because the child, who is made to experience tenderness and delight, recognizes that familial love is not something that can be depended on.

The Evening Primrose Like a flower blooming From an Evening Primrose, They, too, shall die In great sorrow. For they only were loved When they bloomed; Yet every Gardener knows You must love the plant From seed to wilt.

Two seeds destined to grow in concert, planted together in the field of love.’” She took in a lungful of air and continued. “‘The sky cast wet buckets of dreams and desires, the roots took shape, and the leaves tangled as one.

Fireworks made of glass. An explosion of dew. Crescendo. Diminuendo. Silence. There are drugs that work the same, and while I am not suggesting that our founder purchased the glassworks to get more drops, it is clear that she had the seed planted, not once, but twice, and knew already the lovely contradictory nature of glass and she did not have to be told, on the day she saw the works at Darling Harbour, that glass is a thing in disguise, an actor, is not solid at all, but a liquid, that an old sheet of glass will not only take on a royal and purplish tinge but will reveal its true liquid nature by having grown fatter at the bottom and thinner at the top, and that even while it is as frail as the ice on a Parramatta puddle, it is stronger under compression than Sydney sandstone, that it is invisible, solid, in short, a joyous and paradoxical thing, as good a material as any to build a life from.

The Swede had loved that story all his life. Who wrote it? Nobody, as far as he could remember. They’d just studied it in grade school. Johnny Appleseed, out there everywhere planting apple trees. That bag of seeds. I loved that bag.

What good is a life lived as if it made no difference at all to the great life of the world? A sadder thing I cannot imagine. Why should not a mother say to herself, if I raise this child aright, if I love and care for her, she shall live a life that brings joy to those about her, and thus I have changed the world? Why should not the farmer that plants a seed say to his neighbor, this seed I plant today will feed someone, and that is how I change the world today?

Books can change minds and change worlds, open doors and open minds, and plant seeds that can grow into magical or even terrifying things. Stories are things to be loved and respected at the same time; never underestimate the power of them.

They say time heals—and I think this can be true—but only if that’s truly the goal here: healing. Time grows the seeds that are planted, watered, and fertilized. Plant beauty, grow beauty. Plant thorns, grow thorns. Time will allow for either.

I'm getting old... Soon I'll be thirty, and then forty, and then fifty; and do you think any one will love me then if I deal in subterfuges and evasions? Character, my dear girls, is a plant of slow growth, and the seeds must be planted early.

He lops, lifts, digs. He plants annuals, packets the old lady gives him--nasturtiums, poppies, sweet peas, petunias. He loves folding the hoed ridge of crumbs of soil over the seeds. Sealed, they cease to be his. The simplicity. Getting rid of something by giving it to itself. God Himself folded into the tiny adamant structure, Self-destined to a succession of explosions, the great slow gathering out of water and air and silicon: this is felt without words in the turn of the round hoe-handle in his palms.

What if grace were to generate a love more compelling than even our own freedom? It sounds terribly self-defeating—and it is (sort of) and yet there’s something counter-intuitive that plants self-giving and self-sacrifice as the seeds of human flourishing.

I encourage you to tend to the garden of your own heart. Plant seeds of love. Let light through. Till the soil in the dark and cut the weeds. Water yourself with kindness and compassion. By healing within, you stop attracting relationships that are unhealthy for you. Love yourself repeatedly until it becomes ritual; if you love yourself first, everything is possible. The cosmic orgasm is possible. I am speaking to everyone, not only singles; it’s easy to forget these steps when you’re in a relationship or partnership.

Are you sure, Fitz? Are you sure? What good is a life lived as if it made no difference at all to the great life of the world? A sadder thing I cannot imagine. Why should not a mother say to herself, if I raise this child aright, if I love and care for her, she shall live a life that brings joy to those about her, and thus I have changed the world? Why should not the farmer that plants a seed say to his neighbor, this seed I plant today will feed someone, and that is how I change the world today?” “This is philosophy, Fool. I have never had time to study such things.” “No, Fitz, this is life. And no one has time not to think of such things. Each creature in the world should consider this thing, every moment of the heart’s beating. Otherwise, what is the point of arising each day?

We are all made from the same seeds. It makes sense to say that compassion, love sunshine, water and nourishing seeds will grow into healthy, happy, fulfilled plants. You don’t have to like a certain kind of bread or be a bread maker to have faith. God invented more than brand of toasters to spread the seeds of faith. Those who become self-righteous bread makers shall have self-righteous toaster consciousness. If our belief system excludes us from sharing bread with those who do not believe the exact same manner as we do, that’s when its time to re-evaluate our belief system.

BOWLS OF FOOD Moon and evening star do their slow tambourine dance to praise this universe. The purpose of every gathering is discovered: to recognize beauty and love what’s beautiful. “Once it was like that, now it’s like this,” the saying goes around town, and serious consequences too. Men and women turn their faces to the wall in grief. They lose appetite. Then they start eating the fire of pleasure, as camels chew pungent grass for the sake of their souls. Winter blocks the road. Flowers are taken prisoner underground. Then green justice tenders a spear. Go outside to the orchard. These visitors came a long way, past all the houses of the zodiac, learning Something new at each stop. And they’re here for such a short time, sitting at these tables set on the prow of the wind. Bowls of food are brought out as answers, but still no one knows the answer. Food for the soul stays secret. Body food gets put out in the open like us. Those who work at a bakery don’t know the taste of bread like the hungry beggars do. Because the beloved wants to know, unseen things become manifest. Hiding is the hidden purpose of creation: bury your seed and wait. After you die, All the thoughts you had will throng around like children. The heart is the secret inside the secret. Call the secret language, and never be sure what you conceal. It’s unsure people who get the blessing. Climbing cypress, opening rose, Nightingale song, fruit, these are inside the chill November wind. They are its secret. We climb and fall so often. Plants have an inner Being, and separate ways of talking and feeling. An ear of corn bends in thought. Tulip, so embarrassed. Pink rose deciding to open a competing store. A bunch of grapes sits with its feet stuck out. Narcissus gossiping about iris. Willow, what do you learn from running water? Humility. Red apple, what has the Friend taught you? To be sour. Peach tree, why so low? To let you reach. Look at the poplar, tall but without fruit or flower. Yes, if I had those, I’d be self-absorbed like you. I gave up self to watch the enlightened ones. Pomegranate questions quince, Why so pale? For the pearl you hid inside me. How did you discover my secret? Your laugh. The core of the seen and unseen universes smiles, but remember, smiles come best from those who weep. Lightning, then the rain-laughter. Dark earth receives that clear and grows a trunk. Melon and cucumber come dragging along on pilgrimage. You have to be to be blessed! Pumpkin begins climbing a rope! Where did he learn that? Grass, thorns, a hundred thousand ants and snakes, everything is looking for food. Don’t you hear the noise? Every herb cures some illness. Camels delight to eat thorns. We prefer the inside of a walnut, not the shell. The inside of an egg, the outside of a date. What about your inside and outside? The same way a branch draws water up many feet, God is pulling your soul along. Wind carries pollen from blossom to ground. Wings and Arabian stallions gallop toward the warmth of spring. They visit; they sing and tell what they think they know: so-and-so will travel to such-and-such. The hoopoe carries a letter to Solomon. The wise stork says lek-lek. Please translate. It’s time to go to the high plain, to leave the winter house. Be your own watchman as birds are. Let the remembering beads encircle you. I make promises to myself and break them. Words are coins: the vein of ore and the mine shaft, what they speak of. Now consider the sun. It’s neither oriental nor occidental. Only the soul knows what love is. This moment in time and space is an eggshell with an embryo crumpled inside, soaked in belief-yolk, under the wing of grace, until it breaks free of mind to become the song of an actual bird, and God.

