MAKING ONE'S LIFE A GREAT POEM

Walt Whitman
1819 - 1892

Three days ago, most of my American compatriots celebrated the Fourth of July with cookouts, fireworks, and other festivities that have little to do with either the history of American independence or the constitutional framework within which we are supposed to govern ourselves and function as a nation.  There were others, however — myself included — who found it difficult to celebrate American ideals during a year in which the members of Congress, most of whom are beholden to the National Rife Association, have not mustered sufficient courage to ban the private sale and purchase of military-grade assault rifles; during a year in which there have already been almost 500 fatal police shootings (many race-based) in this country; during a year in which the presumptive presidential nominee of one of the two major political parties in the United States is widely considered to be a narcissist, a bigot, a xenophobe, a misogynist, a pathological liar, and a man without any visible moral foundation.

This is not the America of our constitutional ideals, and the mere act of paying attention to what is happening — a civic obligation, I would argue — is enough to leave one in a permanent state of depression.  As always, however, something comes alone to remind us of the higher ideals which, historically, have provided this country with optimism, strength, and moral courage when these attributes of character are most needed.  In this case, the redemptive tonic was provided by The Writer's Almanac, which, on the Fourth of July, published an inspirational excerpt from the preface of Walt Whitman's great poetry collection, Leaves of Grass.  No shrinking violet, Whitman tells us what we should do if we want to turn our lives into a great poem. It's good advice for any time, but it holds a special resonance for me at this juncture in my life.  May you, too, find meaning and motivation in these wise words of a true American idealist.

THIS IS WHAT YOU SHALL DO
From Preface to Leaves of Grass 

This is what you shall do:  Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

SOMETHING OF THE MARVELOUS

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

Aristotle

Those who contemplate the beauty of the Earth
find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.

Rachel Carlson

Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty.  It expands
through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language.

Aldo Leopold

I think one of the most exciting things is this feeling of mystery,
feeling of awe, the feeling of looking at a little live thing and being amazed by it
 and how it has emerged through these hundreds of years of evolution and there it is perfect and why.

Jane Goodall

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man
if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature
and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.

E.B. White

Our task must be to free ourselves . . .
by widening our circle of compassion to embrace
all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

Einstein

Happiness,
not in another place, but this place . . .
not for another hour, but this hour.

Walt Whitman

The poetry of the earth is never dead.

Keats

A SPLENDID SUNDAY WALK: RAVEN ROCK TRAIL

As you sit on the hillside, or lie prone under the trees of the forest, or sprawl wet-legged by a mountain stream, the great door, that does not look like a door, opens.

                                Stephen Graham, The Gentle Art of Tramping 


After several bruising weeks of winter weather, the temperature has risen in recent days, the ice in higher elevations has melted, and the trails of the Blue Ridge mountains are once again beckoning the winter walker.  For those of us who have suffered from a bit of "cabin fever" lately, the prospect of spending more time outdoors is a welcome relief.

Early yesterday morning, I drove up to the piedmont area of the mountains and set out on the Raven Rock Trail, an interesting circuit hike that offers moderately challenging ascents and descents, as well as magnificent views of Lake Keowee. From the moment I entered the trailhead, I became a different person — no judgments, no analysis, no anxiety, no resentment — just pure, unadulterated peace and joy.  How liberating it is to be in the woods, far from the material world and the maddening crowds!

A few photos of my walk are set forth below, along with some observations about the importance of our connections with the natural world.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Thoreau 

Keep close to Nature's heart . . . and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods.  Wash your spirit clean.

John Muir

Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books, for they speak with the voice of God.

George Washington Carver 

Until we understand what the land is, we are at odds with everything we touch.  And to come to that understanding it is necessary, even now, to leave the regions of our conquest — the cleared fields, the towns and cities, the highways — and re-enter the woods.  For only there can a man encounter the silence and the darkness of his own absence.  Only in this silence and darkness can he recover the sense of the world's longevity, of its ability to thrive without him, of his inferiority to it and his dependence on it.  Perhaps then, having heard that silence and seen that darkness, he will grow humble before the place and begin to take it in — to learn from it what it is.

Wendell Berry 

In some mysterious way woods have never seemed to me to be static things.  In physical terms, I move through them; yet in metaphysical ones, they seem to move through me.

