The Inner Valley

“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their liv...

Turning and turning in the widening gyre    The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere    The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst    Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand.    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it    Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.    The darkness drops again; but now I know   ...

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim Because it was grassy and wanted wear, Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. ******* ✍ Robert Lee Frost (San Francisco, California, 26 March 1874 ~ Boston, Massachusetts, 29 January 1963). ◙ Ivan Shishkin 

In the spring of your eyes live the nets of the fishermen of the mad sea. In the spring of your eyes the sea keeps its promises. Here I, a heart that has dwelt among humans, cast off my clothes and the lustre of an oath: blacker in black, I am more naked. Only now disloyal am I faithful. I am you when I am I in the spring of your eyes I drift and dream of plunder. A net catches a net we part embracing. In the spring of your eyes a hanged man strangles the rope.  ******* ✍  Paul Celan (Czernovitz, Romania, November 23, 1920 ~ Paris, France, April 20, 1970). ◙ Artwork: John William Waterhouse

We live in our own world, A world that is too small For you to stoop and enter Even on hands and knees, The adult subterfuge. And though you probe and pry With analytic eye, And eavesdrop all our talk With an amused look, You cannot find the centre Where we dance, where we play, Where life is still asleep Under the closed flower, Under the smooth shell Of eggs in the cupped nest That mock the faded blue Of your remoter heaven. ✍ Ronald Stuart Thomas (Cardiff, Wales, 29 March 1913 ~ Pentrefelin, Wales, 25 September 2000). ◙ Albert Edelfelt

"Whether this moment is happy or not depends on you. It's you that makes the moment happy. It's not the moment that makes you happy. With mindfulness, concentration and insight, any moment can become a happy moment. Happiness is an art." ******* ✍ Thích Nhất Hạnh ( Thừa Thiên–Huế, Vietnam, 11 October 1926). ◙ Joos de Momper ******* 

"In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order, in all caprice a fixed law, for everything that works is grounded on its opposite." ******* ✍ Carl Gustav Jung (Kesswil, Switzerland, 26 July 1875 ~ Küsnacht, Switzerland, 6 June 1961). ◙ Hendrick van Cleve ******* "En todo caos existe un cosmos, en todo desorden hay un orden secreto, en todo lo que parece antojadizo existe una ley inalterable, porque todo lo que funciona está sustentado por su opuesto." 

About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters; how well, they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, ...

Remember always that you are just a visitor here, a traveller passing through. Your stay here is but short and the moment of your departure unknown. None can live without toil and a craft that provides your needs is a blessing indeed. But if you toil without rest, fatigue and weariness will overtake you and you will be denied the joy that comes from labour’s end. Speak quietly and kindly and be not forward with either opinions or advice. If you talk much this will make you deaf to what others say, and you should know that there are few so wise that they cannot learn from others. Be near when help is needed but far when praise and thanks are being offered. Take small account of might, wealth and fame for they soon pass and are forgotten. Instead, nurture love within you and strive to be a friend to all. Truly, compassion is a balm for many wounds. Treasure silence when you find it and while being mindful of your duties set time aside to be alone with yourself. Ca...

And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.  *** "Late Fragment is the final poem in the poet and short story writer Raymond Carver's (1938-1988) last published work, A New Path to the Waterfall , a collection that was written while he was dying of cancer. I value the Carver poem for a number of reasons. Mostly, I admire its simplicity and its poignancy. There is no measure of irony or artifice in it. There is also an underlying sense of celebration - this, in the affirmative "I did" and in the realization that when all is said and done, to call oneself beloved and to feel oneself beloved (a kind of proof) is enough." *******  Excerpt from the article How Poems Work by Aislinn Hunter.

Oh, Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the wind, Whose breath gives life to all the world. Hear me; I need your strength and wisdom. Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset. Make my hands respect the things you have made and my ears sharp to hear your voice. Make me wise so that I may understand the things you have taught my people. Help me to remain calm and strong in the face of all that comes towards me. Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock. Help me seek pure thoughts and act with the intention of helping others. Help me find compassion without empathy overwhelming me. I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy - Myself. Make me always ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes. So when life fades, as the fading sunset, my spirit may come to you without shame. ******* Sioux Chief Yellow Hawk. ◙ Frederic Edwin Church

"What is the true meditation? It is to make everything: coughing, swallowing, waving the arms, motion, stillness, words, actions, the evil and the good, prosperity and shame, gain and loss, right and wrong, into one single koan." ******* Hakuin Ekaku (1686 ~ 1769), Japanese Zen Master ◙  Pieter Brueghel the Elder

“Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.” ******* ✍ Lin Yutang (Banzai, Pinghe County, Fujian, China, 10 October 1895 ~ Hong Kong, 26 March 1976). ◙ Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin

