The Inner Valley

your life is your life don't let it be clubbed into dank submission. be on the watch. there are ways out. there is a light somewhere. it may not be much light but it beats the darkness. be on the watch. the gods will offer you chances. know them. take them. you can't beat death but you can beat death in life, sometimes. and the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. your life is your life. know it while you have it. you are marvelous the gods wait to delight in you.  ******* ✍  Charles Bukowski (born Heinrich Karl Bukowski; Andernach, Germany, August 16, 1920 – San Pedro, California, U.S., March 9, 1994). ◙ John George Brown *******  El Corazón que Ríe  tu vida es tu vida no dejes que sea apaleada hasta una lúgubre sumisión. estate alerta. hay salidas. hay una luz en alguna parte. puede que no sea mucha luz pero golpea a la oscuridad. estate alerta. los dioses te van a ofrece

  A Sufi from Bokhara attracted large concourses of people, and his house was always full of disciples and pilgrims. Distressed by this activity and movement, one devout student left the city almost as soon as he had entered it in search of the sage, and made his way to the hut of a more solitary contemplative in Eastern Turkestan. When the two had sat in silent contemplation for a time, the mystic raised his head, having read his visitor's mind, and said: 'When you judge by externals, by appearances only, you will gain only superficialities. You disliked the outward appearance of the Sage of Bokhara, and therefore could not reach his inner aspect.' 'On the Final Day, if you are to be judged in similar fashion - on your outward form, why not prepare your own outwardness? You are soberly dressed; bedeck yourself with beads. Your robe is plain - make it an object of remark. Decorate and display yourself. Then you might at least be credited with being consistent.'

How elegant is the morning sun Shining on the rafters and eaves. How cool are the terrace and pond after the rain. I burn incense to break the deep silence, Drink the spring water and relax in joy. When mind is at ease and spirit is at peace, Understanding is gained. There is nothing left to comprehend. Who can say that the Way is far from us? How tranquil it is, like the Beginning of Heaven and Earth. ******* ✍  Ni Tsan (Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China,  1301-1374). ◙ Johan Hendrik Weissenbruch

The darkness brings no quiet here, the light No waking: ever on my blinded brain The flare of lights, the rush, and cry, and strain, The engines' scream, the hiss and thunder smite: I see the hurrying crowds, the clasp, the flight, Faces that touch, eyes that are dim with pain: I see the hoarse wheels turn, and the great train Move labouring out into the bourneless night. So many souls within its dim recesses, So many bright, so many mournful eyes: Mine eyes that watch grow fixed with dreams and guesses; What threads of life, what hidden histories, What sweet or passionate dreams and dark distresses, What unknown thoughts, what various agonies! ******* ✍ Archibald Lampman (Morpeth, Ontario, Canada, 17 November 1861 ~ Ottawa, Ontario, 10 February 1899). ◙ Paul Delvaux ******* *******

Let the rain kiss you Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops Let the rain sing you a lullaby The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk The rain makes running pools in the gutter The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night And I love the rain.  ✍ James Mercer Langston Hughes (Joplin, Missouri [U.S.], 1 February 1902 ~ New York City, 22 May 1967). ◙ Hermína Laukotová *******

"We need more understanding of human nature, because the only real danger that exists is man himself. He is the great danger. And we are pitifully unaware of it. We know nothing of man … far too little. His psyche should be studied — because we are the origin of all coming evil." ******* ✍ Carl Gustav Jung (Kesswil, Switzerland, 26 July 1875 ~ Küsnacht, Switzerland, 6 June 1961). ◙ Tiziano Vecellio ******* "Necesitamos una mayor comprensión de la naturaleza humana, porque el único peligro real que existe es el hombre mismo. Él es el gran peligro. Y lamentablemente no somos conscientes de ésto. No sabemos nada del ser humano.. demasiado poco. Su psiquis debe ser estudiada, porque nosotros somos el origen de todo mal que pueda venir." *******

"For as long as I can remember I have suffered from a deep feeling of anxiety which I have tried to express in my art. Without anxiety and illness I should have been like a ship without a rudder." ******* ✍ ◙ Edvard Munch (Ådalsbruk, Løten, Norway, 12 December 1863 ~ Oslo, Norway, 23 January 1944). *******   "Hasta donde puedo recordar, he sufrido siempre de una profunda sensación de ansiedad que he tratado de expresar a través de mi arte. Sin ansiedad y padecimiento hubiese sido como un barco sin timón." *******

Leave the familiar for a while. Let your senses and bodies stretch out Like a welcomed season Onto the meadows and shores and hills. Open up to the Roof. Make a new water-mark on your excitement And love. Like a blooming night flower, Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness And giving Upon our intimate assembly. Change rooms in your mind for a day. All the hemispheres in existence Lie beside an equator In your heart. Greet Yourself In your thousand other forms As you mount the hidden tide and travel Back home. All the hemispheres in heaven Are sitting around a fire Chatting While stitching themselves together Into the Great Circle inside of You. ******* ✍ Hafiz (Shiraz, Persia, approx. 1320/1325 ~ Shiraz, approx. 1388/1389) ◙ Alois Schönn

“Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum… Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it. I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream." ******* ✍ Vincent van Gogh (Zundert, Netherlands, 30 March 1853 ~ Auvers-sur-Oise, France, 29 July 1890). Letter to Theo van Gogh {Etten. on or about Friday, 23 December 1881}. ******* “Aunque a menudo me encuentro sumergido en las profundidades de la miseria, aún existe sosiego, pura armonía y música dentro mío. Veo pinturas o  dibujos en las cabañas más humildes, en las esquinas más mugrientas. Y mi mente es impelida hacia estas cosas con un impulso irresistible... La poesía nos rodea en todas partes, pero llevarla al papel es, ah... no tan fácil como mirarl

“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    That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,    Slouches towards

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) ******* *******