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    Tag: Henry David Thoreau

    • A Bit of Thoreau and Sagan on Earth Day

      I toyed with the idea of a long blog post about Earth Day. Instead I’ll drop these two quotes. I think Thoreau and Sagan would have gotten along quite well. I’d hardly keep pace, but would love to sit in on that conversation:

      “This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way?” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      “Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” – Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

    • An Infinite Expectation of the Dawn

      In the dimmest of early morning light I watched a deer slowly work its way through the fallen branches, stones and muck out beyond the fence. White tail flickered and drew attention, just as a squirrel’s tail does, and I wondered at the similarities of these mammals who coexist in these woods. Each are seeking the same food – an abundance of acorns that relentlessly fell last fall. Each are prey for carnivores. The tail draws attention, but you could also say it distracts a carnivore long enough that perhaps the prey might get away. The deer feels my presence just as I felt hers. We coexist in these woods too, and I silently nod and leave her to her travels.

      “The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour.  Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers the rest of the day and night…. To be awake is to be alive.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      How quickly the morning progresses now. The birds erupt early, filling the woods with their chorus of song. New voices appear frequently now as the migration continues in earnest. At least the birds can travel. Were this a normal time I might be traveling now too. But then I wouldn’t be here rapt in the audience listening to the symphony. There’s a silver lining in everything, should we look for it.

      “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.  I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      In a few weeks the trees will start blooming in earnest while the perennials slowly climb from the cold earth to the sky. I welcome the time of year, even as I dread the pollen that accompanies it. Small price to pay for flowers and fresh herbs growing in the garden and the return of the bees and hummingbirds. I think about these things as I walk in the cold early spring garden. I’ll be barefoot out here then without the creeping cold that prods me back inside. Warm days and cold nights. Sap weather. I glance at the maple trees and down at the red buds they’ve shed on the yard. I ought to charge them a toll of syrup for their messy habit, but I realize the folly of me boiling sap for a few ounces of maple syrup. No, the trees remain untapped.

      I remain transfixed by the world around me, and the writing helps draw it out of me like cold sap boiled to something sweet and digestible. Well, you’ll be the judge of that. But I’m the better for the process, and for these journeys out into the awakening hour. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor… these words echo in my mind, as they have for years. And maybe my time out here in the earliest moments of the day spark something deeper inside me than I previously realized.

    • How Rarely We Mount

      “Our winged thoughts are turned to poultry.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walking

      When you dig deep into Thoreau’s work you mine these little gems. It’s his reward for sticking with him as he crams his every thought onto the page. Every great book gets richer and more meaningful when re-read a second or third time. Lately I’ve been revisiting some old classics even as the stack of new calls to me, offended at my slight. Everything has its time, I say of the stack and of myself too. Be patient, work hard, reach higher… keep flapping those wings. The pace of my progress rarely reaches the level of the grandness of my plans. We aim to soar, but sometimes we find ourselves stuck on the ground with all the other turkeys and chickens, pecking away at the ground. Do they have aspirations too?

      “We hug the earth—how rarely we mount! Methinks we might elevate ourselves a little more.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walking

      Writing every day, chipping away at it, means something to me. It’s the climb, the aspiration for higher ground, that both challenges and drives me. We all hug the earth – our daily routines and comfortable life and the assurance that this is enough. Nothing shakes up the normal like a global event, but shouldn’t we shake up our own snow globe once in a while just to see the magic that was just sitting there all along? How rarely we mount: Shouldn’t we use this tragic circumstance as a catalyst for more? Or shall we return, should this ever end, once again to poultry? Methinks we might elevate ourselves a little more.

    • Bigger Than the Current Small

      “You have treasures hidden within you—extraordinary treasures—and so do I, and so does everyone around us. And bringing those treasures to light takes work and faith and focus and courage and hours of devotion, and the clock is ticking, and the world is spinning, and we simply do not have time anymore to think so small.” – Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic

      I’m cranking away at my work, building as much momentum as I can to carry this ship as far as possible across the chasm of our current reality. The harder I work, the less I worry about pandemics and the economy and things out of my control. All we control is what we do today, how we react to the larger world swirling madly around us, and who and how we interact with others.  On the whole things are going okay at the moment.  We’ll see how the next moment goes when we get there.

