Timothy

Dear Valeria,

A psychedelic experience is a journey to new realms of consciousness. The scope and content of the experience is limitless, but its characteristic features are the transcendence of verbal concepts, of spacetime dimensions, and of the ego or identity. Such experiences of enlarged consciousness can occur in a variety of ways: sensory deprivation, yoga exercises, disciplined meditation, religious or aesthetic ecstasies, or spontaneously. Most recently they have become available to anyone through the ingestion of psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, DMT, etc. Of course, the drug does not produce the transcendent experience. It merely acts as a chemical key — it opens the mind, frees the nervous system of its ordinary patterns and structures.

Peace and love,

Timothy Leary

Boris

Dear Valeria,

I'll write your memory into an image of aching tenderness and sorrow. I'll stay here till this is done, then I too will go. This is how I will portray you, I'll trace your features on paper as the sea, after a fearful storm has churned it up, traces the form of the greatest, farthest-reaching wave on the sand. Seaweed, shells, cork, pebbles, the lightest, most imponderable things that it could lift from its bed, are cast up in a broken, sinuous line on the sand. This line endlessly stretching into the distance is the frontier of the highest tide. That was how life's storm cast you up on my shore, O my pride, that is how I'll portray you.

Best,

Boris Pasternak

Kate

Dear Valeria,

Artist, I love my lyre, and though each strain
That wakes beneath my touch may sleep again
Without evoking a responsive thrill
From other hearts, I love to sound it still.
But, were I called my treasure to resign
And choose a rarer gift, it would be thine,
The inspiration of thy magic Art;
The power to soothe and thrill the yearning heart.*



Regards,

Kate Harrington

Maya

Dear Valeria,

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon.

The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.

Yours,

Maya Angelou

Anne

Dear Valeria,

'No, thank you, I don't mind the rain,' I said. I always lacked common sense when taken by surprise.

All my best wishes,

Anne Brontë

Gracchus

Dear Valeria,

The French Revolution was nothing but a precursor of another revolution, one that will be bigger, more solemn, and which will be the last.

Peace, citizen!

François-Noël "Graccus" Babeuf

Jack

Dear Valeria,

“We are supposed to set you a good example,” said Devonet. “As a start, I will point out that a lady of refinement would not wish to be found so high in a tree.”
“Then I am a lady of refinement well and truly,” said Madouc, “since I did not wish to be found.”

Best luck,

Jack Vance

Leonora

Dear Valeria,

And then we saw the Daughter of the Minotaur.

Best regards,

Leonora Carrington

Nicolaus

Madonna Valeria,

Therefore, when I considered this carefully, the contempt which I had to fear because of the novelty and apparent absurdity of my view, nearly induced me to abandon utterly the work I had begun.

My friends, however, in spite of long delay and even resistance on my part, withheld me from this decision.

My respects,

Nicolaus Copernicus

Henrik

Dear Valeria,

I am half inclined to think we are all ghosts, Mr. Manders. It is not only what we have inherited from our fathers and mothers that exists again in us, but all sorts of old dead ideas and all kinds of old dead beliefs and things of that kind. They are not actually alive in us; but there they are dormant, all the same, and we can never be rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper and read it, I fancy I see ghosts creeping between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the world. They must be as countless as the grains of the sands, it seems to me.

yours,

Henrik Ibsen

Victor

Chère Valeria,

Ce livre, les Misérables, n'est pas moins que votre miroir que le nôtre. Certains hommes, certaines castes, se révoltent contre ce livre, je le comprends. Les miroirs, ces diseurs de vérité, sont haïs; cela ne les empêche pas d'être utiles. Quant à moi, j'ai écrit pour tous, avec un profond amour pour mon pays, mais sans me préoccuper de la France plus que d'un autre peuple. A mesure que j'avance dans la vie je me simplifie, et je deviens de plus en plus patriote de l'humanité.

A bientôt,

Victor Hugo

Émile

Valeria,

I had been told that society’s institutions were founded on justice and equality, and all around me I could see nothing but lies and treachery. (...)

