LOVE’S GUIDE
One could see the beauty of the body
But could only feel the beauty of the soul
But what does it matter
True love is blind
Feeling is her seeing eyes
Ivan Forrester
[Inside Guianame, 4TH Edition, Spring, 2024, Guyana and Suriname, 2024; 120pp.; also www.guianame.com]
You cannot pick up a copy of the magazine Inside Guianame without being impressed that you hold in your hands a cultural treasure – a social and literary, even scientific, superstructural manifestation in art and letters of the ancient mysteries of the landmass called The Guiana Shield, known today as The Guianas.
This magazine is a printed representation of that corner of the earth on the north-eastern shoulder of South America once transmigrated by peoples who recognised no boundaries until the arrival of Europeans with a sense of territory, who introduced division into the three Guianas – British, Dutch and French. The ensuing history of conflicts and immigration had one single beauty – the creation of societies of ethnic and cultural plurality, to go along with geology, landscape, rainforests and waterways to fashion realms of unsurpassed and breathtaking magnificence.