I´ve found a beautiful citation from Marija Gimbutas, one of the best researcher of Baltic History.

I´ve found a beautiful citation from Marija Gimbutas, one of the best researcher of Baltic History.

"(...) At certain moments here <in USA> I have visualized the hills and slopes shrouded with green oaks as seen from the castle hill of Gediminas in Vilnius, my native city in the heart of the Baltic lands, from which I am separated by almost twenty years. The Californian sand dunes, at Carmel, remind me of the pure white sands of Palanga, where I used to collect handfuls of amber; and the sunsets in the Pacific, of the peacefully sinking sun as it disappeared into the Baltic Sea, beyond where, to the west, my forefathers thought was the cosmic tree, the axis of the world, holding up the arch of the sky. (...)"

 "(...) The scenery in these lands is most beautiful in late spring and early summer, when the ears form on the fresh green shoots of the rye, flax blossoms in a soft blue, and the morning lark trills above field and meadow. At this season too is heard the song of the nightingale, the call of the cuckoo, and the music of many other birds and insects. Storks with their nests atop farmers’ houses are also inseparable from the landscape. In some remote villages, in the middle of the network of lakes and at the edges of large forests, far from the trade routes and towns, lived people who up to quite recently were not much concerned about the outer world. So completely absorbed were they by the life-bringing natural forces, the rotation of the year’s seasons, and by their work in the fields, that their way of life, their language, beliefs, and customs remained little changed down the ages. Seen from a distance, their low houses with thatched roofs look like mushrooms harmonizing with the landscape; but one has only to visit the homesteads themselves to see how much love and care was invested in the decoration of doors, window shutters, corner projections, porches, gables, colonnades in front of storehouses, dower chests, spindle wheels, washing-beetles, and other furnishings. Houses were surrounded by a variety of flowers and large trees, usually linden, maple, elm or oak. (...)"