Thoreau: Live as deliberately as Nature
I went to the shore of Prospect Lake, in Brooklyn, at the end of the afternoon yesterday. The sunlight still had the intensity of late summer, but I could smell the arrival of autumn in the fresh air. The wind rippled the water’s surface just as it goose-bumped my skin.
I had discussed Thoreau's Walden earlier with my American Philosophy students. We had shared experiences that, we thought, captured Thoreau's summons:
“Let us spend a day as deliberately as Nature...Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry—determined to make a day of it."
At the lake’s shore, I saw an elderly Bengali couple sitting very close together. She was wearing her traditional dress and head scarf — a soft and flowing forest green cloth with lemon green patterns that blended with the still verdant trees on the shore. He wore a baseball cap, a fall jacket, and “Western” shirt and pants, but Bengali leather sandals with thick wool socks.
They observed every detail around them — the oaks and weeping willows, the ducks swimming, the flock of Canadian geese lifting in flight with perfect coordination under the azure sky. At times she spoke with excitement and the tone of her voice reached higher pitches. At other moments, they kept silence. At one instant of eternal beauty, of Love as true as bedrock reality, she rested her head on his shoulder and contemplated the water as it reflected the sky.
I had discussed Thoreau's Walden earlier with my American Philosophy students. We had shared experiences that, we thought, captured Thoreau's summons:
“Let us spend a day as deliberately as Nature...Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry—determined to make a day of it."
At the lake’s shore, I saw an elderly Bengali couple sitting very close together. She was wearing her traditional dress and head scarf — a soft and flowing forest green cloth with lemon green patterns that blended with the still verdant trees on the shore. He wore a baseball cap, a fall jacket, and “Western” shirt and pants, but Bengali leather sandals with thick wool socks.
They observed every detail around them — the oaks and weeping willows, the ducks swimming, the flock of Canadian geese lifting in flight with perfect coordination under the azure sky. At times she spoke with excitement and the tone of her voice reached higher pitches. At other moments, they kept silence. At one instant of eternal beauty, of Love as true as bedrock reality, she rested her head on his shoulder and contemplated the water as it reflected the sky.
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| Experiencing a moment as deliberately as Nature |
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