The perfect correspondence of a life and the year.

September 8

September 8, 2019

While the grass is fresh, the earth is in its vigor. The greenness of the grass is the best symptom or evidence of the earth's youth or health.

Perhaps it will be found that when the grass ceases to be fresh and green, or after June, the birds have ceased to sing, and that the fireflies, too, no longer in myriads sparkle in the meadows.

Perhaps a history of the year would be a history of the grass, or of a leaf, regarding the grass blades as leaves, for it is equally true that the leaves soon lose their freshness and soundness, and become the prey of insects and of drought.

Plants commonly soon cease to grow for the year, unless they may have a fall growth, which is a kind of second spring.

In the feelings of the man, too, the year is already past, and he looks forward to the coming winter.  His occasional rejuvenescence and faith in the current time is like the aftermath, a scanty crop.

The enterprise which he has not already undertaken cannot be undertaken this year.  The period of youth is past.

The year may be in its summer, in its manhood, but it is no longer in the flower of its age.  It is a season of withering, of dust and heat, a season of small fruits and trivial experiences.  Summer thus answers to manhood.

But there is an aftermath in early autumn, and some spring flowers bloom again, followed by an Indian summer of finer atmosphere and of a pensive beauty.

May my life be not destitute of its Indian summer, a season of fine and clear, mild weather in which I may prolong my hunting before the winter comes, when I may once more lie on the ground with faith, as in spring, and even with more serene confidence.

And then I will [wrap the] drapery of summer about me and lie down to pleasant dreams. As one year passes into another through the medium of winter, so does this our life pass into another through the medium of death.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 8, 1851

The year may be in its summer, in its manhood, but it is no longer in the flower of its age. See August 23, 1853 ("I am again struck by the perfect correspondence of a day — say an August day — and the year. I think that a perfect parallel may be drawn between the seasons of the day and of the year.”); Walden, "Spring" ("The day is an epitome of the year. The night is the winter, the morning and evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer."); July 3, 1840 (We will have a dawn, and noon, and serene sunset in ourselves.); March 18, 1853 ("This the foreglow of the year, when the walker goes home at eve to dream of summer”); June 15, 1852 ("The year is in its manhood now."); July 27, 1853 ("This the afternoon of the year. How apt we are to be reminded of lateness, even before the year is half spent!"); August 18, 1853 ("What means this sense of lateness that so comes over one now? — now is the season of fruits; but where is our fruit? The year is full of warnings of its shortness, as is life."); August 18, 1853 ("The night of the year is approaching"); November 14, 1853. ("October answers to that period in the life of man when . . . all his experience ripens into wisdom, but every root, branch, leaf of him glows with maturity. What he has been and done in his spring and summer appears. He bears his fruit."); November 17, 1853 ("So some human beings in the November of their days exhibit some fresh radical greenness, which, though the frosts may soon nip it, indicates and confirms their essential vitality. When their summer leaves have faded and fallen, they put forth fresh radical leaves which sustain the life in their root still, against a new spring"); January 30, 1854 ("The winter was made to concentrate and harden and mature the kernel of his brain, to give tone and firmness and consistency to his thought. Then is the great harvest of the year, the harvest of thought. Now we burn with a purer flame like the stars… ") See also January 8 1854 ("We love not so well the landscape represented as in broad noon, but in a morning or evening twilight, those seasons when the imagination is most active, the more hopeful or pensive seasons of the day.")

Seasons of the mind. The off side of summer glistens.

August 7.

It is inspiriting at last to hear the wind whistle and moan about my attic, after so much trivial summer weather, and to feel cool in my thin pants. 

August 7, 1854

Do you not feel the fruit of your spring and summer beginning to ripen, to harden its seed within you? Do not your thoughts begin to acquire consistency as well as flavor and ripeness? How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seed-time of character? 

Already some of my small thoughts — fruit of my spring life — are ripe, like the berries which feed the first broods of birds; and other some are prematurely ripe and bright, like the lower leaves of the herbs which have felt the summer's drought. 

Seasons when our mind is like the strings of a harp which is swept, and we stand and listen. A man may hear strains in his thought far surpassing any oratorio.

I walk over the pinweed-field. It is just cool enough in my thin clothes. 

There is a light on the earth and leaves, as if they were burnished. It is the glistening autumnal side of summer. 

I feel a cool vein in the breeze, which braces my thought, and I pass with pleasure over sheltered and sunny portions of the sand where the summer's heat is undiminished, and I realize what a friend I am losing.