      Still, there’s this underlying restlessness to get going already.  More to write than I’m writing.  I can’t travel far to see the world in its present state, but surely I can write more.  We can all create something bigger of ourselves, can’t we?  I believe it starts with thinking bigger than the current small, pushing beyond the borders around our day.  Holding yourself to a higher standard.  And so that’s where I’m focused.  I’m producing thousands of words every week in this blog, but I can do much more than this.  We all have these treasures that need to be brought to light, as Gilbert writes in her call to action.  I’m not at all unconvinced that there’s more there, my challenge is getting myself to bring it to light.

      “I wish I could show you,
      When you are lonely or in darkness,
      The Astonishing Light
      Of your own Being!”
      – Hafiz, My Brilliant Image

      I’ve been aware of the time going by, as Jackson Browne put it. And I’ve been too patient with my use of that time, certainly more than I should be.  There’s only now, so why are you waiting to use this time for anything else?  Well, because the home renovations need to get completed, and your customers need support, and your family needs your focus, and the cat just threw up on the carpet and it needs to be cleaned up, and on and on.  It’s not easy to bring your astonishing light out when you’re cleaning up cat puke.  But still, it’s there, bursting at the seams, frustrated and slowly dimming as you passed it over yesterday and maybe today and tomorrow too.  Light doesn’t need your excuses, it needs to get out and shine on the rest of the world.

      To be fair, that light in us comes out in the interactions with others, in our careers and parenting and even in those home renovations. Light has a way of shining through when you open yourself up to the world. I’m not diminishing that particular light, but you and I both know when we leave something on the table. There’s work left undone and it’s light fades with every moment. So I’m doubling down on the writing, the writing not yet seen by the world or in this blog, working to get it out. Shouldn’t we all make the most of our time?

      “In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

       

    • Simplify, Now Seems A Good Time

      “In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds.  Simplify, simplify.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      Thoreau would be shocked at the busy-ness of 2020 versus compared to the thousand-and-one items in the middle of the 19th century. The world has other plans for us every year, but especially this year. The gods (or God if you will) laugh(s) at plans we make, no matter how well-intentioned, and we all learn to adjust on the fly. That’s life in a normal year, amplified by the madness that is 2020. With apologies to all the experts on Twitter and talking heads everywhere, in this madness, I look to poetry, to stoic philosophy, and to Thoreau for a level-set. Thoreau’s advice to simplify resonates. Granted, it’s a bit late in the game for a cabin in the woods, but to step back a bit and re-assess. Simplify. Now more than ever.

      “The overwhelming reality is: we live in a world where almost everything is worthless and a very few things are exceptionally valuable. As John Maxwell has written, “You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.” – Greg McKeown, Essentialism

    • Reaching New Harbors

      “He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of the wind, and extract a motive power out of the greatest obstacles.  Most begin to veer and tack as soon as the wind changes from aft, and as within the tropics it does not blow from all points of the compass, there are some harbors which they can never reach…
      The poet is no tender slip of fairy stock, who requires peculiar institutions and edicts for his defence, but the toughest son of earth and Heaven, and by his greater strength and endurance his fainting companions will recognize God in him.  It is the worshippers of beauty, after all, who have done the real pioneer work of the world…
      To say that God has given a man many and great talents, frequently means that he has brought his heavens down within reach of his hands.”
      – Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

      I wonder at the sheer volume of words that Thoreau crams into works like A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.  This is not poetry, works like this, but Thoreau’s work is a journey of a different kind, full of observations that make your head spin in wonder if you take the time to digest his prose.  Thoreau is best read in stillness, like great poetry, when you have the time to dance with his words in your mind.  Take this analogy of poetry as sailing with the fewest points of the wind.  A great poet can work with the smallest little puff of prose and go to harbors the rest of us can’t reach:

      “I
      held my breath
      as we do
      sometimes
      to stop time
      when something wonderful
      has touched us”
      – Mary Oliver, Snow Geese

      As with watching a great sailor and learning from the way they set the sails as the read the tell tales and scan the horizon, reading great poetry instructs and inspires.  It’s pulling the heavens down within reach of our hands.  Thoreau finds his way to brilliance often in his work, he just takes a long time to get there.  Reading Thoreau requires sifting.  Reading Oliver you see that she’s already done the sifting for the reader; Whittled down to the essence, what’s left is something wonderful.