Many of us sing songs about bringing revival to our cities, but how are we communicating this message and is it relevant? If we come with our own agenda and do not truly know the needs of the people we want to reach, we will never see the harvest. A good farmer has to know the seeds he is planting: how much water they need, how far apart to plant the seeds, and what fertilizers they need for growth. In much the same way, we need to know the people in our communities and their basic needs if we are to yield a harvest. If our intent is to love compassionately, than knowing the hearts of the people we hope to reach will be more important than “filling our quota.” God is not interested in people hearing the message as much as us “becoming the message,” as Jesus did. He spoke in parables that used relevant cultural references so that those who were searching would find truth.

Who you have feelings for—that is not a choice. Feelings happen whether you want them to or not. But love isn’t a feeling; it’s the act of planting a seed and putting in the time and care it needs to grow. It demands hard work and renewal to survive. It demands commitment. By necessity, it cannot be taken lightly.

When I was young, it was never about finding love. Love was something you cultivated. Your parents picked your life partner. Romance never entered the equation until then. People didn’t marry people. Families married families. Your father liked his father, or his grandmother played cards with your grandmother. That was how it started. Marriage was a garden that grew slowly. You only got one patch, so you worked hard at it. You planted the seeds, you watered them, you waited for things to bloom—love, respect, intimacy, connection. But things are different now. Everyone expects fruits and flowers right off the bat. When those are done, it gets plain and boring. Then it’s time to move on to the next patch. Relationships are more disposable now. So many people, so many choices. I look at you, I look at Isabelle, and I see both the blessing and curse that freedom brings you—so much potential for happiness, so much pressure to realize it.

It was a very new love growing inside of her heart—so new and so young that she felt fiercely protective of it. As though the seed of love had been planted in the warm earth of her heart several weeks ago, just now it was starting to sprout roots she knew would climb deep into her soul, with tiny green tendrils that would one day burst through her to entangle with his. Too little warmth or water or sun could make the seed wither, and with all of her heart and all of her soul, she wanted this love to grow deep and tall and strong, because somewhere deep and certain inside of her, she knew what was happening between her and Stratton could be the love of a lifetime.

I look out at the weather station below and my heart contracts. I must be grateful to have spent such passionate, endearing moments with a man that I love so fully. Many do not find such a love in all of their days. Now, I have no tears left to flow. I am pointed in a new direction, one where if I plant the seeds then surely love will follow

Harvest Do not let a woman with a sexy rump deceive you with wheedling and coaxing words; she is after your barn. -Hesiod Shall we gather the sunset pluck what is ripe harness the cicada's song? Even if this isn't the season of new love let us remember the buds and reap what we can. No crop is too small. No harvest too lean. The grain will yield. So scatter and slash call in the cows and let us milk them all dry. Plow as you will. Bulldoze away. Why not make every season our season each day our day to till and tease to clear and seed to plant and replant as we please. Come my sweet smell of hay do not be deceived by Hesiod. He says that I am after your barn. I want the whole fucking farm!

When I was younger, my mom loved to garden. But the flowers would never grow. She kept planting seeds even thought nothing would grow. She just kept trying.' 'I don't understand.' 'Because you can't.' 'What does this have to do with anything?' I don't fiddle with my fingers and there's no apology on the tip of my tongue when I say, 'I am my mother's son.

Blank sheets of paper are the fertile soil in which we cultivate the world of our imagination. We plant the seeds of dream and we water them with pitchers of dedication, fertilizing with sprinkled pellets of enthusiasm, until they sprout and bring forth the blossoming flowers of our soul--- the written children of our being, our loves, our works, our writing!

Can’t just plant seeds in anyone and then expect that seed to grow up and know something about love. A kid has to see that coming up. It has to be a part of his world. A visual lesson reinforced everyday by the people who created him, so that when he grows up, he knows how to seek that. If all he sees is disconnection, he becomes disconnected from love, from himself even.

As for the other experiences, the solitary ones, which people go through alone, in their bedrooms, in their offices, walking the fields and the streets of London, he had them; had left home, a mere boy, because of his mother; she lied; because he came down to tea for the fiftieth time with his hands unwashed; because he could see no future for a poet in Stroud; and so, making a confidant of his little sister, had gone to London leaving an absurd note behind him, such as great men have written, and the world has read later when the story of their struggles has become famous. London has swallowed up many millions of young men called Smith; thought nothing of fantastic Christian names like Septimus with which their parents have thought to distinguish them. Lodging off the Euston Road, there were experiences, again experiences, such as change a face in two years from a pink innocent oval to a face lean, contracted, hostile. But of all this what could the most observant of friends have said except what a gardener says when he opens the conservatory door in the morning and finds a new blossom on his plant: — It has flowered; flowered from vanity, ambition, idealism, passion, loneliness, courage, laziness, the usual seeds, which all muddled up (in a room off the Euston Road), made him shy, and stammering, made him anxious to improve himself, made him fall in love with Miss Isabel Pole, lecturing in the Waterloo Road upon Shakespeare. Was he not like Keats? she asked; and reflected how she might give him a taste of Antony and Cleopatra and the rest; lent him books; wrote him scraps of letters; and lit in him

Hate is such a prodigious feeling. It’s hot and oppressive like fire. It starts by burning through your God-given reason until there is nothing left of it but a mound of ash. It moves on to your humanity next, hot tongues flicking across the few remaining threads of innocence until they melt into each other and morph into something ugly. Then, in the rubble of what you were, hate plants a seed of bitterness.

Every generation of children instinctively nests itself in nature, no matter matter how tiny a scrap of it they can grasp. In a tale of one city child, the poet Audre Lord remembers picking tufts of grass which crept up through the paving stones in New York City and giving them as bouquets to her mother. It is a tale of two necessities. The grass must grow, no matter the concrete suppressing it. The child must find her way to the green, no matter the edifice which would crush it. "The Maori word for placenta is the same word for land, so at birth the placenta is buried, put back in the mothering earth. A Hindu baby may receive the sun-showing rite surya-darsana when, with conch shells ringing to the skies, the child is introduced to the sun. A newborn child of the Tonga people 'meets' the moon, dipped in the ocean of Kosi Bay in KwaZulu-Natal. Among some of the tribes of India, the qualities of different aspects of nature are invoked to bless the child, so he or she may have the characteristics of earth, sky and wind, of birds and animals, right down to the earthworm. Nothing is unbelonging to the child. "'My oldest memories have the flavor of earth,' wrote Frederico García Lorca. In the traditions of the Australian deserts, even from its time in the womb, the baby is catscradled in kinship with the world. Born into a sandy hollow, it is cleaned with sand and 'smoked' by fire, and everything -- insects, birds, plants, and animals -- is named to the child, who is told not only what everything is called but also the relationship between the child and each creature. Story and song weave the child into the subtle world of the Dreaming, the nested knowledge of how the child belongs. "The threads which tie the child to the land include its conception site and the significant places of the Dreaming inherited through its parents. Introduced to creatures and land features as to relations, the child is folded into the land, wrapped into country, and the stories press on the child's mind like the making of felt -- soft and often -- storytelling until the feeling of the story of the country is impressed into the landscape of the child's mind. "That the juggernaut of ants belongs to a child, belligerently following its own trail. That the twitch of an animal's tail is part of a child's own tale or storyline, once and now again. That on the papery bark of a tree may be written the songline of a child's name. That the prickles of a thornbush may have dynamic relevance to conscience. That a damp hollow by the riverbank is not an occasional place to visit but a permanent part of who you are. This is the beginning of belonging, the beginning of love. "In the art and myth of Indigenous Australia, the Ancestors seeded the country with its children, so the shimmering, pouring, circling, wheeling, spinning land is lit up with them, cartwheeling into life.... "The human heart's love for nature cannot ultimately be concreted over. Like Audre Lord's tufts of grass, will crack apart paving stones to grasp the sun. Children know they are made of the same stuff as the grass, as Walt Whitman describes nature creating the child who becomes what he sees: There was a child went forth every day And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became... The early lilacs became part of this child... And the song of the phoebe-bird... In Australia, people may talk of the child's conception site as the origin of their selfhood and their picture of themselves. As Whitman wrote of the child becoming aspects of the land, so in Northern Queensland a Kunjen elder describes the conception site as 'the home place for your image.' Land can make someone who they are, giving them fragments of themselves.