"One who is equal to both friends and enemies, equipoised in fame and infamy, heat and cold, pleasure and pain, who is detached, equal to insult and praise, of controlled speech, satisfied in all circumstances, who has no attachment to any residence and of steady mind – that person has devotion and is very dear to Me." ******* Bhagavad Gita ~ Chapter 12 / Verse 18-19 ◙ Nicholas Roerich (Special thanks to Natalia) ******* *******

"Esa obra era un escándalo, porque la confusión y la maravilla son operaciones propias de Dios y no de los hombres."   ******* ✍ Jorge Luis Borges (Buenos Aires, 24 de Agosto de 1899 - Ginebra, 14 de Junio de 1986).  "Los dos Reyes y los dos Laberintos". ◙ Hieronymus Bosch   ******* "That work was a scandal, because confusion and marvel are the prerogatives of God, not men." *******

O Fortune, like the moon you are changeable, always waxing or waning; hateful life first oppresses and then soothes as fancy takes it; poverty and power it melts them like ice. Fate – monstrous and empty, you whirling wheel, stand malevolent, well-being is vain and always fades to nothing, shadowed and veiled you plague me too; now through trickery, I bring my bare back to your villainy. Fate, in health and in virtue, is against me, driven on and weighted down, always enslaved. So at this hour without delay pluck the vibrating string; since Fate strikes down the strong man, everyone weep with me!   ******* "O Fortuna" . Medieval Latin Goliardic poem (13th Century), part of the collection known as the Carmina Burana . ◙ Francis Danby

“A human being should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.” ******* ✍ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Frankfurt, 28 August 1749 ~ Weimar, 22 March 1832) . ◙ Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens.  *******

"Civilization is a very complex system in which we use symbols - words, numbers, figures, and concepts - to represent the real world of nature. We use money to represent wealth. We use the clock to represent time. We use yards and inches to represent space. These are very useful measures. But you can always have too much of a good thing. You can easily confuse the measurement with what you are measuring, such as confusing money with wealth. It is like confusing the menu with dinner. You can become so enchanted with the symbols that you entirely confuse them with reality. This is the disease from which almost all civilized people are suffering. We are, therefore, in the position of eating the menu instead of the dinner, of living in a world of words and symbols. This causes us to relate badly to our material surroundings." ******* Alan Watts (Chislehurst, Kent, January 6, 1915 ~ Mt. Tamalpais, California, November 16, 1973). ◙ Tanya Miller

"First of all you must use your ears to take some of the burden from your eyes. We have been using our eyes to judge the world since the time we were born. We talk to others and to ourselves mainly about what we see. A warrior is aware of that and listens to the world; he listens to the sounds of the world." I put my notes away. Don Juan laughed and said that he did not mean I should force the issue, that listening to the sounds of the world had to be done harmoniously and with great patience.  "A warrior is aware that the world will change as soon as he stops talking to himself", he said, "and he must be prepared for that monumental jolt". "What do you mean, don Juan?" "The world is such-and-such or so-and-so only because we tell ourselves that that is the way it is. If we stop telling ourselves that the world is so-and-so, the world will stop being so-and-so. At this moment I don't think you're ready for such a momentous blow...

To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet. To make all your friends feel that there is something worthwhile in them. To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true. To think only the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best. To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own. To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile. To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others. To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble. To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world, not in loud words but in great deeds. To live in faith that the w...

Island where all becomes clear. Solid ground beneath your feet. The only roads are those that offer access. Bushes bend beneath the weight of proofs. The Tree of Valid Supposition grows here with branches disentangled since time immemorial. The Tree of Understanding, dazzling straight and simple. sprouts by the spring called Now I Get It. The thicker the woods, the vaster the vista: the Valley of Obviously. If any doubts arise, the wind dispels them instantly. Echoes stir unsummoned and eagerly explain all the secrets of the worlds. On the right a cave where Meaning lies. On the left the Lake of Deep Conviction. Truth breaks from the bottom and bobs to the surface. Unshakable Confidence towers over the valley. Its peak offers an excellent view of the Essence of Things. For all its charms, the island is uninhabited, and the faint footprints scattered on its beaches turn without exception to the sea. As if all you can do here is leave and plunge, never to return, into the dept...

Since boredom advances and boredom is the root of all evil, no wonder, then, that the world goes backwards, that evil spreads. This can be traced back to the very beginning of the world. The gods were bored; therefore they created human beings. *******   ✍ Søren Aabye Kierkegaard ( Copenhagen, Denmark, 5 May 1813 ~ Copenhagen, 11 November 1855). ◙ Peter Nicolai Arbo