Cultivating bonsai in ancient times was reserved for the upper classes as it represented qualities such as refinement, greatness of spirit and nobleness

“To encounter the sacred is to be alive at the deepest center of human existence. Sacred places are the truest definitions of the earth; they stand for the earth immediately and forever; they are its flags and shields. If you would know the earth for what it really is, learn it through its sacred places. At Devil’s Tower or Canyon de Chelly or the Cahokia Mounds, you touch the pulse of the living planet; you feel its breath upon you. You become one with a spirit that pervades geologic time and space.” 

― N. Scott Momaday
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/native-american-wisdom