“And strange were the tales of the pond in the meadow,And eager we listened with eyes opened wideTo Those tales often told by poor Mary the widow,Who lived in a cottage the meadow beside.Play not, my dear boys, near the pond in the meadow,The mermaid is waiting to pull you beneath;Climb not for a bird’s nest, the bough it may sliver,And the mermaid will drag you to darkness and death.”

“The battlefields of life were first meadows and gardens. We made them into battlefields, and by the same power, we must release the dark spell, so they are meadows and gardens once again.”

“I've always been serious that way, trying to evolve to a more conscious state. Funny thing about that,though. You tweak yourself,looking for more love, less lust, more compassion, less jealousy. You keep tweaking, keep adjusting those knobs until you can no longer find the original settings. In some sense,the original settings are exactly what I'm looking for-a return to the easygoing guy i was before my world got complicated, the nice guy who took things as they came and laughed so hard the blues would blow away in the summer wind.”

“As you walk through forestsor the meadows of your mind,Stop and talk to those you fearGood friendships you may find”

“Far away, in the meadow, shadows flickered in the Mirror's Maze, as if parts of someone's life, yet unborn, were trapped there, waiting to be lived.”

“The final stretch of drive ended at a small cottage nestled in a grove of ancient live oaks. The weathered structure, with chipping paint and shutters that had begun to blacken at the edges, was fronted by a small stone porch framed by white columns. Over the years, one of the columns had become enshrouded in vines, which climbed toward the roof. A metal chair sat at the edge, and at one corner of the porch, adding color to the world of green, was a small pot of blooming geraniums. But their eyes were drawn inevitably to the wildflowers. Thousands of them, a meadow of fireworks stretching nearly to the steps of the cottage, a sea of red and orange and purple and blue and yellow nearly waist deep, rippling in the gentle breeze. Hundreds of butterflies flitted about the meadow, tides of moving color undulating in the sun.”

“Dread not to climb the mountain, for the higher you rise, your load will lighten; for once on top, easy be the stroll to the meadow down below”