The earliest storytellers were magi, seers, bards, griots, shamans. They were, it would seem, as old as time, and as terrifying to gaze upon as the mysteries with which they wrestled. They wrestled with mysteries and transformed them into myths which coded the world and helped the community to live through one more darkness, with eyes wide open and hearts set alight. "I can see them now, the old masters. I can see them standing on the other side of the flames, speaking in the voices of lions, or thunder, or monsters, or heroes, heroines, or the earth, or fire itself -- for they had to contain all voices within them, had to be all things and nothing. They had to have the ability to become lightning, to become a future homeland, to be the dreaded guide to the fabled land where the community will settle and fructify. They had to be able to fight in advance all the demons they would encounter, and summon up all the courage needed on the way, to prophesy about all the requisite qualities that would ensure their arrival at the dreamt-of land. "The old masters had to be able to tell stories that would make sleep possible on those inhuman nights, stories that would counter terror with enchantment, or with a greater terror. I can see them, beyond the flames, telling of a hero's battle with a fabulous beast -- the beast that is in the hero." "The storyteller's art changed through the ages. From battling dread in word and incantations before their people did in reality, they became the repositories of the people's wisdom and follies. Often, conscripted by kings, they became the memory of a people's origins, and carried with them the long line of ancestries and lineages. Most important of all, they were the living libraries, the keepers of legends and lore. They knew the causes and mutations of things, the herbs, trees, plants, cures for diseases, causes for wars, causes of victory, the ways in which victory often precipitates defeat, or defeat victory, the lineages of gods, the rites humans have to perform to the gods. They knew of follies and restitutions, were advocates of new and old ways of being, were custodians of culture, recorders of change." "These old storytellers were the true magicians. They were humanity's truest friends and most reliable guides. Their role was both simple and demanding. They had to go down deep into the seeds of time, into the dreams of their people, into the unconscious, into the uncharted fears, and bring shapes and moods back up into the light. They had to battle with monsters before they told us about them. They had to see clearly." "They risked their sanity and their consciousness in the service of dreaming better futures. They risked madness, or being unmoored in the wild realms of the interspaces, or being devoured by the unexpected demons of the communal imagination." "And I think that now, in our age, in the mid-ocean of our days, with certainties collapsing around us, and with no beliefs by which to steer our way through the dark descending nights ahead -- I think that now we need those fictional old bards and fearless storytellers, those seers. We need their magic, their courage, their love, and their fire more than ever before. It is precisely in a fractured, broken age that we need mystery and a reawoken sense of wonder. We need them to be whole again.

To her father who had taught her what she knew of botany, the love of Nature had been a kind of religion, a form of spiritual striving: he had believed that in trying to comprehend the inner vitality of each species, human beings could transcend the mundane world and its artificial divisions. If botany was the Scripture of this religion, then horticulture was its form of worship: tending a garden was, for Pierre Lambert, no mere matter of planting seeds and pruning branches--it was a spiritual discipline, a means of communicating with forms of life that were necessarily mute and could be understood only through a careful study of their own modes of expression--the languages of efflorescence, growth and decay: only thus, he taught Paulette, could human beings apprehend the vital energies that constitute the Spirit of the Earth.

As beautiful as you are my lady, You sick answers to why love is never by your side Your heart wonders around trying to find your ideal love But yet nothing is completing your need. You’re a women of strength and resemble power within, Filled with joy on your angelic face, yet no good man appreciates it A laughter that one can capture for a lifetime, too bad that all the men you seem to meet erase it all You display Emotions that one can wish to dwell in and feel the energy you hold within. Take a stand my lady, no rose ever dies without growing back again, You need no tears to fall for a man who sees less in you You need no sad feeling to crush that happy self, he’ll never be worth the joy in you Show him no sad emotions, you’re too strong to give in now. As a flower you bloomed gracefully and a beautiful lady rose up from that seed the Lord God planted As a pillar you balanced yourself against all negative forces of life and that was your strength As an ocean you cried your tears out but that never hindered the ocean from being full again As a beautiful picture frame you lit up the room and no soul will ever take that away from you. Let yourself love you, is the greatest love one can ever behold, I’m done seeing you cry!!!

I tell myself that one day, one good and happy day, I will return and I will buy a house with a small garden that faces the sun and has a view of the mountains. I will plant the seeds of the good lady's pomegranate and I will divide its fruit among the people in the neighborhood. Those who taste the pomegranate of love will know that they are brothers and sisters. Whenever their eyes meet, their hearts will fill with joy and their soul will find peace.

Today is another day! Yesterday is gone but not its memories. There were so many things we expected yesterday which did not happen and what we least expected happened instead. Some are still expecting something. Expectation is a pillar of life. We all do have our expectations for today. Though we may or we may not be able to tell with certainty how our expectations would materialize. We ought to take life easy. Well, it may not be so easy to take it easy but, take it easy! Stay focused and entrust your trust in God. After all what you least expects can happen; serendipity can visit you and stay with you forever at a twinkle of an eye. The coin of life can however turn within a moment of time and your expectations can become a big had I know and a night mare; the vicissitudes of life can rob you at any moment of time. No one knows what the next second really holds. What matters in life is to do what matter; plant the seed of life God has entrusted in your hands and dare to ensure its abundant fruitfulness. The very problem in life is living to neglect the very reasons why you are living because of the problems you may face in living why you must live. When you trade why you must live for why you must not live, you are ruled by what you know but you do not know how it is ruling you. Once we have life, let us live for life all about living and living life is life!

For years, since the eighteenth century, and in each century since, we have said at home, in England, in Whitehall, that the day would come when our rule in India will end, not bloodily, but in peace, in—so we made it seem—a perfect gesture of equality and friendship and love. For years, for nearly a century, the books that Indians have read have been the books of our English radicals, our English liberals. There has been, you see, a seed. A seed planted in the Indian imagination and in the English imagination. Out of it was to come something sane and grave, full of dignity, full of thoughtfulness and kindness and peace and wisdom. For all these qualities are in us, in you, and in me, in old Joseph and Mr. Narayan and Mr. White and I suppose in Brigadier Reid. And they were there too, in Mr. Chaudhuri. For years we have been promising and for years finding means of putting the fulfilment of the promise off until the promise stopped looking like a promise and started looking only like a sinister prevarication, even to me, let alone to Indians who think and feel and know the same as me. And the tragedy is that between us there is this little matter of the colour of the skin, which gets in the way of our seeing through each other’s failings and seeing into each other’s hearts. Because if we saw through them, into them, then we should know. And what we should know is that the promise is a promise and will be fulfilled.” But

You're asking yourself if you will ever get over it. - I don't believe we ever do. Getting over something implies you floated on past the pain, blew kisses, and waved goodbye while leaping to freedom. I've never been able to jump after having the contents of my heart scattered and sewn over fields that will produce memory-laden blooms. The thing is... you get through it. But the seeds have been planted. Those memories grow. And every morning I still hear: 'He loved me. He loved me not.

