Nature has always been an important part of my life. Many a morning has been spent in a duck blind with my dad, and the most vivid memories I have of my grandfather are in a deer stand, but that was the extent of my perspective on what it meant to have a relationship with nature. I saw nature from one point of view, with the eye of a sportsman. I had never been exposed to the ideas of Emerson, nor had I read Thoreau’s famous entries on how to truly exist in nature. Once I opened my mind and diligently tried to wrap my head around what these men were saying, it became clear to me that all along I had been failing to grasp nature’s true essence.
After reading Emerson for the first time, I was skeptical. The language he used made reading each page a challenge, and the concepts he proposed were embedded in endless metaphors. It seemed so tedious, and many nights I wound up hopelessly frustrated trying to decipher each passage. Not only was it hard to read, but I also found myself questioning some of the ideas he proposed. The concept of the spiritual component of nature and the presence of an "Over-Soul" that connects all life on earth seemed too radical to be true. I soon learned that Emerson was an acquired taste. The more I read and the more we discussed as a class, the easier each night’s reading became. Emerson approached nature in a spiritual yet logical way that I couldn’t help but be fascinated by. As my views on Emerson changed, I found that visits to my mandala became much more meaningful. It becomes much easier to grasp what Emerson is saying once you spend an hour alone in nature with his ideas in mind. By no means am I in touch with the Over-Soul yet, but my view on nature has certainly been changed by Emerson’s philosophy.
Different from Emerson, Thoreau writes in a narrative way that recreates experience that leads to the point he is trying to make. The detail and enthusiasm he portrays through his writing leaves no doubt on his passion for the subject, and that passion became contagious as I read his entries. Thoreau often spoke about putting as much distance as possible between himself and society and removing all meaningless distractions from life. That was the key to being truly in tune with nature, he believed. During my earliest trips to my mandala, I often found it hard to tune in to my surroundings. The distractions and nothingness that frequently absorb our everyday lives would not leave my thoughts easily. When I struggled to shake these thoughts, I found my visits to be boring and I came away with nothing more than a few simple observations. Later on, I learned that the best way to avoid these distractions was to genuinely be interested in what was going on around me. This came easier as the ideas of Emerson gave me a thought template, but it became effortless as I bought into Thoreau’s ideas of meaningful solitude and clear headedness. I no longer checked my watch or yearned to go back to dorm. Instead, I was perfectly content sitting alone in the woods, attentive to everything that was happening around me.
This year has certainly been a transformation for me so far in regard to my outlook on nature. I’m not going to lie and say that the biggest attraction of nature for me isn’t hunting, but I have gained a new perspective of the smaller parts of every ecosystem. I have bought in to Emerson’s idea of the Over-Soul, and I find that his idea of the presence of God in nature isn’t hard to see no matter where you look. It’s all connected, and it becomes easier to see as you spend more time in nature. There is no better way to clear your thoughts than spending an hour alone in the woods, and I have Thoreau to thank for the ability to do that. Once you’re passionate about it, making connections and seeing meaning in all aspects of nature isn’t hard to do. I’ve found myself thinking a lot about the distractions that our generation uses as an excuse for entertainment, and I am just as guilty of it as the next, but I’ve made it a point to separate myself from those distractions at least once a day. We as a culture have lost sight of what it means to spend a day in the woods, and the ideas of Emerson and Thoreau, however timeless they are, will likely never be taken to heart by the masses. That’s a shame, because losing sight of our relationship to nature means ignoring a large part of what it means to be human.
~ Joe Luter
