At the end of the last ice age, a global warming thawed the glaciers and enriched landmasses with freshwater-enabling agriculture to be the defining human mark upon the Holocene period. In claiming property to cultivate, humans took community land from each other and had food surpluses to guard, leading to early forms of governance. Large-scale ( Read more... )

Having withdrawn from the rivers of society in his sojourn, Thoreau imagines "only the finest sediment" of individuals deposited around him. He contemplates them at length. He has a penchant for a French Canadian described like a wood nymph, an "animal man" who, in the spirit of indigenous peoples encountered by conquesting nations, moves "without ( Read more... )

Floating through the ether of consciousness in a delirium of spiritual coalescence, Thoreau experiences a rapt unification with the energy of the world: "This is a delicious evening, when the body is one sense, and imbibes through every pore." The inhalation that binds us to the nitrogen that colors the sky is only the beginning of our connectivity ( Read more... )

A curious thing about the point in the history of civilization in which Thoreau was writing is his fascination with and abhorrence of technology. He describes the "The rattle of railroad cars, now dying away and reviving like the wings of a partridge.... The whistle of the locomotive... like the scream of a hawk." At once we conceive of the train ( Read more... )

Thoreau is joking when he tells us that the classics of Homer or Aeschylus are the "noblest recorded thoughts of man," and also when he informs us that one must be born again into the culture in which earlier works were written to understand them truly. He is beseeching us only to try to be the best readers we can, peeking as far back through time ( Read more... )

When I first read an excerpt of Walden in high school, I considered Thoreau worthy of study for being a novelty, a bright man who tramped about in the woods, appreciated for his erudition and bizarre lifestyle. As an undergrad, I read the "Economy" passage and derived only a few notable turns of phrase. I read it, but I was not ready for it ( Read more... )

I had heard Thoreau's quotation "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation" but didn't grasp the extent of its meaning till I had begun to see the denominator in all faith-based religions: man is flawed, imperfect, fallen; salvation or redemption or reincarnation or a glorious afterlife await those who live in accordance with certain ( Read more... )

The beauty of the myth that the world exists for the advancement of human civilization is in its ability to be repudiated by any individual who ponders the role of culture in shaping our perceptions ( Read more... )

"Do they see anything they did not come out to see?" John Burroughs wonders about those who discourse pleasantly about birds and flowers. He posits that an increased awareness and willingness to see the natural world-curiosity inspired by love-leads one to perceive subtleties missed by inferior expectations. He attests that anyone might develop ( Read more... )

I've always been interested in stories. From novels to films to plays to textbooks, my vita contemplativa has careered through literary devices, design, drama, and mythology. The tools of narrative, now applied in a larger human context, are mindbending ( Read more... )