Loving and working relationships bring so much joy into our lives! We need to work on our relationships like a garden; toiling the soil for a solid foundation, planting the seeds to slowly grow into a flower, daily water and weeding to maintain growth, and making adjustments when the relationship is in full bloom. Sadly, there are times when the plot of land dries up, nothing will grow, and it’s time to move on. Our dreams of the nighttime can be used as maintenance in all our relationships.

I do not hate you for the things you did to kill your sadness. For the mouths you kissed, thinking of the life they would have breathe into your hollowness, for the opportunities you missed because you feel worthless. I do not hate you for being confused, for running before you knew how to calm the shadows that danced inside of you. Trust me when I say that I will love you in your humanness. I will love you for your twists, I will love you for your faults. Trust me when I say that I will love it all.

Others may sit around and wait for magic to happen… I like to get up early and work towards my goals and dreams. Every morning I plant the seeds of what the haters call ‘luck.’ Now, I love magic as much as the next guy, but I realized a long time ago that the magic that turns dreams into reality is YOU. When you are inspired by a dream, create a good plan. Creating that plan turns your dream into a goal. Then, take action! Live your life in a way that will bring that dream, that goal, to life. The magic is you.

The page begins with the person’s picture. A photo if we can find it. If not, a sketch or painting by Peeta. Then, in my most careful handwriting, come all the details it would be a crime to forget. Lady licking Prim’s cheek. My father’s laugh. Peeta’s father with the cookies. The color of Finnick’s eyes. What Cinna could do with a length of silk. Boggs reprogramming the Holo. Rue poised on her toes, arms slightly extended, like a bird about to take flight. On and on. We seal the pages with salt water and promises to live well to make their deaths count. Haymitch finally joins us, contributing twenty-three years of tributes he was forced to mentor. Additions become smaller. An old memory that surfaces. A late primrose preserved between the pages. Strange bits of happiness, like the photo of Finnick and Annie’s newborn son. We learn to keep busy again. Peeta bakes. I hunt. Haymitch drinks until the liquor runs out, and then raises geese until the next train arrives. Fortunately, the geese can take pretty good care of themselves. We’re not alone. A few hundred others return because, whatever has happened, this is our home. With the mines closed, they plow the ashes into the earth and plant food. Machines from the Capitol break ground for a new factory where we will make medicines. Although no one seeds it, the Meadow turns green again. Peeta and I grow back together. There are still moments when he clutches the back of a chair and hangs on until the flashbacks are over. I wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children. But his arms are there to comfort me. And eventually his lips. On the night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me on the beach, I know this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that. So after, when he whispers, “You love me. Real or not real?” I tell him, “Real.

And now it is said of me That my love is nothing because I have borne no children, Or because I have fathered none; That I twisted the twig in my hands And cut the blossom free too soon from the seed; That I lay across the fire, And snuffed it dead sooner than draft or rain. But I have turned away, and drawn myself Upright to walk along the room alone. Across the dark the spines of cactus plants Remind me how I go—aloof, obscure, Indifferent to the words the children chalk Against my house and down the garden walls. They cannot tear the garden out of me, Nor smear my love with names. Love is a cliff, A clear, cold curve of stone, mottled by stars, smirched by the morning, carved by the dark sea Till stars and dawn and waves can slash no more, Till the rock’s heart is found and shaped again. I keep the house and say no words, the evening Falls like a petal down the shawl of trees. I light the fire and see the blossom dance On air alone; I will not douse that flame, That searing flower; I will burn in it. I will not banish love to empty rain. For I know that I am asked to hate myself For their sweet sake Who sow the world with child. I am given to burn on the dark fire they make With their sly voices. But I have burned already down to bone. There is a fire that burns beyond the names Of sludge and filth of which this world is made. Agony sears the dark flesh of the body, And lifts me higher than the smoke, to rise Above the earth, above the sacrifice; Until my soul flares outward like a blue Blossom of gas fire dancing in mid-air: Free of the body’s work of twisted iron.

There are seeds of greatness within you. You will either see them as worth planting, or you will not. You may attempt to trade them for other seeds that will never adapt to the soil of your soul, or you will realize that no seed created can match the ones already within you. Wisdom would tell you to accept the seeds, not your view of them. Prudence would tell you to embrace the soil, not your sense of its suitability. And determination would tell you to rigorously cultivate that which is already within you with great vigor, for to alter seed or soil is to destroy both and render the garden barren.

encourage you to pray this out loud right now: Father, my focus has been on the outside. I’ve been trying to stop all of these actions and clean myself up in order for You to love me. But now I see that it’s not this way at all. It’s just a matter of receiving Your love. Father, I want to know You. I desire to receive a spiritual revelation of Your love. Your Word says that the Holy Spirit will teach me all things, lead me into all truth, and bring all things to my remembrance that Jesus has spoken to me. Right now, I believe that You are revealing Yourself to me through the Holy Spirit. By faith, I receive Your unconditional love. Father, I ask You to break these feelings of guilt, shame, confusion, and condemnation that a works mentality has produced on the inside of me. Thank You for showing me Your supernatural love. Right now, I believe that a seed is being planted in me that will grow. As I meditate on these truths from Your Word, they are going to become a deeper conviction, a deeper revelation of Your unconditional love for me. I thank You that it’s Your love that will cause me to start living right. It’s Your love that will break these bondages in my life. I receive Your love. Thank You, Jesus!

What is this food in my head, anyway? Let’s see...it’s green and good for you and so delicious. It’s prepared by angels with love. The minute you bite into it, it’s savory, chewy, nourishing, and whole- some. You feel instantly revitalized. A small, tiny amount, just a few bites, rejuvenates every cell, deepens your breath, clears your mind, heals your wounds, and mends your heart. It’s made from joyous plants that voluntarily separate themselves from their stalks, laying themselves at the feet of the approaching gardener who gathers them. They eagerly offer their vital energies to nourish living spirits. The angels in their chef hats, singing mantras, cook it tenderly to retain all the benefits of the generous plants. It’s barely sweet, barely salty, and contains all the freshness of spring herbs, summer fruit, spreading leaves, and burgeoning seeds. It comes premade in bags or boxes...you just open it up, sit down, and enjoy. It’s a full meal, enough maybe for a whole day, maybe for a week, maybe for your family, maybe for your friends and neighbors. It multiplies like loaves and fishes, in little biodegradable containers that vaporize instantly the moment you finish them, without any greenhouse emissions. Nothing to clean up!

