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In some ways this is where this book began, and this was probably sparked by my recommitment around my 40th birthday to my
life mission of coming into direct multisensory communion with nature.
.Reawakening the senses, direct perception
what does this have to do with seeing? Numerous Krishnamurti quotes indicated that it has everything to do with seeing.
Krishnamurti insisted if we're not seeing with our ears, our nose, our hearts, all our senses together than we are not really
seeing. To see with only the eyes, is for Krishnamurti, to not really see.
The bible admonishes for those
who have eyes to see and ears to listen. Jesus cautions us against trying to remove the splinter in another's eye, when we
have a timber in our own.
Don Juan is incredulous that Carlos Castaneda assumes one can see only with one's
eyes.
Henry David Thoreau must keep his senses alive and ready for whatever might be met out in nature.
The senses
of children are unprofaned. Their whole body is one sense; they take a physical pleasure in riding on a rail, they love to
teeter. So does the unviolated, the unsophisticated mind derive an inexpressible pleasure from the simplest exercise of
thoughts.
Journal, July 7, 1851
I must walk with more frees senses. It as bad to "study"
stars and clouds as flowers and stones. I must let my senses wander as my thoughts, my eyes see without looking. I have
the habit of attention to such excess that my senses get no rest, but suffer from a constant strain. Be not preoccupied with
looking. Go not to the object; let it come to you.
When I have found myself ever looking down and confining
my gaze to the flowers, I have thought it might be well to get into the habit of observing the clouds as a corrective; but
no! That study would be just as bad. What I need is not to look at all, but a true sauntering of the eye!
My
pulse must beat with Nature. After a hard day's work without a thought, turning my very brain into a mere tool, only in the
quiet of the evening do I so far recover my senses as to hear the cricket, which in fact has been chirping all day.
We live but a fraction of our life. Why do we not let on the flood, raise the gates, and set all our wheels
in motion? Those that hath ears to hear, let them hear. Employ your senses.
See, hear, smell,
taste, while all the senses are fresh and pure as in a late evening when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight
through every pore. We must store up none of the life in our gift; it is as fatal as to husband our breath. We must live
all of our life.
I love the nature, I love the landscape - it is cheerfully, musically earnest. I love to see
a sandy road cutting through a pitch pine wood, I love to hear the wind howl, I love the sweet fragrance of clover, I love
to drink the water of the meadow or the river I pass the day on, I love to sit on the withered grass.
Let
Nature feel your pulse" to see "if your sensuous existence is sound "Feel your senses with the best that the
land affords "what your senses hourly perceive, commonest events, every-day phenomena.
Live in each season
as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and open yourself to the influences of each. Whatever addresses
them, as the flavor of these berries, or the lowing of that cow... each sight and sound and scent and flavor -- intoxicates
with a healthy intoxication Let them be your only diet drink. Be blown on by all the winds. Open all your pores and bathe
in all the tides of Nature, in all her streams and oceans, at all seasons"
When we walk, we naturally go
to the fields and woods: what would become of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall? Of course it is of no use to direct
our steps to the woods, if they do not carry us thither.
I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile
into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations
and my obligations to society. But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some
work will run in my head and I am not where my body is, - I am out of my senses.
In my walks I would fain return
to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods? I suspect myself, and cannot
help a shudder, when I find myself so implicated even in what are called good works, - for this may sometimes happen.
"We need pray for no higher heaven than the pure senses can furnish, a purely sensuous life. Our present senses
are but the rudiments of what they are destined to become.
A Week, "Friday"
August 17, 1851
For a day or two it has been quite cool, a coolness that was felt even when sitting by an open window in a thin coat
on the west side of the house in the morning, and you naturally sought the sun at that hour. The coolness concentrated your
thought, however.
As I could not command a sunny window, I went abroad on the morning of the fifteenth and lay
in the sun in the fields in my thin coat, though it was rather cool even there. I feel as if the coolness would do me good.
