The Tree of the Seasons

For those of you that may want to see the handout that was composed for the tree, here you go.  Enjoy these lovely quotes.

Minnesota Herb Society volunteers tend the Arboretum’s herb gardens in the summer and, in the winter, decorate one of the holiday trees that grace the Great Hall of the Oswald Visitor Center. This year we have chosen “The Seasons” as the theme for our tree. Herb Society members have created ornaments from a variety of natural materials, including leaves, branches, vines, pressed flowers, bark, seeds, and pinecones, in addition to felted and other handcrafted decorations. Each season – winter, spring, summer, and fall – is represented in a quadrant of the tree, spiraling down from the ever-present sun at the top.

Here in Minnesota we truly enjoy our “theater of seasons.” Pity the poor people living in places where it is always warm and trees don’t change color; they are deprived of the beauty and fullness of each distinct season, as well as the amazing transitions as one season yields to the next. The seasons have inspired writers, poets, and philosophers for centuries:

Each season has its own wonder, its own special place and a purpose in the pattern of creation.​​~ Cicero

Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.
Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.
Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.
Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance. 
                                                    ​~Yoko Ono

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.​ ~George Santayana

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. . . .            

​~ Ecclesiastes, 3:1

A garden did not need people in order to be alive and natural. The flowers might have died, and the last leaves might be falling, but the space was still redolent with the odors of life. It contained a thousand reassurances that no matter what one person's strife, the seasons continued their cycle.​~ Madeline Hunter

Nature bestows her own, richest gifts

And, with lavish hands, she works in shifts . . .

~ Gertrude Tooley Buckingham

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter."

~ Rachel Carson

You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because thePower of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. The Sky isround, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. Thewind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the samereligion as ours. . . . Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and alwayscome back again to where they were. The life of a human is a circle from childhood tochildhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.

​~ Black Elk

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.

                                                                  ~ Anne Bradstreet

There is no season such delight can bring,

As summer, autumn, winter, and the spring.

     ​~William Browne

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all. ​~ Stanley Horowitz

Each season is but an infinitesimal point. It no sooner comes than it is gone. It has no duration. It simply gives a tone and hue to my thought. Each annual phenomenon is reminiscence and prompting. Our thoughts and sentiments answer to the revolution of the seasons, as two cog-wheels fit into each other. We are conversant with only one point of contact at a time, from which we receive a prompting and impulse and instantly pass to a new season or point of contact. A year is made up of a certain series and number of sensations and thoughts which have their language in nature.  Now I am ice, now I am sorrel. Each experience reduces itself to a mood of the mind."

   ​~ Henry David Thoreau

The sun shines different ways in winter and summer. We shine different ways in the seasons of our lives. ​~ Terri Guillemets

Summer ends, and Autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night.  

   ​ ~ Hal Borland

The question, "Which is the happiest season of life?" was asked of an aged man. And he replied: "When spring comes, and in the soft air the buds are breaking on the trees, andthey are covered with blossoms, I think, 'How beautiful is spring.' And when summercomes and covers the trees with its heavy foliage, and singing birds are among thebranches, I think, 'How beautiful is summer.' When autumn loads them with golden fruit,and their leaves bear the gorgeous tint of frost, I think, 'How beautiful is autumn.'  Andwhen it is severe winter, and there is neither foliage nor fruit, then I look up through theleafless branches as I never could  until now, and see the stars shine in God's home.”

​~ Anonymous

She enjoys rain for its wetness, winter for its cold, summer for its heat. She loves rainbows as much for fading as for their brilliance. It is easy for her, she opens her heart and accepts everything. ​~ Morgan Llywelyn

The leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly changes from the summer cottons into its winter wools. ​~ Henry Beston

When the seasons shift, even the subtle beginning, the scent of a promised change, I feel something stir inside me. Hopefulness? Gratitude? Openness? Whatever it is, it's welcome.

 ​~ Kristin Armstrong

The seasons are what a symphony ought to be: four perfect movements in harmony with each other.​~ Arthur Rubinstein

The Minnesota Herb Society wishes you peace and the comfort of friends and family this holiday season, and health and happiness in the new year.