"Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will precieve the divine mystery in things. Once you precieve it, you will begin to comprehend it better everyday. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love."
Dissipative Structures - Chapter 8 – excerpt from page 178Green plants play a vital role in the flow of energy through all ecological cycles. Their roots take in water and mineral salts from the earth, and the resulting juices rise up to the to the leaves, where they combine with carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air to form sugars and other organic compounds. (These include cellulose, the main structural element of cell walls.) In this marvelous process, known as photosynthesis, solar energy is converted into chemical energy and bound in the organic substances, while oxygen is released into the air to be taken up again by other plants, and by animals, in the process of respiration.
By blending water and minerals from below with sunlight and CO2 from above, green plants link the earth to the sky. We tend to believe that plants grow out of the soil, but in fact most of their substance comes from the air. The bulk of the cellulose and the other organic compounds produced through photosynthesis consists of heavy carbon and oxygen atoms, which plants take directly from the air in the form of CO2. Thus the weight of a wooden log comes almost entirely from the air. When we burn a log in a fireplace, oxygen and carbon combine once more into CO2, and in the light and heat of the fire we recover part of the solar energy that went into making the wood.
"Energy doesn't come to us so much from the things around us--although we can absorb energy directly from some plants and sacred sites. Sacred energy comes from our connection to the divine inside us."
Feelings, whether of compassion or irritation, should be welcomed, recognized, and treated on an absolutely equal basis; because both are ourselves. The tangerine I am eating is me. The mustard greens I am planting are me. I plant with all my heart and mind. I clean this teapot with the kind of attention I would have were I giving the baby Buddha or Jesus a bath. Nothing should be treated more carefully than anything else. In mindfulness, compassion, irritation, mustard green plant, and teapot are all sacred.
Contemplate the workings of this world, listen to the words of the wise, take all that is good as your own. With this as your base, open your won door to truth. Do not overlook the truth that is right before you. Study how water flows in a valley stream, smoothly and freely between the rocks. Also learn from holy books and wise people. Everything-even mountains, rivers, plants, and trees-should be your teacher.
Men are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry. Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life. The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail.
The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshall replied, 'In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon!'
Private victories precede public victories. You can't invert that process any more than you can harvest a crop before you plant it.
The avaricious man is like the barren sandy ground of the desert which sucks in all the rain and dew with greediness, but yields no fruitful herbs or plants for the benefit of others.
If you're anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line As a man of culture rare, You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms And plant them everywhere. You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases Of your complicated state of mind, The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter Of a transendental kind.
Orpheus with his lute made trees, And the mountain tops that freeze, Bow themselves, when he did sing; To his music, plants and flowers Ever sprung; as sun and showers There had made a lasting spring. Every thing that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads, and then lay by. In sweet music is such art, Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or hearing, die.
Confidence is a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom, youth is the season of credulity.
Over fertilized plants may be beautiful but are otherwise useless, like people whose energies are devoted so completely to their appearance that there is no other development.
Morning is the best of all times in the garden. The sun is not yet hot. Sweet vapors rise from the earth. Night dew clings to the soil and makes plants glisten. Birds call to one another. Bees are already at work.
God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm. Deep in unfathomable mines Of never failing skill He treasures up his bright designs, And works his sovereign will. Ye fearful saints fresh courage take, The clouds ye so much dread Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust him for his grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.
If you grow a garden you are going to shed some sweat, and you are going to spend some time bent over; you will experience some aches and pains. But it is in the willingness to accept this discomfort that we strike the most telling blow against the power plants and what they represent.
You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative; the jolliest steamroller will not plant flowers.
In the time that I have been acquainted with this region I have become increasingly aware of it as a testament of water, the origin and guide of its contours and gradients and of all the lives - the plants and small creatures, and the culture - that evolved here. That was always here to be seen, of course, and the recognition has forced itself, in one form or other, upon people in every part of the world who have been directly involved with the growing of living things. The gardener who ignores it is soon left with no garden.
Many things love to come and live off your plants, including bacteria, bugs, birds, and bunnies. If you don't control them, entire crops can be ruined. The result of your careful cultivation, in your garden and in your life, can be lost to predators in a short time. . . . Take a look at your life, what toxic relationships, substances and emotions are feeding on your energy and taking away from what you have to give to others. Eliminate them.
Follow the wisdom provided by nature. Everything in moderation - sunlight, water, nutrients. Too much of a good thing will topple your structure. You can't harvest what you don't sow. So plant your desires, gently nurture them, and they will be rewarded with abundance.
Weeds are the little vices that beset plant life, and are to be got rid of the best way we know how.
The way of cultivation is not easy. He who plants a garden plants happiness.
So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
I plant the seed, You make it grow. You send the rain, I work the hoe.
But a weed is simply a plant that wants to grow where people want something else. In blaming nature, people mistake the culprit. Weeds are people's idea, not nature's.
Sign in the "Gospel Store Window": Anything your heart desires. We only sell seeds. You have to plant the seeds. You nurture the plants. You harvest the fruit.
Don't plant seeds: it is time to harvest.
Shamrock of foliage, Shamrock of entwining, Shamrock of the prayer, Shamrock of my love. Shamrock of my sorrow, Plant of Patrick of the virtues, Shamrock of the Son of Mary, Journey's end of the peoples. Shamrock of grace, Of joy, of the tombs, It were my wish in death You should grow on my grave.
Why do plants have such a positive impact on us? There are a number of reasons, including: They have a predictable cycle of life that provides comfort in our time of rapid change. They are responsive but nonthreatening. They form no opinions or judgments about their caregivers. They soften our man-made environment. They enable us to change or improve our environment. They promote relaxation and tranquility.
