"I just reviewed your Soul of the Garden website and I cannot wait for the morning to come so that I can get back out in my garden. There is so much more to do! It is amazing how your garden takes on a life of its own. It is a magical adventure, with may twists and turns along the path of creation. It is so rewarding. I thank you from the bottom of my heart... Your gardening friend,"
 

- Michelle

"In a time when so much e-media is being created and published that doesn¹t seem to count for much, it should be said at once that Soul of the Garden is a site about something - and something that matters. It has to do with nature and the meaning of friendship, love, obligation, responsibility and as Homer would say, "D¹oh!";  gardening. This may sound like an Advil commercial, but
after an hour or two of reading and viewing, my mind was at peace and all seemed right with my world. Respectfully,"

- Tom
 

"On the eve of the anniversary of 9/11 I was reading your thoughts on that, too. I'm touched by your comparison of the prayer flags and the picture flyers that were all over the city in the days that followed that horrible event. I can see that each poster was hung as a prayer that the person on it was still alive, somewhere...

I enjoy walking through your garden everyday and gathering flowers and hope and peace and wisdom."
 

- Diana

"Over the past several weeks, I have visited hundreds of sites attempting to establish reciprocal links. My site does not really belong with yours. . . but I wanted to drop a note to let you know that your site, BY FAR, is the most beautiful I have EVER seen.

I do not want a link from you, but I intend to link your page to my site. My customers deserve to experience the clarity and integrity that your site provides.

Thank you for sharing quality material. The internet is in desperate need of it. Best Regards"
 

- Teresa
 

"Thanks Mr. Spencer for your website. I usually peruse it before I pray. I find that the gorgeous photos and inspirational words put me in the quieter frame of mind as I prepare to enter into a sacred space. Keep up the good works!"

- Celina

"Thanks for a wonderful experience. Your website brings calm and peace."

- Cotton

"I have so little time to take a break from my work. It is my job as an inn owner to provide, seven days a week, a beautiful, clean, quiet, nourishing place for my guests to escape to from their busy, hectic lives.

My perfect escape, when I have a few hours to be alone, will be to spend time exploring your wonderful website. Thank you for providing this online haven for those of us who can't "get out of town" any other way."

- Alice
Royal Street Provision Country Inn

"Your writing and garden are beautiful. You seem so very happy and engaged with it. I enjoy it a lot and find it amazing that you share it so openly and freely. It almost feels like being a guest in your home
for a walk through the garden. Grateful for you and it. Blessings,"

 -Cathy

"Tom, right now your website is my homepage at work -- your lovely photos, quotes, and musings about gardening, spirituality, cats, et al, offer a much appreciated respite and renewal throughout the day. Your creativity and openness evoke such warmth that I have to remind myself that I only know you via tv and internet.

Thanks for generously sharing your talent and ideas."

 -Helen

"Dear Tom, I am a long time gardener but a new computer user. It took me several tries to get to your web site but it was worth it. It is beautiful and inspiring. My garden is a great comfort to me since my husband died last August. He was a wonderful, organic gardener who grew beautiful vegetables in a very small yard. He shared his bounty with many friends and neighbors each year and learned how to freeze his produce, make peach preserves, etc. Gardening was a joy to him and made his eight retirement years some of the best of his life. I don't grow vegetables(except for a few tomatoes) but I grow many perennials and native plants and feel close to him and to God when I am in the garden.

Thank you so much,"

-  Carol

"I have spent some time this afternoon (on break!) drifting through Soul of the Garden... what a beautiful gift for the rest of us out here! I've sent the link to several friends.... Love and Peace."

- Joy

"Dear Tom, How nice it is to see your web-site. I have enjoyed listening to you on the radio and seeing you on TV.  I have always been impressed with your knowledge, intelligence, sense of peace and obvious concern for all. I have always wanted to say hi and share my love of gardening. So here is my chance. Thank you for all you do! - you set such a good example. Much Happiness."

- Carl

"Thank you so much for the healing and peace you bring to my soul... Your ripples have spread wide in the pond today, Tom. Thanks again."

- Carol

"I'd just like to thank you for your website; I'm an artist in the Lake Tahoe basin in California, and I bumped into your site while researching "aspen grove pics" for a mural proposal. Your photos are gorgeous and I found myself paging through instead of sketching, (and here it is past 1am now!)... and then I started reading the entries... Thanks so much!"