When I was a little girl, my mother took great pains to interest me in learning to know the birds and wild flowers and in the planting garden. I thought that roots and bulbs and seeds were as wonderful as flowers, and the Latin names on seed packages as full of enchantment as the counting-out rhymes that children chant in the spring. I remember the first time I planted seeds. My mother asked me if I knew the Parable of the Sower. I said I did not, and she took me into the house and read it to me. Once the relation between poetry and the soil is established in the mind, all growing things are endowed with more than material beauty. (p. 12)

I often tell my students that there is creative reading, creative thinking, not just creative writing. He said a basketball game was just like the rest of life, the minutes and days and years played off the court. What miracles swirl within a single teardrop! I imagined the feeling I had had to be something like what a plant must feel when it rains: no intermediary, no translation; just deep stillness, and growth. There are moments in a life that are the seeds of all later fruit, the fulcrums on which everything else depends. My book ends with this quote from a Beatles song: And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

After all, a kiss between real lovers is not some type of contract, a neatly defined moment of pleasure, something obtained by greedy conquest, or any kind of clear saying of how it is. It is a grief-drenched hatching of two hearts into some ecstatic never-before-seen bird whose new uncategorizable form, unrecognized by the status quo, gives the slip to Death's sure rational deal. For love is a delicious and always messy extension of life that unfrantically outgrows mortality's rigid insistence on precise and efficient definition. Having all the answers means you haven't really ecstatically kissed or lived, thereby declaring the world defined and already finished. Loving all the questions on the other hand is a vitality that makes any length of life worth living. Loving doesn't mean you know all the notes and that you have to play all the notes, it just means you have to play the few notes you have long and beautifully. Like the sight of a truly beautiful young woman, smooth and gliding, melting hearts at even a distant glimpse, that no words, no matter how capable, can truly describe; a woman whose beauty is only really known by those who take a perch on the vista of time to watch the years of life speak out their long ornate sentences of grooves as they slowly stretch into her smoothness, wrinkling her as she glides struggling, decade by decade, her gait mitigated by a long trail of heavy loads, joys, losses, and suffering whose joint-aching years of traveling into a mastery of her own artistry of living, becomes even more than beauty something about which though we are even now no more capable of addressing than before, our admiration as original Earth-loving human beings should nonetheless never remain silent. And for that beauty we should never sing about, but only sing directly to it. Straightforward, cold, and inornate description in the presence of such living evidence of the flowering speech of the Holy in the Seed would be death of both the beauty and the speaker. Even if we always fail when we speak, we must be willing to fail magnificently, for even an eloquent failure, if in the service of life, feeds the Divine. Is it not a magical thing, this life, when just a little ash, cinder, and unclear water can arrange themselves into a beautiful old woman who sways, lifts, kisses, loves, sickens, argues, loses, bears up under it all, and, wrinkling, still lives under all that and yet feeds the Holy in Nature by just the way she moves barefoot down a path? If we can find the hearts, tongues, and brightness of our original souls, broken or not, then no matter from what mess we might have sprung today, we would be like those old-time speakers of life; every one of us would have it in our nature to feel obligated by such true living beauty as to know we have to say something in its presence if only for our utter feeling of awe. For, finally learning to approach something respectfully with love, slowly with the courtesy of an ornate indirectness, not describing what we see but praising the magnificence of her half-smiles of grief and persistent radiance rolling up from the weight-bearing thumping of her fine, well-oiled dusty old feet shuffling toward the dawn reeds at the edge of her part of the lake to fetch a head-balanced little clay jar of water to cook the family breakfast, we would know why the powerful Father Sun himself hurries to get his daily glimpse of her, only rising early because she does.

Nothing that strikes a note of brutal conquest. Only peace blessings, rising up from the earth and the heaving sea, and down the vaulting sky let the wind-gods breathe a wash of sunlight streaming through the land, and the yield of soil and grazing cattle flood our city's life with power and never flag with time. Make the seed of men live on, the more they worship you the more they thrive. I love them as a gardener loves his plants, these upright men, this breed fought free of grief. All that is yours to give. And I, in the trials of war where fighters burn for fame, will never endure the overthrow of Athens all will praise her, victor city, pride of man. The furies assemble, dancing around Athena, who becomes their leader.

Nothing that strikes a note of brutal conquest. Only peace -blessings, rising up from the earth and the heaving sea, and down the vaulting sky let the wind-gods breathe a wash of sunlight streaming through the land, and the yield of soil and grazing cattle flood our city's life with power and never flag with time. Make the seed of men live on, the more they worship you the more they thrive. I love them as a gardener loves his plants, these upright men, this breed fought free of grief. All that is yours to give. And I, in the trials of war where fighters burn for fame, will never endure the overthrow of Athens all will praise her, victor city, pride of man. The furies assemble, dancing around Athena, who becomes their leader.

Helen’s research in the field of epistemology, the science of “how we know what we know,” helps explain why. There are two different types of knowing: “Separate Knowing” and “Connected Knowing.” Here’s an illustration of the differences between the two. You have a “separate” or intellectual knowing of an apple if you can recognize a picture of the fruit, understand that it contains the seeds of the plant, or talk about its health benefits. You have a “connected” or more experiential knowing of an apple when you hold one in your hand, feel the waxy texture of the skin, smell it, and taste it. Separate knowing is abstract. Connected knowing is concrete. Combining these two ways of knowing can give you a more comprehensive level of understanding. You learn about the apple and you taste it.

A sixteenth-century poet, especially one who knew that he ought to be a curious and universal scholar, would possess some notions, perhaps not strictly philosophical, about the origin of the world and its end, the eduction of forms from matter, and the relation of such forms to the higher forms which are the model of the world and have their being in the mind of God. He might well be a poet to brood on those great complementary opposites: the earthly and heavenly cities, unity and multiplicity, light and dark, equity and justice, continuity--as triumphantly exhibited in his own Empress--and ends--as sadly exhibited in his own Empress. Like St. Augustine he will see mutability as the condition of all created things, which are immersed in time. Time, he knows, will have a stop--perhaps, on some of the evidence, quite soon. Yet there is other evidence to suggest that this is not so. It will seem to him, at any rate, that his poem should in part rest on some poetic generalization-some fiction--which reconciles these opposites, and helps to make sense of the discords, ethical, political, legal, and so forth, which, in its completeness, it had to contain. This may stand as a rough account of Spenser's mood when he worked out the sections of his poem which treat of the Garden of Adonis and the trial of Mutability, the first dealing with the sempiternity of earthly forms, and the second with the dilation of being in these forms under the shadow of a final end. Perhaps the refinements upon, and the substitutes for, Augustine's explanations of the first matter and its potentialities, do not directly concern him; as an allegorist he may think most readily of these potentialities in a quasi-Augustinian way as seeds, seminal reasons, plants tended in a seminarium. But he will distinguish, as his commentators often fail to do, these forms or formulae from the heavenly forms, and allow them the kind of immortality that is open to them, that of athanasia rather than of aei einai. And an obvious place to talk about them would be in the discussion of love, since without the agency represented by Venus there would be no eduction of forms from the prime matter. Elsewhere he would have to confront the problem of Plato's two kinds of eternity; the answer to Mutability is that the creation is deathless, but the last stanzas explain that this is not to grant them the condition of being-for-ever.

Do not worry,” the Rebbe told me, or rather I told myself using the image of that aged Jew who was dressed as a rabbi. “Loneliness means not knowing how to be with oneself.” Of course, I do not mean to imply that a child of seven years can speak in such a fashion. But I understood these things, albeit not in a rational manner. The Rebbe, being an internal image, put things into my mind that were not intellectual. He made me feel something that I swallowed, in the way that a newly hatched eaglet, its eyes still closed, swallows the worm that is placed in its beak. Much later as an adult I began to find words to translate things that were, at that young age—how can I explain it?—openings into other planes of reality. “You are not alone. Remember last week when you were surprised to see a sunflower growing in the courtyard? You concluded that the wind had blown a seed there. A seed, though it looks insignificant, contains the future flower. This seed somehow knew what plant it was going to be, and this plant was not just in the future: although immaterial, although only a design, the sunflower existed there, in that seed, blowing in the wind over hundreds of kilometers. And not only was the plant there, but also the love of light, the turning in search of the sun, the mysterious union with the pole star, and—why not?—a form of consciousness. You are not different. All that you are going to be, you are. What you will know, you already know. What you will search for, you are already seeking: it is in you. I may not be real, but the old man who you now see, although he has my inconsistent appearance, is real because he is you, which is to say, he is what you will be.

