A mesostic on Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature. (The small font is necessary so the lines display without breaks. Unfortunately, it won’t display correctly on a smartphone. If you’re using a tablet, you should put it in landscape view.)
thinking about the paiR of
revolutionAry thinkers from concord massachusetts
consider that raLph waldo emerson was the stodgy figure
thoreau the rebellious uPstart reading
tHeir
Writings
pArticularly
their journaLs which
are recorDs
Of
thEir raw thoughts one can see that
eMerson
was morE methodical
and thoReau more elegiac
but thiS
masks that fact that emersOn was
a rebel iN
his own Right just one
A
bit more straightLaced than
his disciPle
emerson seemed to funnel His
feelings inWard unlike
the more expAnsive thoreau
in his earLy life
Death
changed emersOn
his young wife Ellen
died froM
tubErculosis when
she was meRely 20 after her
death emerSon visited her grave nearly every day
in 1832 wrOte
iN his
jouRnal I visited ellen's tomb opened
the coffin this Approach to
death this fuLl
accePtance
of tHe impermanence of
life Was
to mold his Actions in the future
shortLy after this time he began rebelling
thoughts haD certainly been in
emersOn's mind for
somE
tiMe but
pErhaps the
incandescent gRief
prompted him to Search his
sOul for a
New
diRection
thAt direction came in
1836 with the pubLication of nature
the transcendental club the grouP of intellectuals
tHat revolved around emerson
nature set the tone for emerson's Work through the rest of his life
in some wAys
nature stands aLone being a more mystical work
a subtle framework for the many essays anD
lectures he wrOte
Emerson began
by stating the priMacy
of thE individual
to go into solitude a man needs to Retire
aS much
frOm his chamber as from society
this exhortatioN to look within
Rather
thAn without
a caLl for men to seek the truth in themselves
rather than in scriPture
emerson writes about looking at tHe stars
about poetry and says that feW
Adult persons can see nature
the eyes of most men and women were veiLed
emerson lauDed
the sOlitude
and Energy of nature
in the wilderness I find soMething
morE
deaR and
connate than in Streets
Or villages
iN
the tRanquil
lAndscape
and especiaLly in the distant line of the horizon
a mystical exPerience
tHat nature inspired in him
in the Woods we return
to reAson and faith there
I feeL that nothing can befall me in life
no Disgrace
nO calamity
lEaving
Me
my Eyes
which natuRe cannot
repair Standing
On
the bare grouNd
my head bathed by the blithe aiR
And
upLifted into infinite
sPace all mean
egotism vanisHes I become a transparent eyeball
it is a oneness With the
universAl being with god and with
nature itseLf because for emerson nature is all of this
the vital energy of the worlD
even the gOd
many of us havE had such epiphanies and
we tend to ascribe theM
to thE
appRopriate element of our belief
System
fOr
christiaNs they
come fRom god or jesus for buddhists these
kensho moments Are as dogen said dropping off of body and mind
to the uLtimate nature of the world
his church had taught nature with a caPital n
Had become the godhead being the fount of
energy that Was
tAppable by
aLl not just by the select few
for emerson this experience openeD his eyes
made them transparent lucid allOwed
thEm to see beyond seeing
allowed hiM
to fEel
beyond feeling he exhoRted all
to See in the same way
sO
shall we come to look at the world with New
eyes natuRe
is Always
there aLways full of energy full of life
full of hoPe we just need to open our eyes
wHen thinking about