Gardening is a labour full of tranquility and satisfaction; natural and instructive, and as such contributes to the most serious contemplation, experience, health and longevity.
Interpretation
Gardening offers a peaceful and fulfilling experience that benefits both the mind and body.
This quote by John Evelyn highlights the profound impact that gardening can have on individuals. It emphasizes that gardening is not just a simple task, but an enriching activity that promotes tranquility, satisfaction, and contributes to overall well-being. Engaging with nature through gardening fosters deep contemplation and can lead to improved health and longevity, making it an essential practice for a fulfilling life.
In practice
A speaker at a community gardening event could use this quote to emphasize the benefits of gardening.
The Hellish and dismal cloud of...Coal...perpetually imminent over (London) ...that her inhabitants breathe nothing but impure and thick mist...corrupting the lungs and disordering the entire habit of their bodies; so the Catarrhs,...Cough, and Consumption, range more in this one City, than in the whole Earth besides.
On the mainland, a rain was falling. The famous Seattle rain. The thin, gray rain that toadstools love. The persistent rain that knows every hidden entrance into collar and shopping bag. The quiet rain that can rust a tin roof without the tin roof making a sound in protest. The shamanic rain that feeds the imagination. The rain that seems actually a secret language, whispering, like the ecstasy of primitives, of the essence of things.
The trash and litter of nature disappears into the ground with the passing of each year, but man's litter has more permanence.
If I'm not on tour or in the studio, I'm in nature somewhere, usually some kind of ocean. Playing music has afforded me that. It's not lost on me that it's a tremendous opportunity to be able to spend your life being surrounded by nature.
The soil of their native land is dear to all the hearts of mankind.
It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day; the sky was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tendered kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet.
Water is the best of all things.
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