“Like the hummingbird sipping nectar from every flower, I fly joyfully through my days, seeing beauty in everything.” — Amethyst Wyldfyre Hummingbird on feeder photo by Mary O’Connor © 2015
only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” — Martin Luther King, Jr. * * * Peony. Photo by Mary O’Connor © 2015
In our effort to improve on nature, we are guided by a vision of paradise. Whether the result is a horticultural masterpiece or only a modest vegetable patch, it is based on the expectation of a glorious future. This hope for the future is at the heart of all gardening.” — Marina Schinz “If you … More “To create a garden is to search for a better world.
We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.” — Dale Carnegie * * * “Outside my window” photo by Mary O’Connor © 2015
because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it, because it’s only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles, wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on.” — Chuck Palahniuk * * * Funky artificial flowers, photo … More “The unreal is more powerful than the real,
Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness.” — Kurt Vonnegut “When tough times come, it is particularly important to offset them with much gentle softness. Be a pillow.” — Vera Nazarian * * * Pillows of Softness – Photos by Mary O’Connor © 2015
but to praise them.” — Francis A. Walker * * * Photo by Mary O’Connor © 2015
“That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful.” — Edgar Alan Poe “A pure heart is superlatively rare and even more attractive.” — Unknown * * * Magnolia blossom photos by Mary O’Connor © 2015
of literature and poetry, of painting and music, of religion and architecture, all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden. If you don’t want paradise, you are not human; and if you are not human, you don’t have a soul.” — Thomas More * * … More “The many great gardens of the world,
Hiding their delicate bloom in heart-shaped leaves, they lift their seemingly shy heads from the forest floor, understated harbingers of spring after winter, life after death. Some, dressed in white, speak of beauty and purity both. Others, in stains of purple, pause the viewer’s soul at the edges of mourning, whispering since the days of antiquity … More Beautiful Strength
Life Is Full of Sweet Spots 