When you live and write and think outside of the box, beware, you will forever live outside of it. That was one of Henry David Thoreau’s messages to creative people and people who thought beyond labels.

I very much love being married to an artist, nature lover, and fierce individualist who loves to read the writings of poets and the writing of Thoreau to me. I never had anyone who wanted to read to me, and this is an excellent choice for me.

I have always loved the writings of Thoreau. Along with Thomas Merton, they have inspired and empowered me to live my own life and insist on the dignity of my identity.

Since we both consider him to be a role model, inspiration, and fellow traveler, I suggested we do a daily 15-minute meditation (especially on weekends) of Thoreau readings as a meditation.

Maria said she would love to do the reading; we can switch back and forth whenever I want.

So we did our first Thoreau meditation today. We sat in the living room on this dark and cold day with tea and fading light. I closed my eyes, and Maria read. I realized I needed a photograph and stood up only for that. Then I sat back and listened carefully.

Maria read from Thoreau’s book Walking,  which described his mostly solitary walking and canoeing journey through Maine with Native Americans guiding and accompanying him at times. Thoreau wrote in his book about the beauty of walking as he navigated the streams and forests of Maine.

I cherished this passage from the book, which was one of the first Maria read:

“I can walk off to some portion of the earth’s surface where a man does not stand from one year’s end to another, and there, consequently, politics are not, for they are but as the cigar smoke of a man.” – Henry David Thoreau.

Thoreau feels like a spiritual kin to me, sometimes, only a more influential writer and thinker. Few writers have ever stirred my soul in the way he has.

My favorite Thoreau quote from Walden: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

That is precisely why I ran to the mountain.

My family had no idea what he was I was talking about.

 

Rereading Walden from time to time, I couldn’t help but think that if Thoreau were posting his journal and daily observations on social media, he would never have made it through a year of living on Walden Pond ( yes, we know that he often had dinner at Emerson’s house and that his mother sometimes cooked for him. Such irrelevant bullshit. So what?)

There is a reason we are here. Like Thoreau, we want to be free to live our lives.

Thoreau hated being told what to write and think as much as I did. There is only so much room in anybody’s head, and I don’t wish to fill mine with anger, argument, or hatred.

There is the danger of arrogance, always, but the greater risk is mindlessness and mental slavery. Just step back and look at what the “blue” and “red” people say about one another.

Walden was one of the most important books I’ve ever read; it was Thoreau’s manifesto to anyone who wishes to find a calling rather than a job. It was a guide to me on the right way to live.

Thoreau taught me the beauty of solitude and reflection, the joy of walking (he called it “meandering” the beauty of individuality, the need to fight fiercely for identity, and perhaps most important, the need to take responsibility for my decisions and choices.

Thoreau also taught me much about loving nature, even though Maria has surpassed me in exploring and knowledge of the woods. She is a Thoreau in leggings and creativity.

But I have tried to live up to the model he sent for independence and free thinking; his impact on me was spiritual, as was Merton’s. Fights for identity never end; they breathe once in a while.

“Above all,” he wrote, “we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past.”

I am ever grateful to Thoreau for being the first human being to make my own decisions about life and not forever seek or yield to the opinions of others. It’s important to listen. It’s essential to think.

I never knew I could love myself or my ideas, even though I have to nod to many others. Compromise is not a political tool for me but an essential step toward meaning and happiness.

Henry David Thoreau taught me that important lesson. I must never give myself and my mind over to others.

He wrote the first daily journal I have ever followed closely. I often think of it.

I will always try to live up to his courage, curiosity, and the challenge of the original thinker.

I will often fail.