Going to Walden
Wednesday, July 18th by carla
Walden Pond
The Approaching Walden workshop’s focus for Tuesday was Henry David Thoreau as a naturalist. We visited Mount Misery to investigate hemlock, honeysuckle, and an unfortunately healthy patch of poison ivy. The highlight of that excursion was a Cooper’s Hawk who swooped through; perched regally on a branch to declare his domain; then, satisfied that we were merely visitors, moved on.
Then we hiked to the cabin site at Walden Pond. We ate lunch where Thoreau himself ate lunch 162 years ago, and we listened to an excellent presentation by Jeffrey Cramer, the Thoreau Institute’s Curator of Collections at the Walden Woods Project.
The cabin site is a terrific attraction, and the large cairn of stones testifies to the dedication of travelers who came before us. (Bronson Alcott, it is said, started the tradition of leaving a stone from one’s home at the end of the trail to Thoreau’s cabin.)
But a journey to Walden isn’t just about visiting a place — it’s about adopting a mindset. Just as Thoreau brought his unique perspective to his relationships, to his observations of nature, to his social conscience, and to his spirituality; so he would expect each of us not to adopt his thinking out of respect for him, but rather to develop our own sensibilities. Thoreau would have declared himself merely a visitor at the cabin site, a guy who was looking for a quiet place to write and try to make sense of the world. Each of us must find our own Waldens. We took some pictures, gathered up our things, and moved on.
It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pondside; and though it is five or six years years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!
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I’m blogging this week from Walden Pond, where I am attending the Approaching Walden workshop sponsored by The Walden Woods Project.
