I have a room all to myself; it is nature.
July 13, 2017 by 17 Comments
Photo: A woman swims in Walden Pond in Concord, Mass., on what would have been the 200th birthday of Henry David Thoreau, author of the book ‘Walden.’ He was born on July 12, 1817. (Brian Snyder, Reuters, wsj.com July 12, 2017)
Post Title: Henry David Thoreau
August 13 (today), 1851: I am dissolved in the haze
August 13, 2013 by 24 Comments
In the journal entries recorded in subsequent weeks and months, we meet with no passages quite so ornate or imposing as this epiphany entered on August 13, today, in 1851…
Thoreau made the following entry under the heading “Drifting”:
“Drifting in a sultry day on the sluggish waters of the pond, I almost cease to live – and begin to be. A boat-man stretched on the deck of his craft, and dallying with the noon, would be as apt an emblem of eternity for me, as the serpent with his tail in his mouth. I am never so prone to lose my identity. I am dissolved in the haze.”
~ Professor Alan D. Hodder, Thoreau’s Ecstatic Witness (p.63). From Henry David Thoreau’s journal entries on August 13, 1851.
Photograph Credit: Time. Quote Credit: Thank you Makebelieveboutique
Running. With Marc and Eddy Verbessem.
June 16, 2013 by 38 Comments
5:30 am. 59F. Birds up and singing in all their glory. It’s still. Very still.
I put on my Adidas running shorts. Rachel’s scolding from months back surfaces: “I can see your tan line. They’re too short. Those are Perv Shorts. Embarrassing. Go change.” I growl. Now, each time I put them on, I’m thinking Perv-Man. Words. Killer. What a delicate flower.
“What do you want to do for Father’s Day Dad?”
“I’d like to be left alone for the day.”
“Really?”
“Yes, if you could arrange for me to be sitting alone next to Thoreau, at Walden Pond, listening in on his thoughts, that would be a perfect Sunday.”
“Who? What?”
“Forget it Honey. Forget it.”
“Have to say Dad, you have to stop your incoherent mumbling.” [Read more…]
There is no world for the penitent and regretful…
July 15, 2012 by 21 Comments
There is a season for everything, and we do not notice a given phenomenon except at that season, if, indeed, it can be called the same phenomenon at any other season. There is a time to watch the ripples on Ripple Lake, to look for arrowheads, to study the rocks and lichens, a time to walk on sandy deserts; and the observer of nature must improve these seasons as much as the farmer his. So boys fly kites and play ball or hawkie at particular times all over the State. A wise man will know what game to play to-day, and play it. We must not be governed by rigid rules, as by the almanac, but let the season rule us. The moods and thoughts of man are revolving just as steadily and incessantly as nature’s. Nothing must be postponed. Take time by the forelock. Now or never! You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this, or the like of this. Where the good husbandman is, there is the good soil. Take any other course, and life will be a succession of regrets. Let us see vessels sailing prosperously before the wind, and not simply stranded barks. There is no world for the penitent and regretful.
~ Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862)
Thank you Rob Firchau @ The Hammock Papers for quote. Thank you madamescherzo for the Joaquim Mir (Barcelona 1873-1940) painting titled Paisatge.
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