Henry David Thoreau – the ponds of our lives

I’ve often thought to myself what I would ask Thoreau if given the chance to interview him?

I can almost hear us whispering under the giant oaks by my pond.  He might precede our interview with “I see you have started putting foundations under your castles”.

How could I ever, then, look him in the eye?

I feel as if I know where he collects his thoughts.    His words fill me with peace and goodness and sing to my spirit.  He knows who I am, of that I am sure.

I discovered him before returning to the woods – when I returned to “the Gospel according to this moment”.  (As Thoreau so wisely stated and dare I say, a bit sarcastically, in Walking).

And when on page 88 he described how he viewed the misted cobwebs and that the fairies must have left behind their scarves from their dancing into the wee dawn…………

I then turned to Walking again for further evidence of what else Thoreau might have seen in his lifetime.

*******

“I took a walk on Spaulding’s Farm the other afternoon. I saw the setting sun lighting up the opposite side of a stately pine-wood. Its golden rays straggled into the aisles of the wood as into some noble hall.

I was impressed as if some ancient and altogether admirable and shining family had seated there in that part of the land called Concord, unknown to me; to whom the Sun was servant; who had not gone into society in the village; who had not been called on.

I saw their park, their pleasure ground, beyond through the wood, in Spaulding’s cranberry meadow. The pines furnished them with gables as they grew. Their house was not obvious to vision; the trees grew through it.

I do not know whether I heard the sounds of a suppressed hilarity or not.

They seemed to recline on the sunbeams.

They have sons and daughters. They are quite well.

The farmer’s cart path which leads directly through their hall does not in the least put them out,—as the muddy bottom of a pool is sometimes seen through the reflected skies.

They never heard of Spaulding, and do not know that he is their neighbor,—notwithstanding that I heard him whistle as he drove his team through the house.

Nothing can equal the serenity of their lives. Their coat of arms is simply a lichen.  I saw it painted on the pines and oaks.

Their attics were in the tops of the trees.  They are of no politics. There was no noise of labor. I did not perceive that they were weaving or spinning.

Note yet I did detect, when the wind lulled and hearing was done away, the finest imaginable sweet musical hum,—as of a distant hive in May, which perchance was the sound of their thinking.

They had no idle thoughts, and no one without could see their work, for their industry was not as in knots and excrescences embayed.”

*******

Thoreau has spoken to me through many books.  For instance, The Cosmic Internet.  I read ahead to gain the author’s wisdom of discouragement.  It was described as:

‘a failure of belief, a failure of nerve and a failure of vision (wavering our aims and we fear they can’t be realized)’

Discouragement is also a failure of connection (“going it alone”) when there are many available resources”, (both divine and worldly (my note)).

So, how do we negate discouragement according to the author:

He says “you have to set in motion an automatic counter force when discouragement creeps up (or any emotion (my note)); set up an auto response so you don’t have to make an effort to combat the discouragement, since during the time of discouragement or fear – any effort will seem greater then it is worth (and will not even get started(my note)).

So our “auto response”, or may I add “counter attack”, for defeating discouragement at the moment it rises, is to use an image you can recall immediately – something attractive,

REPRESENTING SOMETHING WHERE YOUR HEART IS

I pictured dancing in a meadow and then read the book’s example.

I was not prepared for this……drum roll please…..the dedication ensues…. the exact words in the book were:

“IT COULD BE A MENTAL PICTURE OF HENRY THOREAU AT WALDEN”

WHAT, WHAT??????!!!!!!!!!!???????!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was subdued.  To think of the chain of events that had to have occurred for me to read this at this point in time and space. Was this exclusive piece written and waiting just for me?  Would I be the only one to draw out the deeper incantation it was intending?  How many times has Walden brought me ‘home’?  Every time it called to me – that’s how many.

Signs always point the way to the next.  Each woven in time and the last thread in this chain tied off at Thoreau’s heart; a universal connection.

And the book continues:

‘it could be any image of those you love, best combined somehow with an image symbolizing your continuing aspirations”

My angels tell me to not be ‘discouraged’ or afraid of what I write.  Thoreau knew of their encouragement.

My image auto response, which I still use today, is one of Thoreau sitting on the steps outside the cabin, leaning back on the door. In my image I am sitting on the tiny stoop improving my time.

Thoreau’s wisdom shines on in eternity and reigns in inspiration.

“All endeavor calls for the ability to tramp the last mile, shape the last plan, endure the last hours’ the fight to the finish.  Spirit is the one characteristic we must possess if we are to face the future as finishers”.

(my note:  this is the definition of persistence and tenacity combined – just what are we made up of?)

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth so a single thought not make a pathway in the mind.  To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again.  To make a deep mental path we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives”

(my note:  Thoreau’s rendition of manifestation)

“How many a man has dated a new era in his life from reading a book?”

(my note:  his books and all those that send me messages over time and space are like lost soul fragments that have found their way home)

No matter how many times I pick up Walden I tend to read something new even though I have read this book many times.  It is as if the nature intelligences themselves borrow the book while I sleep to transfer Thoreau’s latest thoughts and then let the fairies cleanse and dust the cover making it anew.

My dedication will persevere for Henry David Thoreau and the soul group named Wildness.

*******

”What was the meaning of that South-Sea Exploring expedition, with all its parade and expense, but an indirect recognition of the fact, that there are continents and seas in the moral world, to which every man is an isthmus or an inlet, yet unexplored by him, but that it is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one’s being alone. –“

*******

“The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels.  How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!  I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains.  I do not wish to go below now.”

*******

“He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him;  in proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex.”

*******

“Having considered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient but into a perfect work time does not enter.  As he made no compromise with Time, Time kept out of his way and only sighed at a distance because he could not overcome him.”

*******

“Say what you have to say, not what you ought.  Any truth is better than make-believe.”

*******

“It is life near the bone where it is sweetest.”

*******

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.  I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board.  I called on the king, but he made me wait in his hall.  There was a man in my neighborhood who lived in a hollow tree.  His manners were truly regal.  I should have done better had I called on him.”

*******

“We are acquainted with a mere pellicle of the globe on which we live.  We know not where we are.  Beside, we are sound asleep nearly half our time.  Yet we esteem ourselves wise, and have an established order on the surface.  Truly, we are deep thinkers, we are ambitious spirits!”

*******

“The life in us is like the water in the river.  It may rise this year higher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched uplands; even this may be the eventful year, which will drown out all our muskrats.  It was not always dry land where we dwell.  I see far inland the banks which the stream anciently washed, before science began to record its freshets.”

*******

“Such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn.

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us.  Only that day dawns to which we are awake.  There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.”