Weekend Inspiration

This is how Gregg my partner planted the turtle mosaic sculpture for this year. To give you a better understanding of how big it is the main shell measures 27 feet by 17 feet and contains over 5,000 plants.




"The mind is never right but when it is at peace with itself."
_____ Seneca

Friday's Inspiration

"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."
_____ Dalai Lama

Thursday's Inspiration

"Well-being means to be fully born, to become what one is potentially is; it means to have the full capacity for joy and sadness or, to put it differently, to awake from the half-slumber the average man lives in and to be fully awake."
_____ Erich Fromm

Wednesday's Inspiration

Part of our front garden.

"Everything we do is infused with the energy with which we do it. If we're frantic, life will be frantic. If we're peaceful, life will be peaceful. And so our goal in any situation becomes inner peace."
_____ Marianne Williamson

Tuesday's Inspiration

"Happiness is a quality of mind. It is something we possess within.....
If we do not have it within, nothing outside can give it to us."
_____ Paramananda

Monday's Message

``Believe nothing because someone else believes it. But believe only what you yourself judge to be true.``
_____ Buddha

Weekend Inspiration

"Everything you do right now ripples outward and affects everyone. Your posture can shine your heart or transmit anxiety.Your breath can radiate love or muddy the room in depression. Your glance can awaken joy. Your words can inspire freedom. Your every act can open hearts and minds.

_____ David Deida

Friday's Inspiration

Lantana blooms and seed head.

"The universe is sacred. You cannot improve it. If you try to change it, you will ruin it. If you try to hold it, you will lose it.
_____ Lao-Tzu

Thursday's Inspiration

"The soul that is attached to anything, however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of the divine."
____ St. John of the Cross

Wednesday's Inspiration

I managed to get some tatting done yesterday which was nice as I always feel better when I accomplish goals I have set for myself.
This picture will give you a better view of our backyard. I would like to extend an open invitation to all tatters to join me here for some tatting. Any takers?



"People cling to their worldly possessions and selfish passions so blindly as to sacrifice their own lives for them. They are like a child who tries to eat a little honey smeared on the edge of a knife. The amount is by no means sufficient to appease his appetite, and he runs the risk of wounding his tongue."
_____ Sutra of Forty-Two Chapters

Tatting Tuesday and Inspiration

Here is a photo update of the doily I am working on. I don't seem to have a lot of time to tat right now. With my new camera I have been taking a lot of pictures, about 400 so far, and in the evenings when I would normaly tat Gregg and I have been enjoying our back yard. I am going to try and set some time aside for tatting today and maybe take part in the tat and chat.


"The wholeness and freedom we seek is our true nature, who we really are. Whenever we start a spiritual practice, read a spiritual book, or contemplate what it means to live well, we have begun the inevitable process of opening to this truth, the truth of life itself."
_____ Jack Kornfield

Monday's Message

"The only Zen you find on tops of mountains is the Zen you bring there."
_____ Robert M. Pirsig

Weekend Inspiration

Our front garden.

"The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be."
_____ Bruce Lee

Friday's Inspiration

"To understand the immeasurable, the mind must be extraordinarily quiet, still."
_____ J. Krishnamurti

Thursday's Inspiration

"The superior person is modest in his speech but exceeds in action."

Wednesday's Inspiration

Double Mandavilla

"Where ever my travels may lead, paradise is where I am."
_____ Voltaire

Tuesday's Inspiration

This is our new hammock stand and it sure is nice to lay in it at the end of the day. The only bummer is that we cannot leave the hammock out as the birds are eating berries right now and they are leaving purple stains everywhere.

"If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having."
_____ Henry Miller

Monday's Message

One of the rocks surrounding our pond. They all have fossils in them.

"From time to time, to remind ourselves to relax and be peaceful, we may wish to set aside some time for a retreat, a day of mindfulness, when we walk slowly, smile, drink tea with a friend, and enjoy being together as if we are the happiest people on earth."
_____ Thich Nhat Hanh

Weekend Inspiration

Trunk of a Triangle Palm

"The purpose of Zen is the perfection of character."
_____ Yamada Roshi

Friday's Inspiration

"Do not conquer the world with force. For force only causes resistance. Thorns spring up when an army passes. Years of misery follow a great victory. Do only what needs to be done, without using violence."
_____ Lao-Tzu

Happy Birthday To Me

Another year older and definitely a year wiser. It has been a rough year but I survived it and am looking forward to the challenges and blessings the next year will bring. I am looking forward to being able to post better quality pictures as Gregg bought me a new camera for my birthday.