Momentarily attracted by socialism, I wasted no time in distancing myself from that party. My love of liberty was too great, my regard for individual initiative too great, my repudiation for feathering one’s nest too definite for me to enlist in the numbered army of the fourth estate. Also, I saw that, essentially, socialism changes the established order not one jot. 

(...) In the merciless war that we have declared on the bourgeoisie, we ask no mercy. We mete out death and we must face it. For that reason I await your verdict with indifference. I know that mine will not be the last head you will sever (...) You will add more names to the bloody roll call of our dead.

Sincerely,

Émile Henry

Waldo

Dear Valeria,

“What's the world to the all powerful?
A circle spinning.
And to the children of the earth?
A cradle rocking.”

Yr eiddoch yn gywir,

Waldo Williams

Nathaniel

Dearest Valeria,

Side by side with the massiveness of the Roman Past, all matters that we handle or dream of nowadays look evanescent and visionary alike.
It might be that the four persons whom we are seeking to introduce were conscious of this dreamy character of the present, as compared with the square blocks of granite wherewith the Romans built their lives. Perhaps it even contributed to the fanciful merriment which was just now their mood. When we find ourselves fading into shadows and unrealities, it seems hardly worth while to be sad, but rather to laugh as gayly as we may, and ask little reason wherefore.

Warmest regards,

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Túpac

Estimada Valeria,

Querrán volarme y no podrán volarme
Querrán romperme y no podrán romperme
Querrán matarme y no podrán matarme
Al tercer día de los sufrimientos, cuando se creia todo consumado, gritando: ¡LIBERTAD! sobre la tierra, he de volver. ¡Y no podrán matarme!

Hasta la victoria,

José Gabriel Túpac Amaru

René

Dear Valeria,

and as soon as I could read and write, I was put to learn a trade, to which I soon took a dislike, owing to the reading of voyages and travels, which occupied all my leisure moments. The History of Robinson Crusoe, in particular, inflamed my young imagination : I was impatient to encounter adventures like him; nay, I already felt an ambition to signalize myself by some important discovery springing up in my heart. 

Best wishes,

René Caillié

Django

Dear Valeria,

Jazz attracted me because in it I found a formal perfection and instrumental precision that I admire in classical music, but which popular music doesn't have.

Keep playing,

Django Reinhardt

Emily

My dear Valeria,

I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine.

Love,

Emily Dickinson

Mary

Dear Valeria,

I must say that I don't appreciate your friend's kind wishes with respect to my complexion. If it had been as dark as a nigger's, I should have been just as happy and useful, and as much respected by those whose respect I value: and as to his offer of bleaching me, I should, even if it were practicable, decline it without any thanks.

Yours sincerely,

Mary Seacole

Rasipuram

Dear Valeria,

But if you could read my thoughts, you would be welcome to come in and listen to the story of my life. At least, you could slip your arm through the bars and touch me and I will hold out my forepaw to greet you, after retracting my claws, of course. You are carried away by appearances - my claws and fangs and the glowing eyes frighten you no doubt. I don't blame you. I don't know why God has chosen to give us this fierce make-up, the same God who has created the parrot, the peacock, and the deer, which inspire poets and painters. I would not blame you for keeping your distance
— I myself shuddered at my own reflection on the still surface of a pond while crouching for a drink of water

Regards,

R.K. Narayan

Amy

Dear Valeria,

When night drifts along the streets of the city,
And sifts down between the uneven roofs,
My mind begins to peek and peer.
It plays at ball in old, blue Chinese gardens,
And shakes wrought dice-cups in Pagan temples,
Amid the broken flutings of white pillars.
It dances with purple and yellow crocuses in its hair,
And its feet shine as they flutter over drenched grasses.
How light and laughing my mind is,
When all the good folk have put out their bed-room candles,
And the city is still!

All the best,

Amy Lowell

Catharine

Dear Valeria,

I believe I spoke from my Heart, when I told him I hated him; I'm sure I thought so then, when I saw him whom I believ'd to have an Esteem and Respect for me, act as if he had neither. I said the most violent things I could imagine against him, and left him without the least Reluctancy: But my Rage, or Hate, was soon converted to a Quiet Stupid Grief, that overwhelm'd my Soul, and left me not the Power of easing it the common way, in Tears or Complaints.