If it only makes my life more pensive! Why should pensiveness be akin to sadness?
There is a certain fertile
sadness which I would not avoid, but rather earnestly seek. It is positively joyful to me. It saves my life from being trivial.
My life flows with a deeper current, no longer as a shallow and brawling stream, parched and shrunken by the summer heats.
This coolness comes to condense the dews and clear the atmosphere. The stillness seems more deep and significant. Each sound
seems to come from out a greater thoughtfulness in nature, as if nature had acquire some character and mind. The cricket,
the gurgling stream, the rushing wind amid the trees, all speak to me soberly yet encouragingly of the steady onward progress
of the universe. My heart leaps into my mouth at the sound of the wind in the woods. I, whose life was but yesterday so
desultory and shallow, suddenly recover my spirits, my spirituality, through my hearing. I see a goldfinch go twittering
through the still, louring day, and am reminded of the peeping flowch which will soon herald the thoughtful season. Ah!
if I could so live that there should be no desultory moment in all my life! That in the trivial season, when small fruits
are ripe, my fruits might be ripe also! That I could match nature always with my moods! That in each season when some part
of nature especially flourishes, then a corresponding part of me may not fail to flourish!
Ah, I would walk,
I would sit and sleep, with natural piety! What if I could pray aloud or to myself as I went along by the brooksides a cheerful
prayer like the birds! For joy I could embrace the earth; I shall delight to be buried in it. And then to think of those
I love among men, who will know that I love them though I tell them not! I sometimes feel as if I were rewarded merely for
expecting better hours. I did not despair of worthier moods, and now I have occasion to be grateful for the flood of life
that flowing over me. I am not so poor: I can smell the ripening apples; the very rills are deep; the autumnal flowers,
the Tichostem dichotomum- not only its bright blue flower above the sand, but its strong wormwood scent which belongs to the
season - feed my spirit, endear the earth to me, make me value myself and rejoice; the quivering of pigeons' wings reminds
me of the tough fibre of the air which they rend. I thank you, God. I do not deserve anything. I am unworthy of the least
regard; and yet I am made to rejoice. I am impure and worthless, and yet the world is gilded for my delight and holidays
are prepared for me, and my path is strewn with flowers. It seems to me that I am more rewarded for my expectations than
for anything I do or can do. Ah, I would not tread on a cricket in whose song is such a revelation, so soothing and cheering
to my ear! Oh, keep my senses pure!
October, 1851
The witchhazel, here is in full blossom on this
magical hillside, while its broad yellow leaves are falling. Some bushes are completely bare of leaves, and leather-colored
they strew the ground. It is an extremely interesting plant--October and November's child, and yet reminds me of the very
earliest spring. Its blossoms smell like the spring, like the willow catkins; by their color as well as fragrance they belong
to the saffron dawn of the year, suggesting amid all these signs of Nature, by which she eternally flourishes, is untouched.
It stands here in the shadow on the side of the hill, while the sunlight from over the top of the hill lights up its topmost
sprays and yellow blossoms. Its spray, so jointed and angular, is not to be mistaken for any other. I lie on my back with
joy under its boughs. While its leaves fall, its blossoms spring.
The noblest feature, the eye, is the fairest-colored,
the jewel of the body.
Maine Woods, "Ktaadn"
One cannot perceive beauty but with a serene
mind.
For one expansion of breath
To the heather
On a clear day.
Nature is a mutable
cloud which is always and never the same. Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man doth best when he is most himself.
Journal, January 21st, 1852
Go not to any foreign theater for spectacles, but consider first that there is nothing
which can delight or astonish the eyes, but you may discover it all in yourselves.
Reform Papers, "Reform and
Reformers"
It is easier to discover another such a new world as Columbus did, than to go within one fold of
this which we appear to know so well.
A Week, "Friday"
Every man has to learn the points of
compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till we are lost, in other words, not till
we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.
Walden, "Conclusion"
Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn.
