Nature Mysticism : Quotations, Links, Bibliography, Notes …

Nature Mysticism

Quotes Bibliography Links

Spirituality Walking Gardening Druids Cloud Hands Blog

Research by Michael P. Garofalo

Quotes

Nature Mysticism

"The road enters green mountains near evening's dark; Beneath the white cherry trees, a Buddhist temple Whose priest doesn't know what regret for spring's passing means- Each stroke of his bell startles more blossoms into falling." - Keijo Shurin

"Experiencing the present purely is being empty and hollow; you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall."- Annie Dillard

"When we touch this domain, we are filled with the cosmic force of life itself, we sink our roots deep into the black soil and draw power and being up into ourselves. We know the energy of the numen and are saturated with power and being. We feel grounded, centered, in touch with the ancient and eternal rhythms of life. Power and passion well up like an artesian spring and creativity dances in celebration of life."- David N. Elkins, The Sacred as Source of Personal Passion and Power

Mysticism - Quotes and Poems for Gardeners and Lovers of the Green Way

"There are sacred moments in life when we experience in rational and very direct ways that separation, the boundary between ourselvesand other people and between ourselves and Nature, is illusion. Oneness is reality. We can experience that stasis is illusory and that reality is continual flux and change on very subtle and also on gross levels of perception.- Charlene Spretnak

"And every stone and every star a tongue, And every gale of wind a curious song. The Heavens were an oracle, and spoke Divinity: the Earth did undertake The office of a priest; and I being dumb (Nothing besides was dumb) all things did come With voices and instructions..."- Thomas Traherne, Dumbness, 17th Century

"If not ignored, nature will cultivate in the gardener a sense of well-being and peace. The gardener may find deeper meaning in life by paying attention to the parables of the garden. Nature teaches quiet lessons to the gardener who chooses to live within the paradigm of the garden." - Norman H. Hansen, The Worth of Gardening

"These blessed mountains are so compactly filled with God's beauty,no petty personal hope or experience has room to be . . . . the wholebody seems to feel beauty when exposed to it as it feels the campfireor sunshine, entering not by the eyes alone, but equally through allone's flesh like radiant heat, making a passionate ecstatic pleasure glow not explainable. One's body then seems homogeneousthroughout, sound as a crystal."- John Muir

Quotes and Poems for Gardeners and Lovers of the Green Way

"A monk asked Zhaozhou, "What is the living meaning of Zen?." Zhaozhou said, "The oak tree in the courtyard."- Case 37 from the Mumonkan (Wumenguan) Collection of Zen Koans The Oak Tree in the Courtyard

"Beyond its practical aspects, gardening - be it of the soil or soul - can lead us on a philosophical and spiritual exploration that is nothing less than a journey into the depths of our own sacredness and the sacredness of all beings. After all, there must be something more mystical beyond the garden gate, something that satisfies the soul's attraction to beauty, peace, solace, and celebration." - Christopher and Tricia McDowell, The Sanctuary Garden, 1998, p.13 Cortesia Sanctuary and Center

"When I would re-create myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most interminable and to the citizen, most dismal, swamp. I enter as a sacred place, a Sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength, the marrow, of Nature."- Henry David Thoreau, Walking, 1851

Religion - Quotes and Poems for Gardeners and Lovers of the Green Way

"We invent nothing, truly. We borrow and re-create. We uncoverand discover. All has been given, as the mystics say. We haveonly to open our eyes and hearts, to become one with that which is." - Henry Miller

"For the Eastern mystic, all things and events perceived by the senses are interrelated, connected and are but different aspects or manifestations of the same ultimate reality. Our tendency to divide the perceived world into individual and separate things and to experience ourselves as isolated egos in this world is seen as an illusion which comes from our measuring and categorizing mentally. It is called avidya, or ignorance, in Buddhist philosophy and is seen as the sate of a disturbed mind which has to be overcome: 'When the mind is disturbed, the multiplicity of things is produced, but when the mind is quieted, the multiplicity of things disappears.' Although the various schools of Eastern mysticism differ in many details, they all emphasize the basic unity of the universe which is the central feature of their teachings. The highest aim for their followers - whether they are Hindus, Buddhists or Taoists - is to become aware of the unity and mutual interdependence of all things, to transcend the notion of an isolated individual self and to identify themselves with the ultimate reality. The emergence of this awareness - known as 'enlightenment'- is not only an intellectual act but is an experience which involves the whole person and is religious in its ultimate nature. For this reason, most Easter philosophies are essentially religious philosophies."

- Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, 25th Anniversary Edition, p. 24

"God does not die on that day when we cease to believe in a personaldeity, but we die when our lives cease to be illuminated by the steadyradiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyondall reasoning.... When the sense of the earth unites with the senseof one's body, one becomes earth of the earth, a plant among plants,an animal born from the soil and fertilizing it. In this union, the bodyis confirmed in its pantheism." - Dag Hammarskjold (1905-1961)

Spirituality - Quotes and Poems for Gardeners and Lovers of the Green Way

"Of course the Dharma-body of the Buddha was the hedge at the bottom of the garden. At the same time, and no less obviously, it was these flowers, it was anything that I - or rather the blessed Not-I - cared to look at." - Aldous Huxley

"We will endeavour to shew how the aire and genious of Gardens operat upon humane spirits towards virtue and sancitie, I meane in a remote, preparatory and instrumentall working. How Caves, Grotts, Mounts, and irregular ornaments of Gardens do contribute to contemplative and philosophicall Enthusiasms; how Elysium, Antrum, Nemus, Paradysus, Hortus, Lucus, &c., signifie all of them rem sacram et divinam; for these expedients do influence the soule and spirits of man, and prepare them for converse with good Angells; besides which, they contribute to the lesse abstracted pleasures, phylosophy naturall and longevitie."- John Evelyn in a letter to Sir Thomas Browne, 1657

"Sure as the most certain sure .... plumb in the uprights, well entreated, braced in the beams, Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical, I and this mystery we stand.

Clear and sweet is my soul .... and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul,

Lack one lacks both .... and the unseen is proved by the seen Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.

To elaborate is no avail .... Learned and unlearned feel that it is so."- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855, Line 40-

"Flower in the crannied wall I pluck you out of the crannies I hold you here, root and all, in my hand. Little flower, but if I could understand, What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is."- Alred Tennyson, Flower in the Crannied Wall

"What I know in my bones is that I forgot to take time to remember what I know. The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy. Dailyprayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, thewhisperings of grasses, the shimmering of leaves.- Terry Tempest Williams

Trees - Quotes and Poems for Gardeners and Lovers of the Green Way

"The Tao exists in the crickets ... in the grasses ... in tiles and bricks ... and in shit and piss."- Chuang-tzu, The Roaring Stream: A New Zen Reader, p. 117

"In the assemblies of the enlightened ones there have been many cases of mastering the Way bringing forth the heart of plants and trees; this is what awakening the mind for enlightenment is like. The fifth patriarch of Zen was once a pine-planting wayfarer; Rinzai worked on planting cedars and pines on Mount Obaku. ... Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment."- Dogen Zenji, Japanese Zen Buddhist Grand Master, Awakening the Unsurpassed Mind, #31

"A callused palm and dirty fingernails precede a Green Thumb. Complexity is closer to the Truth. Sitting in a garden and doing nothing is high art everywhere. Does a plum tree with no fruit have Buddha Nature? Whack!! The only Zen you'll find flowering in the garden is the Zen you bring there each day. Dearly respect the lifestyle of worms. All enlightened beings are enchanted by water. Becoming invisible to oneself is one pure act of gardening. Priapus, lively and naughty, aroused and outlandish, is the Duende de el Jardin.Inside the gardener is the spirit of the garden outside. Gardening is a kind of deadheading - keeping us from going to seed. The joyful gardener is evidence of an incarnation. One purpose of a garden is to stop time. Leafing is the practice of seeds. Good weather all the week, but come the weekend the weather stinks. Springtime for birth, Summertime for growth; and all Seasons for dying. Ripening grapes in the summer sun - reason enough to plod ahead. Springtime flows in our veins. Beauty is the Mistress, the gardener Her salve. A soul is colored Spring green. When the Divine knocks, don't send a prophet to the door. Winter does not turn into Summer; ash does not turn into firewood - on thechopping block of time. Fresh fruit from the tree - sweet summertime! Gardens are demanding pets. Shade was the first shelter. One spring and one summer to know life's hope; one autumn and one winter to know life's fate. Somehow, someway, everything gets eaten up, someday. Relax and be still around the bees. Paradise and shade are close relatives on a summer day. Absolutes squirm beneath realities. The spiders, grasshoppers, mantis, and moth larva are all back: the summer crowd has returned! To garden is to open your heart to the sky."- Michael P. Garofalo, Pulling Onions

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Nature Mysticism : Quotations, Links, Bibliography, Notes ...