Saturday, May 26, 2012

Still Discovering My Spiritual Path - Discovering More Emerson





When I read the following I recognized myself …. I have to delve more into Transcendentalism, it sounds so right to me.  I have to say I am really enjoying my spiritual journey lately, even though life has been very hard … I know in my heart that it’s my perception that makes it so.  FAITH and knowing all is and always will be well is what I am striving for among a ton of other things.  Although I am truly one with the Goddess …. that is my personal path … the Divine doesn’t care a fig what you call Her … and I guess I really call it LOVE.  I hope you find this interesting and enlightening.   
 “Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803-1882) was an American philosopher, essayist, and poet who was the leader of the transcendentalist movement in the mid-19th century. Transcendentalism was a collection of new ideas about literature, religion, culture, and philosophy that originated in New England. One of the main beliefs of transcendentalism was that there was an ideal spiritual state which transcended the material world and could be realized through intuition only, and not through studying religious doctrine.   

Emerson believed that all things were one, and that we were all connected to God. His views were therefore radical at the time. He believed that God did not have to reveal truth, but that truth could be directly experienced from nature on an intuitive level.  

Emerson's essay Nature is considered to be the event that marked the beginning of transcendentalism as a major cultural movement. At the end of the essay he calls for a revolution in human consciousness.  “  

NATURE - To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.
The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood.  

When we speak of nature in this manner, we have a distinct but most poetical sense in the mind. We mean the integrity of impression made by manifold natural objects. It is this which distinguishes the stick of timber of the wood-cutter, from the tree of the poet. The charming landscape which I saw this morning, is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet. This is the best part of these men's farms, yet to this their warranty-deeds give no title. 
To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food. In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, -- he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me. Not the sun or the summer alone, but every hour and season yields its tribute of delight; for every hour and change corresponds to and authorizes a different state of the mind, from breathless noon to grimmest midnight. Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece. In good health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear. In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. 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 eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances, -- master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. 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, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.  
The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them. The waving of the boughs in the storm, is new to me and old. It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me, when I deemed I was thinking justly or doing right.  

Yet it is certain that the power to produce this delight, does not reside in nature, but in man, or in a harmony of both. It is necessary to use these pleasures with great temperance. For, nature is not always tricked in holiday attire, but the same scene which yesterday breathed perfume and glittered as for the frolic of the nymphs, is overspread with melancholy today. Nature always wears the colors of the spirit. To a man laboring under calamity, the heat of his own fire hath sadness in it. Then, there is a kind of contempt of the landscape felt by him who has just lost by death a dear friend. The sky is less grand as it shuts down over less worth in the population.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wow ... who writes like this today?  I have to read it again and again.  I think we have lost a lot with technology and our busy modern times ... writing being one of the beautiful gifts of the Divine.  

I'll be out and about for the next few days and I hope you in the US enjoy your long weekend, that is if you have the day off ... many do not alas.  

I wish you all Goodness and Light all of your days and A Tub Of LOVE to give you comfort and joy.

 

10 comments:

Magic Love Crow said...

Beautiful post my friend ;o) I hope you are having a lovely long weekend ;o) Big Hugs and many blessings ;o)

Victoria said...

Such a magnificent and beautiful post..a kindredness in my spirit and soul with all you have shared! magical!
HUgs
Victoria

Unknown said...

Really nice - beautiful pics and I don't think our spiritual journeys ever end. At 54 I am still on mine and I learn new things every day!!

ArtSings1946 said...

Thanks Stacy....I'm still on my weekend. Decided to slow down and stop spending so much time promoting my shop at etsy. I'm trying to leave it "up to the Mother Goddess" and just enjoy.

Love and Light !

ArtSings1946 said...

Love you Victoria ... I do feel we are kindred spirits and know each other from other lives. So, if I don't every meet you on this early plane ... I'll be seeing you in Paradise.

Hugs and Happiness !

ArtSings1946 said...

Hi Donna ... so nice to hear from you. Yep, the journey never ends ... and wouldn't it be boring if it did. Mystery and magic is what our Universe is made up of.

Love and Light !

Anonymous said...

That was beautiful thank you so much. How enlightening. I will read this again and again as well. And yes, I do not feel alone when out with the stars at night. :)

ArtSings1946 said...

Thanks BabyMother, you know your recent comment moved me to read this again and I was moved to tears yet again ... my Dad just popped into my mind, so Hi, Daddy ! He was such a nature lover and always took us for long walks in the woods. I was taken aback by these words, "Nature always wears the colors of the spirit." This rings so true to my spirit.

Happiness to you and yours, Always,

Nana said...

You are so right - LOVE transcends everything.

ArtSings1946 said...

Thanks Nana, I really appreciate and cherish your comments.

Happiness to all.