The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was part of the monster, a robot in the seat. The thunder of the cylinders sounded through the country, became one with the air and the earth, so that earth and air muttered in sympathetic vibration. The driver could not control it–straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the cat’, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that sent that tractor out, had somehow got into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him–goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the power of the earth. He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did now know or own or trust or beseech the land. If a seed dropped did not germinate, it was no skin off his ass. If the young thrusting plant withered in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the tractor. He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the tractor–its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders; but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth with its blades–not plowing but surgery, pushing the cut earth to the right where the second row of disks cut it and pushed it to the left; slicing blades shining, polished by the cut earth. And behind the disks, the harrows combing with iron teeth so that the little clods broke up and the earth lay smooth. Behind the harrows, the long seeders–twelve curved iron penes erected in the foundry, orgasms set by gear, raping methodically, raping without passion. The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, and had no connection to the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not love or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

Does God get what God wants? That’s a good question. An interesting question. And it’s an important question that has given us much to discuss. But there’s a better question. One that we actually can answer. One that takes all of the speculation about the future, which no one has been to and returned with hard empirical evidence, and brings it back to one absolute we can depend on in the midst of all of this which turns out to be another question. It’s not, “Does God get what God wants?” but “Do we get what we want?” and the answer to that is a resounding, affirming, sure and certain yes. Yes, we get what we want, God is that loving. If we want isolation, despair, and the right to be our own god, God graciously grants us that option. If we insist on using our God-given power and strength to make the world in our own image, God allows us that freedom and we have that kind of license to do that. If we want nothing to do with light, love, hope, grace, and peace God respects that desire on our part and we are given a life free from any of those realities. The more we want nothing to do with what God is, the more distance and space is created. If we want nothing to do with love, we are given a reality free from love. If, however, we crave light, we’re drawn to truth, we’re desperate for grace, we’ve come to the end of our plots and schemes and we want someone else’s path, God gives us what we want. If we have this sense that we have wandered far from home and we want to return, God is there standing in the driveway arms open, ready to invite us in. If we thirst for Shalom and we long for the peace that transcends all understanding, God doesn’t just give, they are poured out on us lavishly, heaped until we are overwhelmed. It’s like a feast where the food and wine do not run out. These desires can start with the planting of an infinitesimally small seed in our heart, or a yearning for life to be better, or a gnawing sense that we are missing out, or an awareness that beyond the routine and grind of life there is something more, or the quiet hunch that this isn’t all there is. It often has it’s birth in the most unexpected ways, arising out of our need for something we know we do not have, for someone we know we are not. And to that, that impulse, craving, yearning, longing, desire God says, “Yes!”. Yes there is water for that thirst, food for that hunger, light for that darkness, relief for that burden. If we want hell, if we want heaven then they are ours. that’s how love works, it can’t be forced, manipulated, or coerced. It always leaves room for the other to decide. God says, “yes”, we can have what we want because love wins.

Vinyasa has three parts: arising, abiding, and dissolving. And the dissolving of one thing is the arising of the next. Every day turns into night turns into day. Winter becomes spring becomes summer becomes autumn becomes winter. Waves roll in and slip back out, tides ebb and flow. Every breath is like this. Every life is like this. Each flower buds, ripens, and blooms, wilts and fades away. The leaves fall to the earth and create the ground for a new plant to grow. The Sanskrit word vinyasa means "to place in a special way". It means that everything is connected and the sequence of things matters. It means that every action, thought, or word that arises now is planting the seed for future fruit. "In a special way" means the unfolding of life is logical. If you plant a tomato seed, you will get a tomato. If you plant an apple seed and you wait long enough, you will get an apple tree. And if you plant a hard thought, you will get a hard heart.

You make me afraid,” she murmured one morning when he came back to sit beside her on the bed. “The thought plagues me that I will see you slain and, like your mother, will have to flee to find a haven for our babe.” “By the grace of God, madam, I will prove wiser than my enemy.” He lay back across the bed, resting his head in her lap while he reached up a hand to caress softly her smooth, flat belly through the light fabric of her nightgown. “I have a fancy to see our offspring and plant other seeds where this one grows, so you needn’t fret that I’ll be foolhardy, my love.” Erienne ran her fingers through his hair. “I hope the hour quickly approaches when you may give up the mask and guise. I want to tell the world and all the women in it that you’re mine.” She shrugged lightly. “ ’Twould not overburden me to tell my father of our marriage, either.” Christopher chuckled. “He’ll croak.” Erienne giggled and leaned over him. “Aye, that he will. Louder than any wily toad that e’er’s been born. He’ll stamp and snort and claim injustice, but with your babe growing in me, I doubt that anyone will lend an ear to the question of annulment.” Her eyes gleamed with twinkling humor. “Besides, what suitor would look twice at me when I’ve grown fat with child?” Christopher raised up on an elbow and leered at her. “Madam, if you think your father or any suitor could get past me to try to separate us, then let me assure you that the highwaymen have not yet seen such a wrath that I would display should that happen.” His brow raised in question. “Do you doubt what I say?” Erienne gave a flirtatious shrug, then rolled to the edge of the bed and bounced to her feet with light, lilting laughter floating behind her. Before she could catch up her robe, however, Christopher swung around the end of the bed and caught her close against him, slipping his arms around her waist and holding her tightly to him. Their lips met in a long, slow kiss of love, and after he drew away it was a full moment or more before Erienne opened her eyes to find the grayish-green ones smiling into hers, and her arms tightly clasped about his neck. “I believe you,” she breathed unsteadily. -Erienne & Christopher

On the day you’re born, you’re given a little plot of rich and fertile soil, slightly different from everyone else’s. And right away, your family and your culture start to plant things and tend the garden for you, until you’re old enough to take over its care yourself. They plant language and attitudes and knowledge about love and safety and bodies and sex. And they teach you how to tend your garden, because as you transition through adolescence into adulthood, you’ll take on full responsibility for its care. And you didn’t choose any of that. You didn’t choose your plot of land, the seeds that were planted, or the way your garden was tended in the early years of your life. As you reach adolescence, you begin to take care of the garden on your own. And you may find that your family and culture have planted some beautiful, healthy things that are thriving in a well-tended garden. And you may notice some things you want to change. Maybe the strategies you were taught for cultivating the garden are inefficient, so you need to find different ways of taking care of it so that it will thrive (that’s in chapter 3).

What if every dream you ever dreamt was a part of a dream that you're living? To my Smiling Soul, If there is one thing I have learnt over Time that stands solid and can pass the test of Time in every Universe then that is the Strength of our Soul when we live through the Smile of our Heart. It doesn't matter, how much time goes by, how many detours or losses fell on your path, as long as you stand your ground, as long as you don't let regret or failure to get the better of you, you win, you walk with slow but steady steps knowing there is someone watching over you, holding onto integrity and grace. You remember to bury your pain, your loss, your sorrow and plant a seed of Love instead with a Hope that someday, Somewhere in some corner of this Universe you will find your due, something that only He alone can give you, something that is yours, entirely yours. Until then, keep reminding the world that a Unicorn doesn't need to be a lion or a wolf in the wilderness of Life. - your Smiling Dream To every Dreamer, keep weaving that halo of dream for you never know where you might end up in the Smile of Time, because Life knows exactly the Dream that Life weaves around us. Love & Light, always - Debatrayee

