The Inner Valley

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.” ✍ Albert Einstein ( Ulm, Kingdom of Württemberg, German Empire, 14 March 1879 ~ Princeton, New Jersey, 18 April 1955). ◙ Johan August Malmström *******

As I walked out one evening, Walking down Bristol Street, The crowds upon the pavement Were fields of harvest wheat. And down by the brimming river I heard a lover sing Under an arch of the railway: ‘Love has no ending. ‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you Till China and Africa meet, And the river jumps over the mountain And the salmon sing in the street, ‘I’ll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And the seven stars go squawking Like geese about the sky. ‘The years shall run like rabbits, For in my arms I hold The Flower of the Ages, And the first love of the world.' But all the clocks in the city Began to whirr and chime: ‘O let not Time deceive you, You cannot conquer Time. ‘In the burrows of the Nightmare Where Justice naked is, Time watches from the shadow And coughs when you would kiss. ‘In headaches and in worry Vaguely life leaks away, And Time will have his fancy To-morrow or to-day. ‘Into many a gre

"A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. For most of us that clear-eyed vision is dimmed or lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I would ask that her gift to each child be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the source of our strength." ******* ✍ Rachel Louise Carson (Springdale, Pennsylvania, U.S., 27 May 1907 ~ Silver Spring, Maryland, U.S., 14 April 1964). ◙ Viktor Mikhaylovich Vasnetsov ~ The Flying Carpet (a depiction of the hero of Russian folklore, Ivan Tsarevi c h) .

There in her old-world garden smiles    A symbol of the world’s desire,    Striving with quaint and lovely wiles    To bind to earth the soul of fire.    And while I sit and listen there,    The robe of Beauty falls away    From universal things to where    Its image dazzles for a day.    Away! the great life calls; I leave    For Beauty, Beauty’s rarest flower;    For Truth, the lips that ne’er deceive;    For Love, I leave Love’s haunted bower. ******* ✍ George William Russell (Lurgan, County Armagh, Ireland, 10 April 1867 ~ Bournemouth, England, 17 July 1935). ◙ Artwork: Edward Burne-Jones *******