Walk, it's spring
Henry David Thoreau wrote: "This phenomenon is more exhilarating to me than the luxuriance and fertility of vineyards. True, it is somewhat excrementitious in its character, and there is no end to the heaps of liver, lights, and bowels, as if the globe were turned wrong side outward; but this suggests at least that Nature has some bowels, and there again is mother of humanity. This is the frost coming out of the ground; this is Spring. It precedes the green and flowery spring, as mythology precedes regular poetry. I know of nothing more purgative of winter fumes and indigestions. It convinces me that Earth is still in her swaddling-clothes, and stretches forth baby fingers on every side. Fresh curls spring from the baldest brow. There is nothing inorganic. These foliaceous heaps lie along the bank like the slag of a furnace, showing that Nature is "in full blast" within. The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a tree." WA
I think the excerpt by Thoreau is really beautiful. It reminds me of an idea that I really hold on to and use as a coping mechanism when I'm in a bad place which is "nothing is permanent". I think that it's important to remember that nothing can last forever, and that goes for good and bad things. I find it especially comforting about the bad things though.
ReplyDeleteAs Margaret Renkl writes in her column this morning, sunlight always returns. Or always has -- and David Hume's skepticism about induction notwithstanding, that seems to me like adequate grounds for hope.
DeleteIts snowing here in the North-east today so i don't think i will be participating in the peripatetic lifestyle for a bit.
ReplyDeleteHave you never gone for a long walk in the snow? It's exhilarating!
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