Nature & Other Writings - Ralph Waldo Emerson - Part 1

Nature and Other Writings
Ralph Waldo Emerson

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 28

 January 28, 2017 

Book 7 - Nature and Other Writings
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (2003)
 Part 1 - Pages ix-xvii, 1-63

Reading Time - 60 Minutes

"Nature is too thin a screen, the glory of the Omnipresent God bursts through everywhere"

That's Emerson in a nutshell. I found that quote decades ago and fell head over heels in love with the words. It resonated for me at a very deep level of Truth. But... I came across it as some disconnected fragment on a quote website. I knew it was from Emerson, but I didn't know from what work, or in what context he uttered it. I still don't. But I'm searching.

I chose this book of Emerson's Writings because it had a couple of his essays that I'd come across - Nature and Self-Reliance. Having read this slim volume... I want more!

Emerson was more of a speaker than a writer; an eloquent lecturer whose speeches were living things. In reading his words, you kind of lose out on the pauses, the emphasis, the searching for words that were apparently a trait of his. I also have to admit, his writing sometimes took a bit of getting used to. It is mid-1800s writing and he really knows how to use words and make them sing, dance and soar. He is a true Word-Smith. You have to sort of get familiar with his sentence structure and cadence first.

So, what did I learn about Emerson... well... I love him. His essay Nature is brilliant... especially if one has an environmental leaning like I do. Essentially, Nature is a primary mode of Divine Revelation. We don't need to read the writings of millenia-old writings to discover God. We can have our own Experience right now. That's a theme throughout his writings... the idea that Experience trumps knowledge or understanding. Experiencing something is far more impactful than reading about someone else's experiences. He also argues that science is only half the story. We study nature to death with science but lose sight of the spiritual truth contained within nature.

Even back in the mid-1800s, Emerson could see the signs of the times. Nature and humanity are inextricably linked. What came to me was this... we are more and more disconnnected from Nature... don't grow our own food, live in urban concrete jungles, deny climate change... and we can see the results in humanity - increase in obesity, depression... According to Emerson - "Nature is medicinal. We can find ourselves in its eternal calm." But where do we go? To the doctor for some more drugs.

Here are a few quotes that stuck with me:

Nature is our dowry and estate. (for all of us)

Religion and ethics degrade nature and suggest it is dependent on spirit

Nature is a remoter incarnation of God, but it is inviolable by us - a fixed point against which we measure ourselves.