You are personally responsible for so much of the sunshine that brightens up your life. Optimists and gentle souls continually benefit from their very own versions of daylight saving time. They get extra hours of happiness and sunshine every day. – Douglas Pagels, from Simple Thoughts That Can Literally Change Your Life The secret joys of living are not found by rushing from point A to point B, but by slowing down and inventing some imaginary letters along the way. – Douglas Pagels, from Simple Thoughts That Can Literally Change Your Life “There is nothing more important than family.” Those words should be etched in stone on the sidewalks that lead to every home. – Douglas Pagels, from Simple Thoughts That Can Literally Change Your Life I may be uncertain about exactly where I’m headed, but I am very clear regarding this: I’m glad I’ve got a ticket to go on this magnificent journey. – Douglas Pagels, from Simple Thoughts That Can Literally Change Your Life When your heart is filled with gratitude for what you do have, your head isn’t nearly so worried about what you don’t. – Douglas Pagels, from Simple Thoughts That Can Literally Change Your Life Don’t let cynical people transfer their cynicism off on you. In spite of its problems, it is still a pretty amazing world, and there are lots of truly wonderful people spinning around on this planet. – Douglas Pagels, from Required Reading for All Teenagers All the good things you can do – having the right attitude, having a strong belief in your abilities, making good choices and responsible decisions – all those good things will pay huge dividends. You’ll see. Your prayers will be heard. Your karma will kick in. The sacrifices you made will be repaid. And the good work will have all been worth it. – Douglas Pagels, from Required Reading for All Teenagers The more you’re bothered by something that’s wrong, the more you’re empowered to make things right. – Douglas Pagels, from Everyone Should Have a Book Like This to Get Through the Gray Days May you be blessed with all these things: A little more joy, a little less stress, a lot more understanding of your wonderfulness. Abundance in your life, blessings in your days, dreams that come true, and hopes that stay. A rainbow on the horizon, an angel by your side, and everything that could ever bring a smile to your life. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things Each day brings with it the miracle of a new beginning. Many of the moments ahead will be marvelously disguised as ordinary days, but each one of us has the chance to make something extraordinary out of them. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things Keep planting the seeds of your dreams, because if you keep believing in them, they will keep trying their best to blossom for you. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things I hope your dreams take you... to the corners of your smiles, to the highest of your hopes, to the windows of your opportunities, and to the most special places your heart has ever known. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things Love is what holds everything together. It’s the ribbon around the gift of life. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things There are times in life when just being brave is all you need to be. – Douglas Pagels, from May You Be Blessed with All These Things When it comes to anything – whether it involves people or places or jobs or hoped-for plans – you never know what the answer will be if you don’t ask. And you never know what the result will be if you don’t try. – Douglas Pagels, from Make Every Day a Positive One Don’t just have minutes in the day; have moments in time. – Douglas Pagels, from Chasing Away the Clouds A life well lived is simply a compilation of days well spent. – Douglas Pagels, from Chasing Away the Clouds

That's a rather subversive idea, isn't it? "Do you think so? I don't. If it is subversive, then everything else is too, even breathing. I feel and think as naturally and necessarily as I breathe. If men hate each other, then there is not hope. We will all be the victims of that hate. We will slaughter each other in wars we don't want and for which we're not responsible. They'll put a flag in front of us and fill ours ears with words. And why? To plant the seeds for a new war, to create more hatred, to create new flags and new words. Is that why we're here? To have children and hurl them into the fiery furnace? To build cities and then raze them to the ground? To long for peace and have war instead? "And would love solve everything," asked Able with a sad, slightly ironic smile. "I don't know. It's the only thing we haven't tried so far..." "And will we be in time?" "Possibly. If those who suffer can be convinced that it's true, then yes, we might be in time..." He paused, as if assailed by a sudden thought, "But don't forget, Abel, you must love with a love that is lucid and active! And make sure that the active side never forgets abut the lucid side and that the active side never commits the same kind of villainous deeds as those who want men to hate each other. Active, but lucid. And above all, lucid!

At the sight of Ruth, singing and crying in the moonlight, they say Jacob Wyld crouched wordlessly and planted seeds at her feet, in the earth between the roots of the gum tree. What grew from that night, where Ruth's tears fell to the earth, was a heath of wild vanilla lilies, and an equally heady love affair between Ruth and Jacob. They met at the river whenever Ruth could get away. He brought her flower seeds and she brought him whatever meager food scraps she could sneak from the house. Soon Ruth had enough seeds to till a small, shaded corner of dirt near the house, where a nearly dead, lone wattle tree stood. The dirt was so dry it took her a month to soften it with whatever water she could carry from the river. Eventually, the wattle tree exploded into flower, a winter blaze of sweet yellow. Ruth fell to her knees at the sight. The scent floated all the way into town. Bees droned around the tree, drunk on its nectar. Beneath the wattle were circles of green shoots. Ruth sketched each one in her small notebook. As they bloomed, so different to the foxgloves and snowdrops of her mother's songs, Ruth noted down what they meant to her, adapting the Victorian language of flowers. The strange and beautiful native flowers, able to flourish in the harshest conditions, enchanted Ruth; none more so than the deep scarlet flowers with red centres the color of the darkest blood. Meaning, Ruth wrote in her notebook, have courage, take heart.

The children crowded about the women in the houses. What we going to do Ma? Where we going to go? The women said, We don’t know, yet. Go out and play. But don’t go near your father. He might whale you if you go near him. And the women went on with the work, but all the time they watched the men squatting in the dust–perplexed and figuring. The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects. They crawled over the ground, laying the track and rolling on it and picking it up. Diesel tractors, puttering while they stood idle; they thundered when they moved, and then settled down to a droning roar. Snub-nosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses. The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was part of the monster, a robot in the seat. The thunder of the cylinders sounded through the country, became one with the air and the earth, so that earth and air muttered in sympathetic vibration. The driver could not control it–straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the cat’, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that sent that tractor out, had somehow got into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him–goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the power of the earth. He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did now know or own or trust or beseech the land. If a seed dropped did not germinate, it was no skin off his ass. If the young thrusting plant withered in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the tractor. He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the tractor–its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders; but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth with its blades–not plowing but surgery, pushing the cut earth to the right where the second row of disks cut it and pushed it to the left; slicing blades shining, polished by the cut earth. And behind the disks, the harrows combing with iron teeth so that the little clods broke up and the earth lay smooth. Behind the harrows, the long seeders–twelve curved iron penes erected in the foundry, orgasms set by gear, raping methodically, raping without passion. The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, and had no connection to the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not love or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

Fifty Ways to Love Your Partner 1. Love yourself first. 2. Start each day with a hug. 3. Serve breakfast in bed. 4. Say “I love you” every time you part ways. 5. Compliment freely and often. 6. Appreciate—and celebrate—your differences. 7. Live each day as if it’s your last. 8. Write unexpected love letters. 9. Plant a seed together and nurture it to maturity. 10. Go on a date once every week. 11. Send flowers for no reason. 12. Accept and love each others’ family and friends. 13. Make little signs that say “I love you” and post them all over the house. 14. Stop and smell the roses. 15. Kiss unexpectedly. 16. Seek out beautiful sunsets together. 17. Apologize sincerely. 18. Be forgiving. 19. Remember the day you fell in love—and recreate it. 20. Hold hands. 21. Say “I love you” with your eyes. 22. Let her cry in your arms. 23. Tell him you understand. 24. Drink toasts of love and commitment. 25. Do something arousing. 26. Let her give you directions when you’re lost. 27. Laugh at his jokes. 28. Appreciate her inner beauty. 29. Do the other person’s chores for a day. 30. Encourage wonderful dreams. 31. Commit a public display of affection. 32. Give loving massages with no strings attached. 33. Start a love journal and record your special moments. 34. Calm each others’ fears. 35. Walk barefoot on the beach together. 36. Ask her to marry you again. 37. Say yes. 38. Respect each other. 39. Be your partner’s biggest fan. 40. Give the love your partner wants to receive. 41. Give the love you want to receive. 42. Show interest in the other’s work. 43. Work on a project together. 44. Build a fort with blankets. 45. Swing as high as you can on a swing set by moonlight. 46. Have a picnic indoors on a rainy day. 47. Never go to bed mad. 48. Put your partner first in your prayers. 49. Kiss each other goodnight. 50. Sleep like spoons. Mark and Chrissy Donnelly

