Tag Archives: thoreau

happiness

Give all to love

One of my favourite poems – maybe my absolute favourite one – is Give All To Love by Emerson. As with Thoreau, I first discovered my love for him as a young adult in university English class. Actually, I not only discovered Thoreau and Emerson, but I discovered transcendentalism and with that a kind of “home” that I have danced in and out of over the years. In reality, I didn’t discover transcendentalism so much as it found me and pulled me towards it.

According to vocabulary.com, transcendentalism is “a philosophy started in the early 19th century that promotes intuitive, spiritual thinking instead of scientific thinking based on material things.

There are three main principals – individualism, idealism, and the divinity of nature. I think one of the main components that drew me to these transcendental writers was their belief that nature is sacred and is a powerful source of both spiritual and moral wisdom that we as humans are to connect and live in harmony with.

Their writings make me feel happy and connected to the Divine in any case.

I have to say, the one visit I made to Concord years ago has left me wanting to go back and spend much more time there exploring and sitting in the space where thinkers I have admired for years spent their time. I loved New England.

There’s a big part of me that wants to love poetry, there’s another part of me that often gets bored really quickly with a poem and I often struggle with wanting to enjoy what I’m reading and wanting to poke my eyes out so I don’t have to read anymore (a bit drastic, closing the book is probably more accurate.) When I find a poem that grabs me, it becomes part of my soul and I carry it with me. As I do with this one.

From the first time I read it, the last stanza has been imprinted on me. I’ve thought about it on and off throughout the years, and it helps hold me steady. I love it.

Give All to Love

 

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Obey thy heart; 

Friends, kindred, days, 

Estate, good-fame, 

Plans, credit and the Muse,— 

Nothing refuse. 

’T is a brave master; 

Let it have scope: 

Follow it utterly, 

Hope beyond hope: 

High and more high 

It dives into noon, 

With wing unspent, 

Untold intent: 

But it is a god, 

Knows its own path 

And the outlets of the sky. 

It was never for the mean; 

It requireth courage stout. 

Souls above doubt, 

Valor unbending, 

It will reward,— 

They shall return 

More than they were, 

And ever ascending. 

Leave all for love; 

Yet, hear me, yet, 

One word more thy heart behoved, 

One pulse more of firm endeavor,— 

Keep thee to-day, 

To-morrow, forever, 

Free as an Arab 

Of thy beloved. 

Cling with life to the maid; 

But when the surprise, 

First vague shadow of surmise 

Flits across her bosom young, 

Of a joy apart from thee, 

Free be she, fancy-free; 

Nor thou detain her vesture’s hem, 

Nor the palest rose she flung 

From her summer diadem. 

Though thou loved her as thyself, 

As a self of purer clay, 

Though her parting dims the day, 

Stealing grace from all alive; 

Heartily know, 

When half-gods go,   

The gods arrive.

Standard
happiness

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately….

Thoreau has always been one of my favourite writers. I fell in love with Walden when I was 18 or so in a university English class and my life has never been the same again.

Back then, as a teenager living in Alberta, going to Concord, MA where Thoreau lived and wrote seemed like an impossibility. It’s a good thing that through God, the impossible becomes possible – because 20 years later I was walking around Walden Pond after a short drive from the home where I was living. Life is definitely like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get!

My photo memories showed me that today, 14 years ago on 10/10/10 we did a forced family fun trip to Walden Pond, and through Concord to take a peek at some of the great American writers.

I think of Thoreau often as I am seeking the peace and quiet of my own woods to clear and calm my mind. The insights and wisdom I get when I unplug from the chaos of electronics and life and plug into the sounds and space of nature is about as close to God as I can get (bonus if there’s a horse around).

The writings of the transcendentalists – many of whom lived in the Concord area – are some of my favourite things to read. Especially when I need a bit of inspiration or need to feel closer to God. Emerson is another one of my favourites. His poem “Give All to Love” is the poem that made me like poetry.

But Walden Pond itself was also a spectacular place. There were people who had made rituals of swimming in the lake, walking the path around the pond, and just being quietly in nature. It was really inspirational and peaceful.

So now I walk my woods with my dogs, working at living more deliberately myself, seeing if I can learn what my woods have to teach.

Walden Pond
The foundation of Thoreau’s cabin

Standard
happiness

SIBO: ElementALL diet day 5

Well, I’m still doing it. Still feeling like crap, but still doing it. I keep thinking “this is the die-off phase and it won’t last long”, but it is still going on. Today has more sibo-like feelings in that I’m quite achy and joints are a bit sore. But I know there’s no way I’m eating anything that is activating sibo so it must be die off.