      When I write I tend towards Thoreau-level volume.  I’m working on setting the sail a bit closer to the wind.  To dance a little closer to the essential truth.  There are harbors I’d like to visit still.

    • It Has Potential

      Looking out the window on a brisk morning on Cape Cod. Streaks of dark clouds mix with blue sky. Faint orange hints at the possibilities of the sunrise. It doesn’t look like a 10 right now, but it’s not a bust either. This sunrise has potential.

      Isn’t that the feeling we look for in every morning? We woke up, hey that’s a 10 right there! Aches, pains, ailments and troubles subtract from the score. Broken promises, setbacks, slips of the tongue, angry drivers and blatant disregard for others subtract more. But right now, what might go wrong in the day doesn’t matter a lick. This day has potential.

      “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”—Henry David Thoreau

      It’s a lot easier to start with a 10 and work to keep it there than to wake up with a 4 with a pit in your stomach dreading the day, trying like mad to build something of it. Each day has potential, and so do we, if we’ll make something of the opportunity. So I weave together habits of reading and writing and a bit of movement and great coffee and try to keep the 10 going as long as possible. Sometimes just making it through the day is all you can hope for, and this isn’t a call for blind optimism. But it is a call for gratitude, for starting the day on a positive note and working to keep the streak alive instead of endlessly pushing uphill like Sisyphus.

      My coat is too thin to linger out in the wind chill so I cheat and look out the window at the brightening sky. The sun crested the hills and I walked across the crunchy, frosted lawn and down to the water. The sky is a light blue streaked in faint pink. Pretty, but not a 10. But I’m grateful for the opportunity to see it, and to reflect on the potential this day brings. No day is perfect, but every day can be great, or at least pretty good, and that adds up to a great life.

      “The key to a great life is simply having a bunch of great days. So you can think about it one day at a time.” – Peter Adeney

      “They say: “Think big! Have a compelling vision!” I say: Think small. Do something super cool by the end of the day!” – Peter Drucker

      There you go, start with a 10, do something super cool by the end of the day to keep it a 10 (or as close as you can get it) and string together as many great days as possible. Seems a worthy challenge, and the best opportunity to make something of this potential.

    • Every Morning, So Far, I’m Alive

      “Every morning I walk like this around
      the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart
      ever close, I am as good as dead

      Every morning, so far, I’m alive.  And now
      the crows break off from the rest of the darkness
      and burst up into the sky – as though

      all night they had thought of what they would like
      their lives to be, and imagined
      their strong, thick wings.”
       – Mary Oliver, Landscape

      I’m doing Mary Oliver an injustice not putting the entire poem here, for the full meaning of a poem comes from reading the entirety, but then again I’m pointing emphatically towards all of her work, imploring you to read more.  When I first read this poem, Landscape, it was a gut punch for me.  I’ve returned to it a few times and these lines still grab me, for they perfectly capture the frame of mind I’m in in my own life.  It’s not lost on me that Mary Oliver passed away in 2019, and somewhere along the way that may have been how I found and keep returning to her work.

      2019 has been a profound year of growth and change for me, from stoicism to spirituality to poetry, immersive trips to some places close to home and some bucket list travel to places further away.  There’s friction in me that the writing has revealed, whether that’s mid-life nonsense or creeping unfinished business that gnaws at me, disrupting my day-to-day thoughts.  I’ve become a better person this year, but know there’s a long way to go still.  For as much as there is to be grateful for, Memento mori whispers in the wind, and I can hear it more than ever.  Remember, we all must die…  but every morning, so far, I’m alive.  What shall you do with this gift?  More, I say to myself, and this De Mello challenge comes to mind:

      “People don’t live, most of you, you don’t live, you’re just keeping the body alive.  That’s not life.” – Anthony De Mello

      This isn’t a call to leave all that you’ve built, but instead to be fully alive and aware of the world around you.  Break off from the rest of the darkness and be fully alive.  Thoreau didn’t leave Concord, he immersed himself in the world at Walden Pond but still maintained contact with the people in his life.  But his awareness grew in the stillness.

