When spring approaches, the evenings begin to get lighter and it is usually then that most people become tired of lectures. I therefore realised even at an early point in the history of the cause that the energy to get down to studying and listening to lectures that the increasingly long, dark evenings of autumn particularly animate is not to anywhere near the same extent present when spring, with its sun and light, approaches and Nature calls people out into the open. But this is a matter of course. The enervating and nerve-racking work with which most people are obliged to maintain their existence causes in the not very sunny time a quite natural slackening; only the most energetic and vital can come through unscathed. It is this slackening that is part of the reason why the daily work is felt by many as a treadmill.

When the healthy and vital person who has an occupation he normally likes gets this feeling then it is in the majority of cases a matter of lack of sun and air having reduced his energy so that work has become something of an overexertion. This lack of sun and air is in turn really the same as a "lack of horizon".

The fact is that Man, throughout his long period of evolution from animal to his present state, has lived in the open countryside. The many splendid sounds and colours have been his cosmic mother's milk through centuries of time. He has played and hunted in the "green" forests by the "blue" sea. Tear-filled eyes have beheld the "blue" sky, and "green" leaves have caressed his cheek during his wandering up through the many stages and steps. His cries of joy and of fear have vied with the sound of the breakers of the ocean and the crash of the thunder, just as he has fallen asleep millions of times to the gentle rustling of the breeze in the treetops.

Indeed, the sounds and colours of Nature are the spiritual nourishment with which Mother Earth has brought up her young son. I see lightning and thunder in his being. In his anger is the icy coldness of winter, while the lonely whisper of spring and brook have become his love song. The blue sky is often copied in his eyes, and on his cheeks the soft glow of sunset is immortalised.

But the same sounds and colours will continue their divine work of creation. They are the "word" with which God "creates the human being in his image". And from the terrestrial human being's eyes the glow of God's countenance will come to shine and sparkle and its body will become an expression for the very incarnation of love. His revelation will be summer's sunlit warmth and flower-scents, its dawn and twilight, its overwhelming lushness and glowing colours. And from all this splendour in his being only one purpose will shine: love, love and more love.

This, Nature's complete appearance in the terrestrial being, is the human being in God's image after his likeness.

But with civilisation's exclusion of the human being from his millions-of-years long co-existence with Nature and the influence of its dominant sounds and colours, the great problems - illnesses -began to get out of control. Nervousness, sadness, melancholy and depression became direct consequences of the lost horizon.

Now you must not of course think that I have anything against technical development. On the contrary, I fully appreciate that technology can be an invaluable boon to mankind where it has not, as is now the case, become physical and mental prison for them. But when it, as happens now, keeps the human being for many hours of the day imprisoned in dark premises filled with bad air and deafening noises, it is no wonder that the human being again begins to be drawn towards the glorious and beneficial sounds and fresh colours of Nature. One begins to discover that the blooming meadows and the green forests, the blue sea and the silvery lakes, the wide views and the far horizon are still a vital necessity for the evolution of the human being, even if he perhaps does not yet understand that these details are the symbol of his cosmic future.

But the facts is that more and more people turn to forests and beaches as soon as the opportunity presents itself. Great crowds of the cities' youth are on the move every summer Saturday to spend the weekend in the open air. The Nature Conservancy Board has been set up in order to preserve the countryside for the people and extend its right of access to the forests and beaches. Everyone tries as best he can to return to Nature. On foot, by bicycle, car and boat the young son of Nature tries to return to Mother Earth. He must now and then seek rest in her divine embrace in order to gather renewed energy to continue the enervating life in which the fight for daily bread, in the form of "modern civilisation", still keeps him imprisoned.

But in order that the centre can be for its guests what it is intended to be, a great deal of preparatory work must be done... (Here follows a description of work done prior to the 1938 season. -ed.)

...But even if there is a lot for us all to do, it is a supremely great pleasure to be able to render our guests and friends of the cause the greatest possible service so that everyone will not only come to feel at home in the colony but also experience being among friends through whom the proximity of the divine spirit can be felt or experienced.

But in order that this great goal can be accomplished and the divine spirit can shine over our co-existence in the colony it is necessary that every single one of the guests co-operates. This will happen only if you each decide in the holidays not at any point whatsoever to occupy yourselves with the shadow-sides of the other guests, but on the contrary see absolutely only the light sides of their behaviour. If everyone decides this, I can guarantee every one of our guests a happy holiday from which he or she can return with not only renewed joy in living, health, courage and energy to overcome their daily problems but also with inspiration and strength to continue contributing to the creation of the behaviour, morality and culture that can be the only salvation of the world.

And on this basis I bid all our guests welcome to the centre.