Angel Baby
The Last Bouquet
The Arb

  My Secret Garden 

“New seed is faithful.  Its roots deepest in the places that are most empty”

- The Faithful Gardener  by Clarissa Pincola Estes

"The spirit of a warrior is not geared to indulging and complaining, nor is it geared to winning or losing.  The spirit of a warrior is geared only to struggle, and every struggle is a warrior's last battle on earth.  Thus, the outcome matters very little to him.  In his last battle on earth, a warrior lets his spirit flow free and clear.  And as he wages his battle, knowing that his intent is impeccable, a warrior laughs and laughs."  -- Carlos Castaneda, 20th century mystic and Toltec warrior, from 'A Separate Reality" **

The section reflects our respect given to Stars & Heroes no longer in this life, whose presence on Earth has changed the world in small or big ways.  These are stories of people in our time whose efforts make a difference in the struggle for Good. 

**Overview
Carlos Castaneda was an anthropologist from UCLA who, during the course of his research, introduced the world to both the Mexican philosophy known as Toltec as well as his teacher, the Yaqui Indian shaman Don Juan.

Castaneda chronicled his experience with Don Juan through a series of books. The first, The Teachings of Don Juan: a Yaqui Way of Knowledge, was actually his UCLA master's thesis--which introduced the world to Don Juan and quickly became a best seller while starting a fascination with the world of shamanism and the Toltec warrior.

Although the veracity of some of his experiences (including the actual existence of Don Juan!) is questioned, the profile of a warrior is no less meaningful. The lessons he shares are powerful and echo many of the truths revealed in other classic philosophies discussing the art of living."

 -- Brian Johnson, CEO, Co-Founder of Zaadz

from Journey to Ixtlan:
“We hardly ever realize that we can cut anything out of our lives, anytime, in the blink of an eye.”

“Personal history must be constantly renewed by telling parents, relatives, and friends everything one does. On the other hand, for the warrior who has no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with his acts. And above all, no one pins him down with their thoughts and their expectations.”

“Death is our eternal companion. It is always to our left, an arm’s length behind us. Death is the only wise adviser that a warrior has. Whenever he feels that everything is going wrong and he’s about to be annihilated, he can turn to his death and ask if that is so. His death will tell him that he is wrong, that nothing really matters outside its touch. His death will tell him, ‘I haven’t touched you yet.’”

“Whenever a warrior decides to do something, he must go all the way, but he must take responsibility for what he does. No matter what he does, he must know first why he is doing it, and then he must proceed with his actions without having doubts or remorse about them.”

“For a warrior, to be inaccessible means that he touches the world around him sparingly. And above all, he deliberately avoids exhausting himself and others. He doesn’t use and squeeze people until they have shriveled to nothing, especially the people he loves.”

“Once a man worries, he clings to anything out of desperation; and once he clings he is bound to get exhausted or to exhaust whomever or whatever he is clinging to. A warrior-hunter, on the other hand, knows he will lure game into his traps over and over again, so he doesn’t worry.”

“A warrior-hunter deals intimately with his world, and yet he is inaccessible to that same world. He taps it lightly, stays for as long as he needs to, and then swiftly moves away, leaving hardly a mark.”

“A warrior must learn to make every act count, since he is going to be here in this world for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.”

"The hardest thing in the world is to assume the mood of a warrior. It is of no use to be sad and complain and feel justified in doing so, believing that someone is always doing something it us. Nobody is doing anything to anybody, much less to a warrior.”

“A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That’s control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That’s abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions.”

“It doesn’t matter how one was brought up. What determines the way one does anything is personal power.”

“Personal power is a feeling. Something like being lucky. Or one may call it a mood. Personal power is something that one acquires by means of a lifetime of struggle.”

"The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”

“The art of the warrior is to balance the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man.”

from Tales of Power:
“There are lots of things a warrior can do at a certain time which he couldn’t do years before. Those things themselves did not change; what changed was his idea of himself.”

“If a warrior is to succeed at anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with not stress or obsession.”

“The internal dialogue is what grounds people in the daily world. The world is such and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such and so and so. The passageway into the world of shamans opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off his internal dialogue.”

“When a warrior learns to stop the internal dialogue, everything becomes possible; the most far-fetched schemes become attainable.”

“A warrior seeks to act rather than talk.”
 

“Warriors do not win victories by beating their heads against walls, but by overtaking the walls. Warriors jump over walls; they don’t demolish them.”

“To be a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other.”

“Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.”

“The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.”

“A rule of thumb for a warrior is that he makes his decisions so carefully that nothing that may happen as a result of them can surprise him, much less drain his power.”

To read more of these and other wise writings, go to Zaadz.com and become a community member today! 

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From time to time, we will offer web-only specials and publish short stories about the Farm Dogs or the grandkids, and inspirations from life on the Farm in mid-Michigan, the American heartland.  Seasonally, we will write to help Gardeners grow beautiful Zinnias, learn how to make a stunning bouquet, or how to collect precious seed when harvest is here.  Let us know if you would like to receive them.  We have moved our web to a new server and resized all photos for faster load times.  As we approach another winter, I hope you visit us often to see our pretty pictures and read about the simple things we love most here.  Thanks for being a customer!  -Sharon Baller, President

"To see life's passages through the eyes of your heart is to know that all is happening exactly as it was meant to."  -- Flavia Weedn