John Fowles

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.  Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.  The winds will blow their freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.

John Muir 

The poetry of the earth is never dead.

Keats 

                                           What would the world be, once bereft
                                           Of wet and of wildness?  Let them be left,
                                           O let them be left, wildness and wet;
                                           Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

                                                         Gerard Manley Hopkins

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.

Walt Whitman

And this our life, exempt from the public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running books, sermons in stone, and good in everything.

Shakespeare

The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening.  It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.

Thoreau 

MEDITATIONS ON NATURE

If there is one thing clear about the centuries dominated by the factory and the wheel, it is that although the machine can make anything from a spoon to a landing-craft, a natural joy in earthly living is something it never has and never will be able to manufacture.

Henry Beston

Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of the fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.

Richard Feynman 

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

What would the world be, once bereft

Of wet and of wildness?  Let them be left,

O let them be left, wildness and wet;

Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.

Rachel Carson 

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.

 John Muir

Only spread a fern-frond over a man's head and worldly cares are cast out, and freedom and beauty and peace come in.

John Muir 

There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness.  This mysterious unity and integrity is wisdom, the mother of all . . . There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fountain of action and joy.  It rises up in wordless gentleness, and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being.

Thomas Merton 

Look!  Look!  Look deep into nature and you will understand everything.

Albert Einstein

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.

E.B. White 

The earth laughs in flowers.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I begin to see an object when I cease to understand it.

Henry David Thoreau

Wisdom begins in wonder.

Socrates

                                         i thank You God for this most amazing

                                         day: for the leaping greenly spirit of trees

                                         and a blue dream of sky; and for everything

                                         which is natural which is infinite which is yes

e.e. cummings

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Lao Tzu

The world will never starve for wonder, but only for want of wonder.

C.K. Chesterton

After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on—have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear—what remains?  Nature remains.

Walt Whitman

Notes on Photos:  All photos were taken in the last couple of days here in coastal South Carolina. 

NOVEMBER REFLECTIONS

Perhaps it is trite to say this, but nature is, indeed, an amazing artist!  If you have any doubt, just look at the interplay of color, form, and reflections in this little scene that I discovered near my home late one afternoon earlier in the week.  For one blissful and surreal moment, I felt that I was standing in the middle of a Monet painting.

Amazingly, this scene was found next to a well-traveled bridge on the upper headwaters of the Tred Avon River.  Cars were crossing the bridge incessantly while I stood on the riverbank, but no one seemed to notice the miracle of light that was occurring not more than fifty feet from the road.  Strange, isn't it?  The magic can be so close, yet most people are too busy to notice it.

After discovering this lovely scene by happenstance, I decided to take a more disciplined approach to my photography this week.  More specifically, I made sure that, camera in hand, I was near some body of tranquil water during the hour just after sunrise and the hour just before sunset, the two hours of day when the light is usually at its best, especially in mid-November.  A few of the photos taken this week are set forth below, paired with some relevant thoughts about the role that nature plays in the preservation of our sanity.

Some of these photos are representational, while others are abstract.  Each image, however, reflects that beauty than can be discovered on rivers, lakes, and ponds during the luminous days of autumn.  Enjoy!

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

John Muir 

I'll tell you how the sun rose a ribbon at a time.

Emily Dickinson 

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

Desiderata

Civilization has fallen out of touch with night. With lights, we drive the holiness and the beauty of night back to the forests and the seas; the little villages, the crossroads even, will have none of it.  Are modern folk, perhaps, afraid of the night?  Do they fear the vast serenity, the mystery of infinite space, the austerity of stars?

Henry Beston,
"The Outermost House" 

There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night . . .

Rachel Carson 

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Lao Tzu 

Each moment of the year has its own beauty . . . a picture which was never before and shall never be seen again.

Emerson 

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.

e.e. cummings 

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.

Walt Whitman 

We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in.  For it can be a means of assuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.

Wallace Stegner 

When despair for the world grows in me, and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be — I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.  I come into the peace of wild things . . .

Wendell Berry 

If the only prayer you said in your life was, "thank you," that would suffice.

Meister Eckhart


Peace to everyone and thank you!