      “Be it life or death, we crave only reality.  If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business…  Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.  I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is.  Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      So I’m doing better at this awareness thing, and this making the most of the time you have thing, and I keep flapping the wings and fly when I can.  Life isn’t just stacking one adventure upon another one, real living is immersion and awareness.  Mary Oliver joined De Mello and Thoreau on the other side of life this year, this very year that I’ve made a few leaps forward in being more alive.  Maybe adding her voice to the chorus of whispers from those who have left us was the tipping point, or maybe I was already there.  But I’m grateful for her contribution nonetheless.

    • The Fruitful Kernels of Time

      “The truly efficient laborer will not crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure, and then do but what he loved best.  He is anxious only about the fruitful kernels of time…  Some hours seem not to be occasion for any deed, but for resolves to draw breath in.  We do not directly go about the execution of the purpose that thrills us, but shut our doors behind us and ramble with prepared mind, as if the half were already done.  Our resolution is taking root or hold on the earth then, as seeds first send a shoot downward which is fed by their own albumen, ere they send one upward to the light.”  – Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

      Sometimes I’ll pick up any old Thoreau book and flip to a random page to see what he has to offer.  Thoreau offers a lot. Often he’ll casually flip a healthy dose of wisdom across time, and I’m the better for having found it. I’m in a post-vacation/pre-holidays work funk where I haven’t quite found my stride again (Some hours seem not to be occasion for any deed), and Thoreau’s analogy of the seed setting its root resonates for me. I don’t seem to have this funk with writing, but with my career it’s been a struggle. These are not days to work from home. To find your stride again you need to move, and I’ve booked meetings in faraway places to do just that.

      Writing seems immune to the funk, but the reality is that the fuel for writing is the distraction in my career. Solitude, travel, reading and long walks inspire writing but not sales. Business meetings, commuting, grinding out proposals and crafting concise emails suck the life out of writing but fill the sales pipeline and ultimately keep the lights on. Knowing this, I work to balance the two appropriately. My job isn’t going to offer immortality but it feeds the family. Allocate time accordingly, and write in the quiet corners of the day.

      “Perfect freedom is reserved for the man who lives by his own work and in that work does what he wants to do.” – R.G. Collingwood

      The reality is that most of us aren’t living in perfect freedom. We live in chains of our own creation. Does that have a negative connotation? Only if you view it that way. For me I happen to enjoy feeding the family, and the grind of the job offers its own rewards too. The writing is transformative, and I regret the years of neglect, but shake myself free of that trap when I recognize it. We’ve only today, and so I produce what I can in this moment, bit-by-bit, like the seed taking root before reaching to the light. Will it yield fruit eventually? Every seed believes so.

    • I Mourn for the Undiscovered

      Up early, reading some Robert Frost poetry I don’t remember reading before.  I’m mesmerized by a line and read on.  I get like this.

      Millions of songs on iTunes, and I’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s out there despite a lifetime focus on music.  I’ve spent huge chunks of my time exploring new music, Shazam’ing songs in loud bars and quiet coffee café and back in the day hanging out in used record stores in Harvard Square trying to find that one gem, that magical song.  And I’ve found many over the years.  Eclectic collection perhaps, but dammit, interesting.

      A bucket list of places to see, and slowly I chip away at it.  My list grows shorter, not because I don’t want to go to all the other places, but because I want to focus on the specific few.  Linger in special places, like listening to a song over and over until you really know it.  Instead of trying to chase everything in a spin of futility.  No, not that.  Give me Thoreau at Walden or Hemingway in Key West.  Or Frost in Derry.  I’ve visited each of these places and understand the power of immersion it had on them.

      I mourn for the undiscovered songs, poems, books and places.  The conversation you never had with a grandparent.  The sunrise you slept through, the lonely beach you didn’t stroll on in winter, the ridge line you didn’t cross, the Northern Lights that danced unseen, the big city that woke up without you, the swims in bracingly cold water and salt on the tongue that you’ll never taste; the places you’ll never be.

      We can’t be everywhere of course.  But I’ll do my best to be present in this moment at least.  Tomorrow will come and I hope to see it.  But don’t mourn for losing today if I should get there.