I do not understand how anyone can live
without one small place of enchantment to turn to.
- Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Inventories from children's hiding places and from
religious holy places bear remarkable similarity.

- Lynda Sexson

There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.

- Elizabeth Lawrence

Deep within each one of us lies a garden.

- Julie Moir Messervy

Pray for a good harvest, but keep on plowing.

- Nancy Otto

Before enlightenment,
I chopped wood and carried water.
After enlightenment,
I chopped wood and carried water.

- Zen saying

The man who removes a mountain begins by

carrying away small stones.

- William Faulkner

Memory is a child walking along the seashore.

You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up

and store away among its treasured things.

- Pierce Harris

When a man plants a tree,

he plants himself.

- John Muir

God wants nothing from you but the gift

of a peaceful heart.

- Meister Eckhart

Grant me the ability to be alone,
May it be my custom to go outdoors each day
among the trees and grasses
among all growing things
and there may I be alone,
and enter into prayer
to talk with the one
that I belong to.

- Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav

There is no greater difference between men

than between grateful and ungrateful people.

- R. H. Blyth

If the only prayer you ever say

in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.

-Meister Eckhart

At every instant and from every side, resounds the call of Love:
We are going to sky, who wants to come with us?

- Rumi

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly,

our whole life would change.

- Buddha

No one with an unbiased mind

can study any living creature, however humble,

without being struck with enthusiasm

at its marvellous structure and properties.

- Darwin

The beautiful landscape as we know

belongs to those who are like it.

- Muso Soseki, Zen poet

Life to us is a symbol to be lived.

-  Lame Deer

Whatever the state of being

that a man may focus upon

at the end, when he leaves his body,

to that state of being he will go.

- Bhagavad Gita,

translated by Stephen Mitchell

One can make a day of any size
and regulate the rising and setting of his own sun
and the brightness of its shining.

- John Muir

We are a landscape of all we have seen.

- Isamu Noguchi, sculptor and designer of gardens

The ultimate Consciousness
is always present everywhere.
It is beyond space and time,
with not before or after.
It is undeniable and obvious.
So what can be said about it?

-Abhinavagupta

The incarnate Word is with us,
is still speaking, is present
always, yet leaves no sign
but everything that is.

Riverbanks lined with

green willows, fragrant grasses:

A place not sacred?

Where?

- Zen saying

To what

Shall I compare the world?

It is like the wake

Vanishing behind a boat

that has rowed away at dawn.

- Sami Manzei,

translated by Edward Cranston

The disciples said to him,

"When will the kingdom come?"

Jesus said, "It will not come if you look for it.

Nor can you say, 'It is here" or 'It is there.'

For the kingdom of the Father

is already spread out over the earth,

but people don't see it."

- from the Gospel of Thomas,

translated by Stephen Mitchell

Autumn's no season for defiance.

- Michael Pollan

Every single thing

Changes and is changing

Always in this world.

Yet with the same light

The moon goes on shining.

- Saigyo

Moon-gazing:
Looking at it, it clouds over;
Not looking, it becomes clear.
- Chora

- Farewell to Shen Yuen, by Fan Yun

translated by Kenneth Rexroth

A road might end at a single house,

but it's not love's road.

Love is a river.

Drink from it.

- Rumi

translated by Coleman Barks

Perhaps you have noticed that even

in the very lightest breeze

you can hear the voice of the cottonwood tree;

this we understand is its prayer to the Great Spirit,

for not only men, but all things and all beings

pray to Him continually in differing ways.

- Black Elk

Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak

to the listening heaven.

- Rabindranath Tagore

Your garden will reveal yourself.
- Henry Mitchell