The valley spirit never dies;
It is the woman, primal mother.
Her gateway is the root of heaven and Earth.
It is like a veil barely seen.
Use it; it will never fail.
-Translation by Gia Fu Feng and Jane English
This one is short and sweet, and mostly metaphor. I don’t really have a lot to say about it at the moment.
From what I understand, valleys in Chinese culture are considered nourishing places; nourishing like a mother. The valley spirit is the Tao, from whose “gateway”, or womb, all things spring.
The Tao hangs over everything like a veil so thin it can barely be seen. Something you might just ignore if you don’t stop and look carefully.
One makes use of the Tao, not by trying to control it, but by going along with it, just as a ship’s captain makes use of the wind by unfurling the sails and letting the wind carry it forward.
Under the Spell of Words 