64 Quotes Tagged: trees

Here is Menard's own intimate forest: 'Now I am traversed by bridle paths, under the seal of sun and shade...I live in great density...Shelter lures me. I slump down into the thick foliage...In the forest, I am my entire self. Everything is possible in my heart just as it is in the hiding places in ravines. Thickly wooded distance separates me from moral codes and cities.

When you are in trouble or at your lowest point, and have no one in whom to confide, a hawthorn would be the right choice. There is a reason why hawthorns are home to fairies and known to protect pots of treasure. For wisdom, try a beech; for intelligence, a pine; for bravery, a rowan; for generosity, a hazel; for joy, a juniper; and for when you need to learn to let go of what you cannot control, a birch with its white-silver bark, peeling and shedding layers like old skin. Then again, if it's love you're after, or love you have lost, come to the fig, always the fig.

The tree was so old, and stood there so alone, that his childish heart had been filled with compassion; if no one else on the farm gave it a thought, he would at least do his best to, even though he suspected that his child's words and child's deeds didn't make much difference. It had stood there before he was born, and would be standing there after he was dead, but perhaps, even so, it was pleased that he stroked its bark every time he passed, and sometimes, when he was sure he wasn't observed, even pressed his cheek against it.

Voll Blüten steht der Pfirsichbaum
nicht jede wächst zur Frucht
sie schimmern hell wie Rosenschaum
durch Blau und Wolkenflucht.

Wie Blüten geh'n Gedanken auf
hundert an jedem Tag — lass' blühen, lass' dem Ding den Lauf
frag' nicht nach dem Ertrag!

Es muss auch Spiel und Unschuld sein
und Blütenüberfluss
sonst wär' die Welt uns viel zu klein
und Leben kein Genuss.

I did not want to think about people. I wanted the trees, the scents and colors, the shifting shadows of the wood, which spoke a language I understood. I wished I could simply disappear in it, live like a bird or a fox through the winter, and leave the things I had glimpsed to resolve themselves without me.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn

Do you think of them as decoration?

Think again.

Here are maples, flashing.
And here are the oaks, holding on all winter
to their dry leaves.
And here are the pines, that will never fail,
until death, the instructions to be green.

There were two forests for every one you entered. There was the one you walked in, the physical echo, and then there was the one that was connected to all the other forests, with no consideration of distance, or time.

The forest primeval, remembered through the collective memory of every tree in the same way that people remembered myth- through the collective subconscious that Jung mapped, the shared mythic resonance that lay buried in every human mind. Legend and myth, all tangled in an alphabet of trees remembered, not always with understanding, but with wonder. With awe.

Praise the rain; the seagull dive
The curl of plant, the raven talk — Praise the hurt, the house slack
The stand of trees, the dignity — Praise the dark, the moon cradle
The sky fall, the bear sleep — Praise the mist, the warrior name
The earth eclipse, the fired leap — Praise the backwards, upward sky
The baby cry, the spirit food — Praise canoe, the fish rush
The hole for frog, the upside-down — Praise the day, the cloud cup
The mind flat, forget it all — Praise crazy. Praise sad.
Praise the path on which we're led.
Praise the roads on earth and water.
Praise the eater and the eaten.
Praise beginnings; praise the end.
Praise the song and praise the singer.

Praise the rain; it brings more rain.
Praise the rain; it brings more rain.

Philemon counselled with old Baucis first;
and then discovered to the listening Gods
their hearts' desire, ‘We pray you let us have
the care of your new temple; and since we
have passed so many years in harmony,
let us depart this life together — Let
the same hour take us both — I would not see
the tomb of my dear wife; and let me not
be destined to be buried by her hands!’
At once their wishes were fulfilled. So long
as life was granted they were known to be
the temple's trusted keepers, and when age
had enervated them with many years,
as they were standing, by some chance, before
the sacred steps, and were relating all
these things as they had happened, Baucis saw
Philemon, her old husband, and he, too,
saw Baucis, as their bodies put forth leaves;
and while the tops of trees grew over them,
above their faces, — they spoke each to each;
as long as they could speak they said, ‘Farewell,
farewell, my own’ — and while they said farewell;
new leaves and branches covered both at once.

Trees were so rare in that country, and they had to make such a hard fight to grow, that we used to feel anxious about them, and visit them as if they were persons.

Trees, how many of 'em do we need to look at?

But give thanks, at least, that you still have Frost's poems; and when you feel the need of solitude, retreat to the companionship of moon, water, hills and trees. Retreat, he reminds us, should not be confused with escape. And take these poems along for good luck!

Life always bursts the boundaries of formulas. Defeat may prove to have been the only path to resurrection, despite its ugliness. I take it for granted that to create a tree I condemn a seed to rot. If the first act of resistance comes too late it is doomed to defeat. But it is, nevertheless, the awakening of resistance. Life may grow from it as from a seed.

The planting of a tree, especially one of the long-living hardwood trees, is a gift which you can make to posterity at almost no cost and with almost no trouble, and if the tree takes root it will far outlive the visible effect of any of your other actions, good or evil.