Going to Walden, and Returning…

This was a fruitful time for him. He wrote A Week on the Concord and Merimack Rivers (considered to be unreadable by many…) and vastly more importantly kept the dairies that would become the classic Walden.

By now most every one is aware how he kept quite a lifeline out to the world during this time, the cabin was near the edge of town and quite close to his family home. He regularly returned home and even in the woods had many visitors. He spent two years there, plus a little. 

And, to my mind, out of this he produced the first American spiritual classic.

And I love the lessons most that are found as we play with the insights of our elders, pushing, exploring, owning, becoming owned, and in that: discovering…

Mary Oliver was invited by some friends to visit Walden pond, something I’ve done on a number of occasions. Instead, she wrote a poem.

It isn’t very far as highways lie.

I might be back by night fall, having seen

The rough pines, and the stones, and the clear water.

Friends argue that I might be wiser for it.

They do not hear that far-off Yankee whisper:

How dull we grow from hurrying here and there!

Many have gone, and think me half a fool

To miss a day away in the cool country.

Maybe. But in a book I read and cherish,

Going to Walden is not so easy a thing.

As a green visit. It is the slow and difficult

Trick of living, and finding it where you are.

So many echoes here.

Of that saying from the Desert Fathers of the ancient hermit who said the holy book said sell all you have and give the proceeds to the poor, so I sold my Bible and gave away the money…

And that tale of an ancient Korean worthy who heard of the Zen way in far off China and proceeded on his journey. One night burning with thirst he found a bowl with cool water that quenched his need. Relieved, he fell asleep on the spot. In the morning he discovered he was on a battle field, and the bowl a human skull only partially picked clean by birds. After vomiting he realized how much his mind created the choice between good and ill. And thanking the Zen masters of far away China he returned home.

With, as they say, bliss bestowing hands.

Here I find an invitation.

To that liminal place.

Itself a worthy place, a stop, although actually not a destination…

Certainly, if we get to Walden, the physical place, or the heart of the matter; at some point a question arises: Having owned and become owned…

How do I return from there?

How do you return from Walden?

One of the important questions, no doubt…