- Sara

"I write for a newspaper in Toronto and do a lot of research on the internet, I have to say your web site is one of the most visually stunning I have seen. Your photographs and the quality displayed is incredible. "

- Kathy

"Gardening is my time to feel the earth, let my thoughts take in nature's gifts and my heart to sing the harmony of the seasons. Entering your website is like coming home to a meadow filled with light, beauty and spirit. Your words provide information, insight and most importantly, meaningful conversation on life. What a gift you have given to us. Thank you for creating such a natural, spiritual retreat. Your images are breath-taking; your thoughts real; your musings, thought-provoking and soul-searching."

- Marti

"What an absolutely beautiful website you’ve created! It will lift my spirits every day as I enter my own garden! Best wishes."

- Jeani

"I live in Brazil. Never been to Texas but have seen it on the movies. The old westerns are good. My language is Portuguese so I may commit many mistakes. I want you to know that beauty needs to be shared no matter where. I am fond of succulents and mainly your native agaves. They are superb but they are a true challenge to be cultivated where I live. It is tropical and tremendously wet. We do better with padlillies on ponds... Your garden does wonders for us. Keep on . Nice!!"
 

- Constantino

"Tom, I just found your site and lost track of time once I was there. I cannot wait till everyone's in bed tonight so I can go back and complete the tour. I will no doubt be up very late.....I have to see it all! Thanks for being so generous with your information and your talents! What a gift you have given me."

- Lynn

"Thank-you for the courage of your words and images. And as you have shared your concerns regarding recent events -- war and hurricanes -- your openness is awesome. Thank-you for that too...  While it is very difficult to find meaning in the recent events, the honesty of your questions give me great hope."

- Kati, from Ontario, Canada

" I am very grateful for your voice and I always look forward to reading your comments, whether on gardening or the state of our nation. We must continue to try to be lights in a dark and paranoid world, seeking goodness and kindness."

- Beverly

"How fortunate I feel to have stumbled upon this secret garden, and its sacred space. Thank you, for providing this resource where all may be nourished by its refreshing springs."

- Ji Hyang, www.natural-wisdom.org

"What a refreshing and beautiful site to discover! As I read the comments by others, I found myself agreeing with all. I, too, will keep visiting your pages and rediscover beauty, inspiration, comfort, and a reason to celebrate. There is much beauty around us after all.
Thank you for letting us visit it."
 

- Francesca

"Hi Tom, I came across your website while I was checking out some garden quotes. I am a garden writer also and have been gardening for six years. Healing from a childhood trauma led me to gardening and gardening has led me into many wonderful worlds. One of those wonderful worlds to add to my list is now your site. It is my favourite ever. Your photography and writing are beautiful. I love the quotes, the inspirational stories, the journalling. I'm so glad that you see and feel the same beauty that I see and feel in the garden every day of my life. I've always been a nature nut, so it's no surprise that gardening entered my life and it was at just the right time. I think that I will go to your site every day now. Thank you for sharing your passion with others. Your spirit and your soul is beautiful. Keep delighting others, you are making their lives happier. Take care and many blessings go out to you,"
 

- Carol, from Ontario, Canada

"...your pictures are wonderful, I'm a nurse and some days life is so stressful, and now I have a place to go to and just take a minute. Hooray for you!"

- Lizzie

"Your photos are awesome. I feel like I have been on a vacation after viewing your site."

- Etta

"Every time I visit your site I am motivated to go outside and improve my garden. Your photos are truly beautiful; your writing truly inspirational. Thanks for sharing with the world!"

- Omer

"Thank you for bringing the gift of your words and images into my sleepless night. It made me celebrate rather than punish my body’s inability to rest. Good night,"
 

- Deneen

"Good morning, Tom. This weekend my dad emailed your site to me, recommending it as a "source for spirituality." On Sunday I called to wish him a happy Father's Day, and he told me he had spent his day reading your site from the beginning. He is very moved by your photography.

My dad raised me along the values that align with his blue-collar liberal, Irish Catholic values. He and I engage in conversation about our faiths...where personal beliefs intersect with and where they disconnect with the Church. It touched me that on your site he found spirituality in nature, and that wanted to share this with me.

On the phone he talked about your site, and how he had read several months' worth before reading that you are an openly gay man. He understood in that instant that he had been spiritually moved by a gay man, that it was possible, and that homosexuality is not mutually exclusive to religion and God and beauty and love of life.

As a young woman who has been 'out' to her dad for a little over a year, I just want to say thank you for helping my father understand.