The sun is but a morning star. Walden, ‘Conclusion’
Love does not analyze its object. Journal, September 14th,
1841
Give me the obscure life, the cottage of the poor and humble, the workdays of the world, the barren fields,
the smallest share of all things but poetic perception. Give me but the eyes to see the things which you possess.
Journal, August 28, 1851
Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle
in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business. Walden, "Where I lived"
The richest gifts we can bestow are the least marketable.
Correspondence, To R.W. Emerson, February
12, 1843
We need pray for no higher heaven than the pure senses can furnish, a purely sensuous life. Our present
senses are but the rudiments of what they are destined to become. A Week, "Friday"
The man is
blessed who every day is permitted to behold anything so pure and serene as the western sky at sunset, while revolutions vex
the world.
Journal, December 27th, 1851
We see only as much as we possess."
It is vain to write on chosen themes. We must wait till they have kindled a flame in our minds. There must be
the…generating force of love behind every effort destined to be successful"
A man has not seen a thing who
has not felt it.
"The stones are happy, Concord River is happy, and I am happy too. When I took up a fragment
of a walnut shell this morning I saw by its grain and composition, its form and color, etc., that it was made for happiness."
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd
Off by myself
In the mystical moist night-air, and
From time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
Walt Whitman
Surely
joy is the condition of life. Think of the young fry that leap on ponds, the myriads of insects ushered into being on a summer
evening, the incessant note of the hyla with which the woods ring in the spring, the nonchalance of the butterfly carrying
accident and change painted in a thousand hues upon its wings, the brook minnow stoutly stemming the current, or a sunset,
nature's most gorgeous sight.
We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage
of every accident that befell us. We loiter in winter while it is already spring. We are enabled to apprehend at what is
sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality which surrounds us. Above all we cannot afford
not to live in the present
Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear
the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business.
Time
is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is.
Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars.
I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as
the day I was born.
If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance
like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal, - that is your success. All nature is
your congratulations and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being
appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts
most astounding and most real are never communicated from person to person. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat
as intangible and undescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow
which I have clutched.
Our customs turn the hour of sunset to a trivial time, we commonly sacrifice
to supper this serene and sacred hour. It might be well if our repasts were taken out-of-doors, in view of the sunset and
the rising stars; if, with our bread and butter, we took a slice of the red western sky. The air of the valleys at this
hour is the distilled essence of all those fragrances which during the day have been filling and have been dispersed in the
atmosphere.
I omit the unusual - the hurricanes and earthquakes-and describe the common. You may
have the extraordinary for your province, if you will let me have the ordinary. Give me the obscure life, the cottage of
the poor and humble, the workdays of the world, the barren fields, the smallest of all things but poetic perception. Give
me but the eyes to see the things which you possess.
August 9, 2001 Daniella, a German friend who has spent
a lot of time in India, shared a story with me after I told her I was working on a book on Seeing and perception and mentioned
that one of the aspects was seeing with all the senses. She told me, "I have a story that I know you'll want to hear."
I read somewhere and I've only seen it once, perhaps in some kind of an anthropological text, that human beings have the
ability to perceive from the lower part of the leg. She then explained that one time when living in India she needed to
go outside in the dark. A friend suggested that she take a torch (flashlight) with her, because "There are snakes."
She declined his offer, because she wasn't concerned enough to bother. However, once outside after going a ways she was
about to take another step when she felt something from her lower leg that backed her up. She went inside and got a torch
and when she came back out cautiously she discovered a large cobra right where she almost stepped. She said the book suggested
it was a primitive sense that we hardly ever have call to use these days.
A friend who lives in a canyon near
where I use to live, told me that one evening he was walking down the path to his home with his four-year-old son riding on
his shoulders. Suddenly, the boy cried out - "Snake! Daddy!" They both froze until they realized it was not in
fact a snake, but a hose snaked across the sidewalk. There seems to be something deep in our brains that pays attention to
snake profiles whenever they occur.
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