EDEN ON EARTH

 

CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET?

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ssshhhhh...

Come a little closer, so I may whisper in your ear...

Can you keep a secret?

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Now, how to begin. 

In a land, far far away... No, no, that's not right. Hmmm hum. 

There is a land, known to some by the name of Austria. This land holds within it a secret realm, unknown to the travellers of this world. Beyond the many obstacles, and inside this hidden valley is the region some call 'Eden on Earth.' It is a place of many waterfalls; a landscape bathed in a green so verdant it hurts your eyes to stare too long. It is a place of freely flowing schnapps, pancakes, and little villages - only a few wooden houses wide, each one overflowing with window boxes of geraniums. It is the valley of dreams - where cows roam freely with bells on. Such beauty is indescribable, one simply has to see it.

And I can tell you how to get there.

Firstly, do not heed any signs, nor advice. The way is hidden.

You must follow a great river, till you come to the land where the white flowers bloom. In the distance you will see the Blue Mountains. Pass them by. You will come to the ancient kingdom of Italy. Your journey will be rough, and there will be many dangers. Beware the sports car in red.

Follow the road back into Austria, and you will come to the Tall Trees. Four leagues or so from these trees, there is a lake, so jewel-hued that the starry dawn seems to linger in the depths.

Stop a while in this place, you are on the door-step of Eden, and you may leave all your worldly cares behind you.

Next, you must find the Narrow Path, leading through the Forest of Moss. This way can be perilous, as it is only wide enough to fit one vehicle. Stay wary.

The Narrow Path will eventually lead you over the mountains and into the Valley of Eden. Once there, you will know you have arrived, as the colours seem so much brighter, and there are many wilder-beasts scattered about the open hillsides.

In the Valley of Eden the wildflowers bloom in abundance, and the earth is shaped into folds and star-topped peaks. Stay a while, and rest your soul.

AUSTRIA

LAND OF MANY TREASURES

Pastel coloured houses all in a row.

Collections of medieval treasures: large suits of armor, a small house made of wood shavings, coral-boxes representing the nativity, and peep-show paintings of dwarves. 

Flower-pots brimming with red geraniums.

Snow covered mountains and waterfalls.

Cows roaming free with bells on, and a museum of bells - the oldest in the world.

Some of the brightest names to grace our species: Gregor Mendel, Empress Maria Theresa, Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Mozart, Erwin Schrödinger, Sigmund Freud, and Christian Doppler.

Churches of pink and white, and fiddly gold filigree.

All manner of pastries, strudels, cakes and kaiserschmarnn.

Verdant valleys cupping glacial blue lakes and edged in moss covered forest.

Peacocks on palace lawns.

Paintings of empresses, duchesses, and of Marie Antoinette.

Castle parapets.

Wild strawberries growing by the wayside.

Chocolates galore - some wrapped in a foil printed with Mozart's likeness.

Delicately painted decorative eggs. Also, delicately painted boiled eggs for breakfast.

A wealth of history! 

WATERFALL IN A MOUNTAIN

 

TRÜMMELBACH | THUNDER STREAM

Inside the dark heart of the mountain, cold and old and gleaming and indifferent to all outside moments, is a waterfall. 

The stones have known that noise, unrelenting, for millennia. Carving the noise into their being; if they spoke, it would be of thunder. Each drop of water is a millisecond, is a grain of sand on the beach, is a star in the sky. The passing water beholds me, and I am almost immortal. But to the stones, I am a slight flutter in the breeze, and no more.

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LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI

by Percy Bysshe Shelley c. 1816

“The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark - now glittering - now reflecting gloom -
Now lending splendour, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters - with a sound but half its own,
Such as a feeble brook will oft assume,
In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,
Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,
Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river,
Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.

From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne,
Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame
Of lightning through the tempest; - thou dost lie,
Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging,
Children of elder time, in whose devotion
The chainless winds still come and ever came.

A loud, lone sound no other sound can tame,
Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion.

Upon that mountain; none beholds them there

The secret Strength of things
Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome
Of Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!
And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,
If to the human mind’s imaginings
Silence and solitude were vacancy?
”