Kind regards,"

- Cathy, from Wisconsin

"Tom, thanks so much for your beautiful website. I've been enjoying it for a while now and just had to write to tell you so.  Your photographs are absolutely stunning and I look forward to each new one. Your gardening insights and wisdom for daily living inspire me and make me feel that there might be some hope for our world yet.

I now have your site as my homepage so I can enjoy each new photograph as it appears. I am going to recommend your site to a friend who is struggling through a very difficult time in her life--I hope it will bring her some comfort and peace and help her to keep going.

I've also been a fan of your television work for many years and have especially loved your special feature programs-- thanks for sharing your many wonderful talents with us all."

 - Sue

"I have been a follower of your gardening site for years..Your photography is fantastic,

your gardening advice/suggestions are great; but your daily muses are inspiring

and get better everyday...please never stop this site."

- Debbie in Houston

"Thankyou Tom for sharing your garden, your relections, insights, inspirations, beautiful photography all of it.

On many a day I come to your garden to find inspiration and comfort...

I do not have my own garden as I'm not well enough to take care of one but I do so enjoy the company of the trees and vegetation around me and on days when I can't get outside a visit to your garden is a precious gift.  Namaste"
 

- Shara
 

"A friend, knowing that I'm an avid gardener, sent me an email with a link to your site. I'm so grateful to know this place exists - your "real" garden as well as this virtual garden where you have woven together, photos, ancient wisdom, poetry, intelligence and much more together to create something truly magical.

Thank you for sharing your gardening knowledge as well as your wonderful vision of the world. I was delighted but not surprised to see your comments about the recent election. I too woke up the day after the election to feel a renewed faith in the good sense of my fellow countrymen.

I have only purused a small portion of this site but I will come back over and over again to sample it all; and, like one of the comments said, I can't wait to get out in my own garden!"

- Helen (Nov. 2006)

"Tom - I love your website. I especially found touching the May 2000 muse about leaving an old garden for a new. It is something I am struggling with now and brought tears to my eyes but gave me courage to go forward with our move. We are struggling with this choice and you brought some clarity to the question.

I share with you, as I know many, many others do, many of the same loves - gardens, Mexico, the Missions, etc. I feel we are common souls.

I am a politically conservative woman but we have so much in common and probably have agreement on more issues than not.

Again, thank you for all your gifts and most especially this website."

- Pat

"Dear Tom: Your website is wonderfully peaceful and calming to my soul. Thank you for sharing so much of yourself with the world."

- Linda in Texas

"Hi Tom, I'm Jim and new to Austin... ...I feel like a kid discovering the world all over again. The garden, the birds that visit, and the Hill Country that surrounds me.

Thank you so much for your 'Soul of the Garden.' Your words and
images are a delight."

- Jim

"Tom: I have thoroughly enjoyed your wonderful web site over the past several years. This is the first time I have written but your trip to Japan was the catalyst... Your writings and glorious photos have seen me through some rough times over the past two and a half years as I adjusted to retirement after working as an RN for the past 45 years. I am completely better now and did so without medication. Your site was my daily anchor and will continue to be so. If you ever have a doubt that you help unseen and unheard souls find your on-line garden, and thus find spiritual peace, please remember this letter. Bless you, Tom Spencer."

 "Granny" Beth

"Dear Tom: I really appreciate your beautiful work that has given me so much peace and happiness. You've shared the heart of my birth land to the world. For that reason, I have to thank you so much for givng a tribute to Mexico. It makes me smile when I see your work.

Take care now..."

-Rafael

"Tom,  What a fantastic site you’ve created with such amazing photographs and deep musings!
 

Alas,.. in me the seeds of faith have not found fertile ground (although most organized religions supply plenty of fertilizer!) yet as I gazed and read, I felt my soul resonate and heard the echoes of centuries past.

Perusal of your site reminds me how innately human spirituality is, and how rewarding and refreshing is the contemplation of beauty.

Thank you,"

- Jim (Cincinnati)

"Hi Tom, I absolutely fell in love with your website!

Marvelous photos, quotes and inspirations to live by. I will visit your garden a lot and come out refreshed spiritually.

Thank you!

Blessings and Peace"

 - Eleonore from Vancouver Island, Canada
 

"Dear Tom, Thank you for the lovely tour in your garden. Wish to be there.
 

All the best,"

- Anat, Israel

For technical questions or problems with these pages, please e-mail our webmaster at: webmaster@soulofthegarden.com

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