Caleb unfolded the faded parchment, puzzling over the strange lines and symbols that covered it. According to rumor, this was a map to a hidden valley of wonders - a place where mountains opened like flowers and silver trees bore golden fruit.
Yet as Caleb studied the map more closely, he realized something was amiss. The lines curved in impossible ways and doubled back on themselves. Locations were marked that could not possibly exist, bearing incomprehensible names.
The more Caleb gazed at those twisting lines, the more the room itself seemed to bend and distort around him. Yet through the dizzying chaos, a feeling of calm clarity slowly emerged. For he realized that this was no ordinary map at all.
"It points only to itself," a voice said softly. Caleb turned to see Clara looking over his shoulder.
He nodded."The valleys and kingdoms marked here exist only as ideas, within the mapmaker's mind," he replied.
Clara smiled. "Some truths can only be expressed through symbols and metaphors. This map may lead nowhere in a literal sense - yet in doing so, it reveals far more than any ordinary map ever could."
Caleb looked back at the parchment, now seeing it anew. "It leads instead to insight - the realization that the most wondrous places lie not out in the world, but within ourselves."
"Just so," Clara replied. "For it is through the imagination that we glimpse the impossible made real."
Rolling up the map, Caleb said "The journey begins where no road leads - in that place inside each of us where wonders are born."
Lines twist upon themselves
Meant to confound not reveal,
Geography of the mind.
Locations marked defy
All laws of time and space,
Their names impossible sounds.
Yet through eyes made new
Impossible vistas arise,
Miracles in waiting.
For wonders lie not unfound
In distant realm unknown,
But waiting within.
The journey starts
Within that borderless land
Where mountains move.
Where silver trees flower
Heavy with golden fruit
Yet untended still.
For imagination births
What feet cannot traverse
Yet spirit soars above.
The map points only
Within, where insight dwells
Illumination's dawn.
The true journey lies
In the seeing anew
Of wonders already here.