Although I feel like I’m starving to death I’ve actually gained 3 pounds. Because.. of course I would. So that’s great. I’ve lost about 30 lbs though since I’ve been working at this so I suppose in the bigger picture it’s not the end of the world. It seems as though sibo either causes massive weight loss or weight gain – and my body has always responded like a 17th century peasant heading into a famine: “Oh I must preserve every ounce of fat I have to survive what is coming ahead”.

I have also entered into some kind of existential crisis. Who am I? how do I fit into the world? What is the meaning of life? Who is God? What is the Universe? A lot of these are questions I often ask, but they feel different right now and the answers I’m coming up with are significantly different. A Course In Miracles talks a lot about the willingness to see things differently, and the further I go on this journey the more I understand that phrase. Just when I think I kind of understand things, something inside shifts and once again I see things differently.

My current existential crisis is asking for quiet to absorb and sort things out, so I’ve stepped away from social media (I’ll post this but I’m choosing not to look at or scroll through my social media) so that I can have some quiet time for my brain. I have to say, it’s nice having my phone off and not getting constant notifications about every little thing. Of course that needs to be balanced with some social interaction because we need each other. I keep thinking of Thoreau and his quiet time at Walden Pond – not totally isolated, but living in seclusion – and also his famous quote about leading lives of quiet desperation.

I think about this quote a lot. And I think it is as true now as it was in the 1840s – at least for me. Maybe even it’s this quiet desperation that led me to be sick. For sure it was the anxiety and trauma that surrounded it. Or maybe I’m just hungry.

Standard
happiness

Quiet moments 

We spent the evening stabilizing our family. It’s not perfect, but we balance each other well. It brings us back into harmony with our true selves. 

I feel so insecure with all I’ve learned from Ayurveda. But when things like this happen and I realize all our coping skills come from what I’ve learned I am reminded of how it has saved my life. The meditation, grounding foods, self care – all of it comes from my studies. It was a huge gift that was sent to me at exactly the right time. I am so grateful for that. 

The evening was spent with young people in and out of the house. Laughter, popcorn, snow, spaghetti and meatballs,tv, and love. All so simple. That’s what I’ve really discovered over the last couple of years – the more simple we make our lives the richer they are. We are less stressed, we live in the moment more, we enjoy nature. Thoreau was right. Simplify, simplify, simplify. 

My happiness moment was feeling the peace and the love in our home. We have worked hard to create a safe environment here and it truly is where we come to heal. 

Standard
Uncategorized

The morning rush 

Simplify. Simplify. Simplify. Having been a fan of Thoreau for almost 30 years I have read those words over and over. Yet the actual concept of being  and living a more simple life is often one that I struggle with. 

I don’t want to be all high maintenance, yet I know I kind of am –  I like nice things. My body does not want to sleep on a wood palate, I like nice clothes and tasty food. I have purple streaks in my hair that take more time a month to get touched up than I care to admit. 

When we went to Waldon Pond a few years ago I had a better understanding of what Thoreau meant. Simplify was an easier concept when I stood in the beauty of that pond and saw what it was he looked at every day. And he didn’t live there in isolation either, he was constantly back in town visiting. Simplify and deprivation have very different meanings and I think I’d been confusing the two. 

Over the past few months the kids and I have learned how to simplify. We have gone from the big flashy house to the old in need of love house. We are now living in about a third the size of house, with a third the amount of stuff and on a much stricter budget. 

We have to be simpler. 

And here’s the interesting thing. We are all happier in the old in need of love house. I can see it in the kids’ smiles, in the way they run outside and yell at me to come see something that has caught their eye, as they’re running across the yard to play with cousins or to visit nana. A happiness that has come from simplifying our lives.  

I’m thinking that maybe simplifying does not mean giving up what I love and going without so much as it means figuring out what is really important and only keeping those things in my life. Getting rid of excess and clutter has lessened my anxiety and brought me back to balance and happiness. 

We turned onto the road today and I looked west. The moon was hovering so perfectly over the mountains we had to turn off into the neighbors’ driveway to look at it.   
Then as we went down into the valley, the sun was peering up from the other side. 

  And as we came out across the valley the moon showed itself to us one more time before we turned the corner and headed into a huge wall of fog coming up from the river. 

I said to the kids how lucky we were that what made us slow on our drive to town today was that we had to keep pulling off the road to admire the beauty of the morning. 

So many people started their day rushing and anxious and tired. We are so blessed that we started it in amazing nature of Creation. It blesses us, grounds us, nurtures us, and brings us incredible joy and happiness. My happiness moment today.  

Standard