Walden Journaling Experiment

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” - Thoreau. All original content. Enjoy.

[ohralphmyralph-blog]

What does it mean to you to “live deep and suck out all the marrow of life”?

Imagine old native american women carving carcasses, taking the bones and scraping the soft marrow out. Imagine how precious and useful every fiber was to their lives. How much enjoyment they probably felt--no, how much contentment filled their hearts with every scoop of the stuff. That’s what it means to me: You’re sucking out the marrow of life when you been through the hunt, through the cold winter, when the clothes on your back are the ones you’ve chosen and earned, when all the results of your life fill you will contentment. 

[ohralphmyralph-blog]

How is your life frittered away by detail?

To me, detail is equivalent to obsessing with perfection. Usually for the sake of other people’s approval. When we wake up in the morning how much time do we spend staring into our own eyes calculating just how disappointing we look? When we leave off to our occupations, how much time do we spend deciding what to spend time on, or blocking out distractions, or daydreaming about all the things we wish we had? How often do we gulp down the despair when our ideas and hard work our disposed so casually by those around us? Wake up and fix yourself for people, work for people, work harder for people, change yourself for people, make money, buy things to appear in sync with societal norms, buy things made by other people who probably live in a rotten world you’re too busy to take note of. Do it, it’s easy. And if you choose to live in that manner forever, you’ll find a life frittered when you stare into the mirror. 

[ohralphmyralph-blog]

Time can slip through fingers, lives can be chopped down like the brutally ragged stumps of trees left after a heavy storm, but there’s always a followup. Even when all the blooms wilt and fall, they only have found a new place in the world. The unnoticeable creeping of new growth that feeds on all the fallen and discarded parts of nature is what keeps the soil from slipping away, and gives something for the saplings to steady themselves in. We may not be able to see it, but even our mishaps slowly are feed into this undergrowth that creates a new foundation on which we can defiantly stand.

[ohralphmyralph-blog]

My soul can be found most easily in the babbling of the brook. The air isn't exactly crisp, but it laces my lungs with the remnants of October. There's little nests beneath the fallen pine needles and leaves, and you can see that there is death and decay all over this forest. It's apart of me. Just as surely as we grow strong like the trees, we erode like the jagged rocks coated in algae along the edges of the babbling brook. And I know that's not a bad thing. My soul can be found in the babbling of the brook, and the brook can be found washing away a pattern into the earth. I am both receding into the earth and rising with the trees, leaning towards sun.

[ohralphmyralph-blog]

I Hear the Woods Singing (Inspired by Walt Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing”)

I hear the woods singing, the varied carols I hear;

Those of crickets--each one singing like violins, as it should be, both operatic and silly;

The rivers singing theirs, as they rush along their way,

The bears singing theirs, as they collapse into the river, or make ready for the cold;

The birds singing what belongs to them in their nests--the cicadas singing on the tree bark;

The badger singing as he burrows into the ground--the fish singing as they swim.

The valley’s song--the dusk on her way into the night, descending into the ends of the earth, with great warmth;

The shallow rumbling of the skies overhead--or of the sprouts forever yearning for the sun--or of the distant eroding of the mountains--

Each singing what belongs to them and to no one else;

The day what belongs to the day--at night, the howling of the coyotes breaking into the deep silence,

Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.