The Revery of Solitude and Silence

On the hundred and sixtieth anniversary of Walden it seemed appropriate that I started the morning sitting alone on my porch before daylight. While I was wishing for the clouds to clear so I could catch a glimpse of the emerging super moon, I remained enthralled by being part of the world while so many others slept. I picked up Walden again, a practice I do before I leave for a trip that will take me back into nature. I will camp my way across the country this fall and while I prep provisions, I also prep myself. This morning I landed on Thoreau’s passage from his section entitled Sounds:

Sometimes, in a summer morning, I sat rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around… I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night… They were not time subtracted from my life but so much over and above my usual allowance.

The words sunk in as I contemplated the idea of waking each day, and rather than rushing and running in all directions, taking a few minutes to hear the birds sing, to listen to the cicadas, and to see the last of the night’s fireflies. The problem is our society does not value sitting and listening as a virtue, as something worth touting on the day’s accomplishments. So we tend not to do it or feel there is no way to fit solitude and stillness into our day when families need us, bosses are expecting us, and a few extra minutes of sleep sound far better than the early morning nature music.

But I advocate to give this a try, to come out onto the stoop or stand with the back door open. Maybe we can develop more fully, more completely if we take a few moments and just sit out in nature. Yes, the paper person might wiz by or you may hear the train grind on the metal rails, but you may also start to hear something else. You may start to hear your own breath calmly moving in and out. You may start to see the beauty of the tree you have absently walked by everyday. You may start to believe that there is more to you than to-do lists.

As I sat listening to the Cardinals trill to one another and heard the first Thrushes rustle the leaves and felt the drip of dew from the eaves, I was going inward and growing outward—like corn in the night. I was doing by just being, being in the most important place that true work happens, in the solitude and silence of the moment.