I remain, your friend,

Catharine Trotter Cockburn

Kaifi

Dear Valeria,

I sacrifice now, this life and body, o friends...
giving in your hands now, the country, o friends...
so many seasons are there to live, but...
doesn't come often, the season to die...
leaving behind both, the beauty and the love,
of what value is that youth, which doesn't bathe in blood...
today the earth has become my bride, o friends
I sacrifice now, this body and life, o friends...

Peace,

Kaifi Azmi

Mercedes

Valeria, sweetheart

AFTER everyone had left, 
It was always so wonderful sitting in the dark theatre with you. 
There was a mystery about it, 
As though the echo of many plays 
Still lingered in the folds of the curtain,         
While phantom figures crouched low in the chairs, 
Beating applause with vapor hands. 
Do you remember how we always sat silently? 
I would shut my eyes to feel your closeness nearer. 
Then slowly and like a ritual         
I would take your hand, 
And you would laugh a little and say, 
“My hands are awfully sticky”—or 
“I can’t seem to keep my hands clean in this theatre.” 
As if that mattered … as if that mattered …

loads of kisses,

Mercedes de Acosta

Yelena

Dear Vava,

Really, it is quite useless to go to Tibet or India to recover some knowledge or power that are hidden in any human soul; but acquisition of higher knowledge and power requires not only many years of intensive studying under the guidance of higher mind together with a resolution that cannot be shaken by any danger, and as much as years of relative solitude, in communication with disciples only which pursue the same aim, and in such a place where both the nature and the neophyte preserve a perfect and unbroken rest if not the silence! There the air is not poisoned by miasmas around a hundreds miles, and there the atmosphere and human magnetism are quite clear and there the animal’s blood is never shed.

Yours,

Yelena Petrovka Blavaskaya

James

Dear Valeria, 

The temple of the sylvan goddess, indeed, has vanished, and the King of the Wood no longer stands sentinel over the Golden Bough.

Best wishes,

James Frazer

Marlene

Darling Valeria,

Most of us city dwellers open our windows onto dreary views if we open them at all. The Romans not only open them, but every nook and cranny of their town is beautiful. What fools we are, we, who don't live there.

Mwah, mwah, darlink!

Marlene Dietrich

Mário

Querida Valeria,

Portraits on the wall 
Cannot remain abstract for long
Sometimes their eyes will gaze at you, unyielding,
Because they never become
Fully dehumanized.
Never look back, suddenly.
Don’t, don’t look now!

Forget me slowly,

Mario Quintana

Edith

Dear Valeria,

"I remember," he said in the dreamy tone always promising so well to the ear that a story delighteth—"I remember, when I was a young man, I was very lonely indeed. I never had a sweetheart. I was always lame, my dear, from quite a boy; and the girls used to laugh at me."

With warmest regards,

Edith Nesbit

George

Dear Valeria,

Formosa is an island call'd by the natives Gad-Avia, from Gad Beautiful and Avia an Isle; by the Chinese is call'd Pac-Ando, (which signifies the same) for Pac is Beautiful and Ando an Island. It is one of the most pleasant and excellent of all the Asiatick Isles, whether we consider the convenient Situation, the healthful Air, the fruitful Soil, or the curious Springs and useful Rivers, and Rich Mines of Gold and Silver wherewith it abounds; for it enjoys many advantages which other islands wants, and wants scarce of any of those which they have.

Formosa and Japan are the remotest parts towards the East which are hitherto known or discover'd, and so they are the first Countries that are visited with the Rays of the Morning Sun.

(I know you like images of exotic places. Please, have a look at my drawings of the people of Formosa)

yours sincerely,

George Psalmanazar

Mary

Dear Valeria,

Much love,

Mary Moser

Asger

Dear Valeria, 

A creative train of thought is set off by: the unexpected, the unknown, the accidental, the disorderly, the absurd, the impossible.

Best wishes,

Asger Jorn