Tag Archives: Textures

388. The greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses. ~Hanna Rion

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How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers?
~Andrew Marvell

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Then the heart, the poor jaded heart, that must etherize itself to endure the grimness of city life at all how subtly it begins throbbing again in unison with the great symphony of the natural. The awakened heart can sense in spring in the air when there is no visible suggestion in calendar or frosted earth, and knowing the songful secret, the can cause the feet to dance through a day that would only mean winter to an urbanite.

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The sense of taste can only be restored by a constant diet of unwilted vegetables and freshly picked fruit.

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The delicacy of touch comes back gradually by tending injured birdlings, by the handling of fragile plants, and by the acquaintance with different leaf textures, which finally makes one able to distinguish a plant, even in the dark, by its Irish tweed, silken or fur finish.

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And the foot, how tangibly it becomes sensitized; how instinctively it avoids a plant even when the eye is busy elsewhere. On the darkest night I can traverse the rocky ravine, the thickets, the sinuous paths through overgrown patches, and never stumble, scratch myself or crush a leaf. My foot knows every unevenness of each individual bit of garden, and adjusts itself lovingly without the conscious thought of brain.

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To the ears that have learned to catch the first tentative lute of a marsh frog in spring, orchestras are no longer necessary. To the eyes that have regained their sight, no wonder lies in the craftsmanship of a tiny leaf form of an inconsequential weed, than is to be found in a bombastic arras. To the resuscitated nose is revealed the illimitable secrets of earth and incense, the whole gamut of flower perfume, and other fragrant odors too intangible to be classed, odors which wing the spirit to realms our bodies are as yet too clumsy to inhabit.

~Excerpted paragraphs from Let’s Make a Flower Garden
by Hanna Rion (1912)

For hardship does not spring from the soil, nor does trouble sprout from the ground. ~Job 5:6 ✝

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace! Like Saint Hildegard Lord, may I too be a feather on your holy breath and spread, like seeds, the gospel abroad.

** Images via Pinterest

211. I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order. ~John Burroughs

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Experience has taught me this,
that we undo ourselves by impatience.
Misfortunes have their life and their limits,
their sickness and their health.
~Michel de Montaigne, an influential writer of the French Renaissance

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Since I began gardening each season of the year has sent my senses reeling.  Seasonal beginnings bewitch me beyond measure with their new colors, their new shapes, and their new textures.  And in the maelstrom of those first sensory delights before any sort of rhythmic repetitiveness sets in, there is something soothing and therapeutic for  the healing of spiritual or physical wounds.  It’s as if there’s an ointment or a medicinal elixir in the uptake of each particular season’s magic and mystery that boosts endorphins and spurs on the healing process.  Or maybe the analgesic lies simply in the process of moving from one season to the next, each one proclaiming that everything is limited, even the worst of things, and that eventually everything passes into something new and fresh.

He changes times and seasons; He deposes kings and raises up others.  He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.  ~Daniel 2:21  ✝

196. There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice. ~John Calvin

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The moment one gives close attention to anything,
even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome,
indescribably magnificent world in itself.
~Henry Miller

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Against the backdrop of “red leaf and the gold” ornamental grasses shift and sigh in autumn’s chilling winds, and as they do, they add to the landscape an ethereal element with their airy flower panicles, fluffy seed plumes, and striking seed heads.  Even after the initial onslaughts of freezing temperatures, grasses continue to grace the landscape with “fringe accents” by adding subtle colors, assorted textures, and the dimensions of motion and sound.  Throughout winter’s “vale of grief,” undaunted by the cold, they capture and play with whatever light is available, and in their animated swayings they speak of life and give us something “that glimmers in the sleep of things.”  And best of all, the lack of heaviness in their lyrical swishing motions along with their visible seed formations remind us that what’s happening is not an end but instead merely the onset of another beginning.

When He(G0d) thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth.  He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from His storehouses.  ~Jeremiah 10:13  ✝

11. The moment one gives close attention to anything,
even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome,
indescribably magnificent world in itself. ~Henry Miller

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Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life,
its strength; and so man is rooted to the land
from which he draws his faith together with his life.
~Joseph Conrad

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Against the backdrop of autumn’s falling leaves ornamental grasses shift and sigh adding an ethereal element to the landscape.  With airy flower panicles, fluffy seed plumes, and striking seed heads ornamental grasses provide charming “fringe accents” in yards and gardens. Even after the onslaughts of freezing temperatures, grasses continue to grace the landscape with beauty.  They add subtle colors, assorted textures, and the dimensions of motion and sound.  Throughout winter’s “vale of grief,” they capture and play with whatever light is available and in so doing speak of life and give us something “that glimmers in the sleep of things.” The “music” of their swishing and swaying reminds us that what’s happening isn’t an ending but merely a transition for the next beginning.

In a poetic conversation with the Lord, Edna St. Vincent Millay said, “God, I can push the grass apart and lay my finger on Thy heart.”  A Quaker and itinerant preacher named Elias Hicks wrote that “the fullness of the godhead dwelt in every blade of grass.”  And Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish writer, asked, “To us also, through every star, through every blade of grass, is not God made visible if we will open our minds and our eyes.”  These writers, like me, realize that man was meant to be “rooted to the land and therefore to God.”  But, the “umbilical cord” that connects all humanity to Creation and God seems, for many, to have been severed.

The Lord, however, refuses to remain separated or removed from that which He has made.  In an effort to reconnect people to the land and to provide healthier food, many neighborhoods are finding places to build community gardens.  More and more people are getting involved in caring for the land in these communal plots.  Also many schools across the nation are incorporating habitat gardens into the learning experiences of their students, and we are seeing a rise in “hobby farms” where retired professionals have started a second career as a hobby farmer or others who are still working are spending their spare time on their own small farm.

You care for the land and water it; You enrich it abundantly.  The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so You have ordained it.   You drench its furrows and level its ridges; You soften it with showers and bless its crops. You crown the year with Your bounty, and Your carts overflow with abundance.  The grasslands of the wilderness overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness.  The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing.  ~Psalm 65:9-13   ✝