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The
Pure Pond Known as Walden I awaited a fairy tale. "We make fables to hide the boldness of the fact and conform it, as we say, to the higher law of the mind" (Emerson 48). I was sitting in the passenger seat of Jill Rodenhiser’s car thinking every mortal desires to discover a legendary place, where men were transformed into heroes or knights. I have never had the chance to partake of an excursion to the castles of Ireland or England but, like some Americans, I set out on a voyage to New England’s own legend. I was heading to that site known as Walden Pond for the very first time. As the brochure promises, "Walden Pond is a serene travel destination right out of literary history," only without all the dragons and sword fights of eons ago. Walden offered me a tempting glimpse of the pure world that inspired Henry David Thoreau to write Walden. "All natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence," Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote (Emerson 9). This statement was true when his friend, Thoreau, embarked into the natural setting of Walden Pond in 1845. The painting of solitude Henry David Thoreau left with us in his novel cracked and crumbled with age, but the purity of the pond was left with its rich, heavenly streaks of paint. The only things left of solitude at Walden Pond in Concord, MA are particles of dust. Thoreau felt that "the petty train of cars which hugs the earth" disturbed his much-loved seclusion. Now the noisy trains of his day have expanded into the Boston T and loud, haunting airplanes overhead. These airplanes fly low, taunting the visitors that sneak away to the masterpiece. "Threats of Walden Woods" states "people who visit Walden Pond and Walden Woods each year to escape the noise of the city, to walk on the pastoral trails that Thoreau walked, to experience the beauty of the setting that inspired such extraordinary nature writing, are now exposed to the same noise they sought to escape." Even the humans that come here for solitude eventually destroy it. A man and a woman go back and forth in a needless conversation that has nothing to do with Walden, while a young child shouts "an ant." The high pitched voice of the little one causes a loon to fly away from the pond in fear, as the hungry writers who wish to be Thoreau lose the thoughts that had consumed their minds only seconds ago. As other writers take magnifying glasses to the painting, seeking one fine streak of solitude, I discover the one beautiful thing that still remains in the canvas. Walden Pond is still pure and bottomless. "The aspect of nature is devout. Like the figure of Jesus, she stands with bended head, and hands folded upon the breast" (Emerson 40). Nature worships the world it lives in and Walden is no exception. Walden has evolved, fitting in with the constantly changing times. The visitors that came in Thoreau’s time could not break the meditation of the pond. "A hundred Irishmen, with Yankee overseers, came from Cambridge every day to get out the ice" from the frozen pond (Thoreau 233). Yet the pond never failed to heal the wounds that the culprits had formed, sealing up its skin again, to protect it from the winter chill. The Pond still makes way for visitors, conforming to any form of man or animal. It bends the folds of its chaste skin to the pressure of the bodies that try to warp it. As I stood on the shore of this vision, fishermen fought with the hidden coves of Walden to catch its school of children, which we call fish. Finally, a hook jerked and the man pulled forth his meal, his money. As Thoreau wrot,e "they did not think they were lucky, or well paid for their time, unless they got a long string of fish, though they had the opportunity of seeing the pond all the while." It might not be the case with all these fish hunters, but it seems that they lack the respect for the pond that so many of us have. If this fisherman I watch does not have the admiration of Walden yet, he "might go there a thousand times before the sediment of fishing would sink to the bottom and leave their purpose pure." The pond does not seem to take this lack of care to heart. When the man pulls in his line, the pond settles where the fisherman had violated it for one minute and is perfect once again. The sharing Walden manages to establish with man or animal seems to show the importance that each and everything in nature is to the other parts of nature. If the pond gives forth to the man, then the man shall give to the pond. The Walden Sate Reservation is man giving back to Thoreau’s companion of two years. This team of devotees to Walden makes sure pollution, too many invaders, and even the leaves, which desire to suffocate the bottom of the bottomless hole, have not soiled the pond. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once put it, "Herein is especially apprehended the unity of Nature, -the unity in variety, -which meets us everywhere.". In the desire to see unity from every angle, I came as one of 500,000 visitors this year to witness Walden Pond as Henry David Thoreau did. "This pond is so remarkable for its depth and purity," he stated, and he was right. From up on a ledge, about fifty feet from the shores, I saw the Narcissus reflection of the Heavens, still staring down into the pond. The experience seized hold of my soul and made me draw closer to the water. As my feet planted themselves inches from the still water, my eyes could not decide what I saw before me. The first moment I laid eyes on the water, my reflection jumped back at me. My eyes wandered away from the deception and caught hold of the beauty of the water. I judged it was the color green, but when I looked back it was a dark blue. My lips moved in hesitation, trying to speak my disbelief. I desired to call out to the fishermen and ask them what they saw, but they were too far off to ask. Then I remembered Thoreau’s own struggle with the affect of Walden. "Walden is blue at one time and green at another, even from the same point of view." He went on to write, "Viewed from a hill-top it reflects the colour of the sky, but near at hand it is a yellowish tint next the shore where you can see the sand, then a light green, which gradually deepens to a uniform dark green in the body of the pond." One hundred and fifty-six years after Thoreau found himself lost in the colors of Walden Pond, I stood, reflecting on the same event. The colors and depth of Walden Pond will leave anyone with a sense of imagination pondering its mysteries. I highly doubt Walden will ever reveal an answer, and no one will ever actually have an epiphany that unravels the truth of nature. Even Thoreau, who developed a fondness to the magnum opus, did not try to solve some of his own questions. As for his friend Emerson, that thinker wrote, "The exercise of the Will or the lesson of power is taught in every event." Walden Pond has taught us that nature has power over man. We seek to open the door of certainty with our imaginations and even our logic, but are always truly puzzled over the mysteries of what we call the "unknown." "The question of the absolute existence of nature still remains open" and always will, Emerson stated. Thoreau wrote that it is easy to prove that ponds and other indents of water are bottomless, but proving the indefinite is not necessary. We need some secrets unanswered, even if there is a way to prove them. It is almost eminent for our survival. Without this wonder of the unexplainable, there is nothing left to build on or explore. "What if all ponds were shallow?" Thoreau asked. "Would it not react on the minds of men? I am thankful that this pond was made deep and pure for a symbol. While men believe in the infinite, some ponds will be thought to be bottomless." We must let our imaginations believe there is more to be discovered. Fairy tales or fables give us something more to seek and live for. In viewing every aspect of Walden Pond, I discover what is important in this world as Henry David Thoreau once painted it for us. Steven C. Scheer, who visited Walden, says that the gift Walden opened our eyes to "becomes a symbolic model or paradigm for an embodied spiritual quest for the disembodied, for a journey from the ‘gross’ to the divine ‘necessaries of life'." Walden Pond and the surrounding woods give us the true picture of reality, transporting us from our superficial lives to the authentic certainty that fulfills the thirst of our souls. The colors of the pond symbolize the diversity that we should see in life. We should always be exploring what could be hidden behind each logical remedy. Like Thoreau, we must "work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe." Although the light, peaceful colors of solitude have been drained from Henry David Thoreau’s work of art, the colors of purity in the pond leave us to reflect on our own purity. Solitude is something we must find in our own hearts. Emerson argued that "the problem of restoring to the world original and eternal beauty, is solved by the redemption of the soul." If we cannot find peace in the lives we are living everyday, are we living in an unrealistic canvas? "The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself." Each one of us must look at our reflection, if not in Walden then in some other pond, and get lost in it as Narcissus did. Only then will we, in Thoreau's words, "come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake". When I leave Walden, I know that this masterpiece has whispered in my ear that I must find who I am in my own work of art. I must explore myself, find if my happiness is bottomless, or if I am living a shallow existence. So join me in painting. Let each one of us make a portrait of ourselves as Henry David Thoreau once did. Pick up your brushes and choose your colors. Will they be red and black, or blue and yellow? In Emerson's words, "What we are, that only can we see." |
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