It is time for man to fix his goal. It is time for man to plant the seed of his highest hope. His soil is still rich enough for it. But that soil will one day be poor and exhausted, and no lofty tree will any longer be able to grow there. Alas! there comes the time when man will no longer launch the arrow of his longing beyond man — and the string of his bow will have unlearned to whiz! I tell you: one must still have chaos in oneself, to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: you have still chaos in yourselves. Alas! There comes the time when man will no longer give birth to any star. Alas! There comes the time of the most despicable man, who can no longer despise himself. Lo! I show you the Last Man. 'What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?' — so asks the Last Man, and blinks. The earth has become small, and on it hops the Last Man, who makes everything small. His species is ineradicable as the flea; the Last Man lives longest. 'We have discovered happiness' — say the Last Men, and they blink. They have left the regions where it is hard to live; for they need warmth. One still loves one's neighbor and rubs against him; for one needs warmth. Turning ill and being distrustful, they consider sinful: they walk warily. He is a fool who still stumbles over stones or men! A little poison now and then: that makes for pleasant dreams. And much poison at the end for a pleasant death. One still works, for work is a pastime. But one is careful lest the pastime should hurt one. One no longer becomes poor or rich; both are too burdensome. Who still wants to rule? Who still wants to obey? Both are too burdensome. No shepherd, and one herd! Everyone wants the same; everyone is the same: he who feels differently goes voluntarily into the madhouse. 'Formerly all the world was insane,' — say the subtlest of them, and they blink. They are clever and know all that has happened: so there is no end to their derision. People still quarrel, but are soon reconciled — otherwise it upsets their stomachs. They have their little pleasures for the day, and their little pleasures for the night, but they have a regard for health. 'We have discovered happiness,' — say the Last Men, and they blink.

As for the other experiences, the solitary ones, which people go through alone, in their bedrooms, in their offices, walking the fields and the streets of London, he had them; had left home, a mere boy, because of his mother; she lied; because he came down to tea for the fiftieth time with his hands unwashed; because he could see no future for a poet in Stroud; and so, making a confidant of his little sister, had gone to London leaving an absurd note behind him, such as great men have written, and the world has read later when the story of their struggles has become famous. London has swallowed up many millions of young men called Smith; thought nothing of fantastic Christian names like Septimus with which their parents have thought to distinguish them. Lodging off the Euston Road, there were experiences, again experiences, such as change a face in two years from a pink innocent oval to a face lean, contracted, hostile. But of all this what could the most observant of friends have said except what a gardener says when he opens the conservatory door in the morning and finds a new blossom on his plant: — It has flowered; flowered from vanity, ambition, idealism, passion, loneliness, courage, laziness, the usual seeds, which all muddled up (in a room off the Euston Road), made him shy, and stammering, made him anxious to improve himself, made him fall in love with Miss Isabel Pole, lecturing in the Waterloo Road upon Shakespeare. Was he not like Keats? she asked; and reflected how she might give him a taste of Antony and Cleopatra and the rest; lent him books; wrote him scraps of letters; and lit in him such a fire as burns only once in a lifetime, without heat, flickering a red gold flame infinitely ethereal and insubstantial over Miss Pole; Antony and Cleopatra; and the Waterloo Road. He thought her beautiful, believed her impeccably wise; dreamed of her, wrote poems to her, which, ignoring the subject, she corrected in red ink; he saw her, one summer evening, walking in a green dress in a square. “It has flowered,” the gardener might have said, had he opened the door; had he come in, that is to say, any night about this time, and found him writing; found him tearing up his writing; found him finishing a masterpiece at three o’clock in the morning and running out to pace the streets, and visiting churches, and fasting one day, drinking another, devouring Shakespeare, Darwin, The History of Civilisation, and Bernard Shaw.

Children’s minds are cast in much the same mold as our own. Sternness and severity of manner chill them and set them back. It shuts up their hearts, and you will weary yourself to find the door. But let them see that you have an affectionate feeling towards them and that you really desire to make them happy and do them good, so that if you punish them, they know it is intended for their well-being. As they see that you, like the pelican, would give your heart’s blood to nourish their souls, they will soon be submitted and devoted to you.[2] But they must be wooed with kindness, if their attention is ever to be won. And surely, reason itself might teach us this lesson. Children are weak and tender creatures, and they need patient and considerate treatment. We must handle them delicately, like frail machines, for fear that by rough fingering we do more harm than good. They are like young plants and need gentle watering – often, and only a little at a time. We must not expect all things at once. We must remember what children are and teach them as they are able to bear. Their minds are like a lump of metal – not to be forged and made useful all at once but only by a succession of little blows. Their understanding is like narrow-necked vessels: we must pour in the wine of knowledge gradually, or much of it will be spilled and lost. Precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little must be our rule (Isaiah 28:10). The whetstone does its work slowly, but frequent rubbing will bring the scythe to a fine edge. Truly, patience is needed in training a child, but without it, nothing can be done. Nothing will compensate for the absence of this tenderness and love. A minister may speak the truth as it is in Jesus – clearly, forcibly, and unanswerably; but if he does not speak it in love, few souls will be won. Likewise, you must set before your children their duty – command, threaten, punish, and reason – but if affection is lacking in your treatment, your labor will be all in vain. Love is one grand secret of successful training. Anger and harshness may frighten, but they will not persuade the child that you are right. If he often sees you lose your temper, you will soon cease to have his respect. A father who speaks to his son as Saul did to Jonathan when his anger was kindled against him and he called him the son of the perverse rebellious woman (1 Samuel 20:30), can’t expect to retain his influence over that son’s mind. Try hard to maintain your child’s affections. It is a dangerous thing to make your children afraid of you. Anything is almost better than reserve and insecurity between your child and you, but hesitancy will result from fear. Fear puts an end to openness; fear leads to secrecy; fear sows the seed of much hypocrisy and leads to many lies. There is a mine of truth in the apostle’s words to the Colossians: Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart (Colossians 3:21). Be sure not to overlook the advice this verse contains.

The children crowded about the women in the houses. What we going to do Ma? Where we going to go? The women said, We don’t know, yet. Go out and play. But don’t go near your father. He might whale you if you go near him. And the women went on with the work, but all the time they watched the men squatting in the dust–perplexed and figuring. ... The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects. They crawled over the ground, laying the track and rolling on it and picking it up. Diesel tractors, puttering while they stood idle; they thundered when they moved, and then settled down to a droning roar. Snub-nosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses. The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was part of the monster, a robot in the seat. The thunder of the cylinders sounded through the country, became one with the air and the earth, so that earth and air muttered in sympathetic vibration. The driver could not control it–straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the cat’, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that sent that tractor out, had somehow got into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him–goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the power of the earth. He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did now know or own or trust or beseech the land. If a seed dropped did not germinate, it was no skin off his ass. If the young thrusting plant withered in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the tractor. He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the tractor–its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders; but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth with its blades–not plowing but surgery, pushing the cut earth to the right where the second row of disks cut it and pushed it to the left; slicing blades shining, polished by the cut earth. And behind the disks, the harrows combing with iron teeth so that the little clods broke up and the earth lay smooth. Behind the harrows, the long seeders–twelve curved iron penes erected in the foundry, orgasms set by gear, raping methodically, raping without passion. The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, and had no connection to the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not love or hated, it had no prayers or curses.