The camera is a Fujifilm S1800 and it is 12mp with 18X zoom. I am really looking forward to playing with this.

" 'Feeling good' is your way of telling yourself that your last thought was truth, that your last word was wisdom,
that your last action was love."
_____ Neale Walsch

Wednesday's Inspiration

"Truth is in things, and not in words."
_____ Herman Melville

Tuesday's Inspiration

"Do not turn away what is given you, nor reach out for what is given to others, lest you disturb your quietness."
_____ The Dhammapada

Monday's Message

This is a new plant that we have never seen before called a Persian Shield. The intensity of the purple is amazing.

"Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty."
_____ Socrates

Weekend Inspiration

A view of my front porch.

"In struggling against anguish one never produces serenity; the struggle against anguish only produces new forms of anguish."
_____ Simone Weil

Friday's Inspiration

"Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as an enlightened person. There is only enlightened activity."
______ Shunryu Suzuki

Thursday's Inspiration

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"Meditation is not an escape from life, but preparation for really being in life."
_____ Thich Nhat Hanh

Wednesday's Inspiration

"Although gold dust is precious, when it gets in your eyes, it obstructs your vision."
_____ His-Tang

Monday's Message

Orchid display at the Montreal Royal Botanical Gardens.

"To set up what you like against what you dislike, this is the disease of the mind."
_____ Seng-T'san

Weekend Inspiration

Montreal Royal Botanical Gardens

"Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit."
_____ William James

Friday's Inspiration

"He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden."
_____ Plato

Thursday's Inspiration

"The person of superior integrity does not insist upon his integrity. For this reason, he has integrity. The person of inferior integrity never loses sight of his integrity; for this reason, he lacks integrity."
_____ Lao-Tzu

Wednesday's Inspiration

Bonsai from the Royal Botanical Gardens in Montreal.

"The prayer of the monk is not perfect until he no longer recognizes himself or the fact that he is praying."
_____ Saint Anthony

Tuesday's Inspiration

"The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self."
_____ Albert Einstein

Monday's Inspiration

"Calm is the morn without a sound, calm as to suit a calmer grief, and only through a faded leaf the chestnut pattering to the ground."
_____ Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Weekend Inspiration

"In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present."
_____ Tao Te Ching

Friday's Inspiration

Every garden should have palm tree's

"At the centre of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want"
_____ Lao-Tzu

Thursday's Inspiration

This is a picture of another area of our backyard. All tatters are welcome to come and relax and enjoy the view and we can have a tatting get together. I would be happy to cook a special meal for those who come and for our chocolate fix how does a chocolate liquor Tiramisu sound.

"The sublime vision comes to the pure and simple soul in a clean and chaste body."
_____ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Time for a Change

This is how our garden used to look. It was very nice, but it was a lot of work.


This is how the garden looks now. It is still a beautiful garden but now it is a lot less work.


"Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.
_____ Alan Watts

We are Melting

I do not know about everyone else where they are living but we are in a major heatwave that is going to last for at least the 4 next days. Yesterday the temperature reached 44C or 111F. With temperatures like this I think even the concrete wants to melt.
Today's inspiration is one I strongly believe in. Hope you enjoy it also.

"Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves."
_____ Buddha

MMonday's Message

Hosta's and a Twisted Lady fern.

"We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us."
_____ Albert Einstein

Weekend Inspiration

Foxtail Ferns and Dwarf Hinoki Standard

"I do not cut up my life into days but my days into lives: each day, each hour, an entire life."
_____ Juan Ramon Jimenez

Thursday's Inspiration

"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished."
_____ Lao-Tzo

Wednesday's Inspiration

It is another growing season and this is how the planting looks at the front of the house. The neighborhood children's favorite plant is the trimmed boxwood that they have named "The Slider Tree"


"The poor long for riches, the rich long for heaven, but the wise long for a state of tranquility."
_____ Swami Rama

Tuesday's Inspiration

This bench is reserved for anyone who enjoys the daily inspirations and would like a peaceful spot to ponder them.

"Relaxation and concentration go hand in hand. But too much concentration defeats itself. If you are truly relaxed, and allow the body and the unconscious to do their share, instead of working the conscious mind overtime, concentration can become effortless effort."
_____ Joe Hyams

Monday's Message

"When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you."
_____ Lao-Tzu