In mid-summer we are of the earth, — confounded with it, — and covered with its dust. Now we begin to erect our selves somewhat and walk upon its surface. I am not so much reminded of former years, as of existence prior to years.

August 7, 2014

This off side of summer glistens like a burnished shield.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 7, 1854

Do you not feel the fruit of your spring and summer beginning to ripen, to harden its seed within you? See August 9, 1854 ("'Walden' published.") See also January 30, 1854 ("The winter was made to concentrate and harden and mature the kernel of [man’s] brain.” ); August 29, 1859 ("But in this cooler weather I feel as if the fruit of my summer were hardening and maturing a little, acquiring color and flavor like the corn and other fruits in the field. ")

Seasons when our mind is like the strings of a harp which is swept, and we stand and listen. See August 3, 1852 (" By some fortunate coincidence of thought or circumstance I am attuned to the universe, I am fitted to hear, my being moves in a sphere of melody.”); May 23, 1854 ("There was a time when . . .I sat and listened to my thoughts, and there was a song in them. I sat for hours on rocks and wrestled with the melody which possessed me. . . Think . . . of so living as to be the lyre which the breath of the morning causes to vibrate with that melody which creates worlds.")

Strains . . . surpassing any oratorio. See September 7, 1851 ("My profession is to be always on the alert to find God in nature, to know his lurking-places, to attend all the oratorios, the operas, in nature.”)

This off side of summer glistens like a burnished shield. Compare July 28, 1854 (“We postponed the fulfillment of many of our hopes for this year, and, having as it were attained the ridge of the summer, commenced to descend the long slope toward winter, the afternoon and down-hill of the year”); August 5, 1854 ("It is one long acclivity from winter to midsummer and another long declivity from midsummer to winter.")

August 7. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 7

The fruit of my spring

and summer ripens – its seed

hardens within me.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Seasons of the mind

 "A book, each page written in its own season, 

out-of-doors, in its own locality."  

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2024

 

tinyurl.com/hdt-540807 

***

Do you not feel the fruit of your spring and summer beginning to ripen, to harden its seed within you? Do not your thoughts begin to acquire consistency as well as flavor and ripeness? How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seed-time of character? Already some of my small thoughts -- fruit of my  spring life -- are ripe, like the berries which feed the first broods of birds; and other some are prematurely ripe and bright, like the lower leaves of the herbs which knave felt the summer's drought. Seasons when our mind is like the strings of a harp which is swept, and we stand and listen. A man may hear strains in his thought far surpassing any oratorio. 

P. M. – To Peter’s, Beck Stow’s, and Walden.

Liatris.

Still autumnal, breezy with a cool vein in the wind; so that, passing from the cool and breezy into the sunny and warm places, you begin to love the heat of summer. It is the contrast of the cool wind with the warm sun.

I walk over the pinweed-field.

It is just cool enough in my thin clothes.

There is a light on the earth and leaves, as if they were burnished.

It is the glistening autumnal side of summer.

I feel a cool vein in the breeze, which braces my thought, and I pass with pleasure over sheltered and sunny portions of the sand where the summer’s heat is undiminished, and I realize what a friend I am losing.

The pinweed does not show its stamens - I mean the L.thymifolia.

It was open probably about July 25.

 This off side of summer glistens like a burnished shield.

The waters now are some degrees cooler. Winds show the under sides of the leaves.

The cool nocturnal creak of the crickets is heard in the mid-afternoon. Tansy is apparently now in its prime, and the early goldenrods have acquired a brighter yellow. 

From this off side of the year, this imbricated slop, with alternating burnished surfaces and shady ledges, much more light and heat are reflected (less absorbed), me thinks than from the springward side. In mid-summer we are of the earth, -confounded with it, - and covered with its dust.

Now we begin to erect ourselves somewhat and walk upon its surface I am not so much reminded of former years, as of existence prior to years.

From Peter’s I look over the Great Meadows.

There are sixty or more men in sight on them, in squads of half a dozen far and near, revealed by their white shirts.

They are alternately lost and reappear from behind a distant clump of trees.

A great part of the farmers of Concord are now in the meadows, and toward night great loads of hay are seen rolling slowly along the river’s bank, — on the firmer ground there, - and perhaps fording the stream itself, toward the distant barn, followed by a troop of tired haymakers.

The very shrub oaks and hazels now look curled and dry in many places.

The bear oak acorns on the former begin to be handsome.

Tansy is in full blaze in some warm, dry places.

 It must be time, methinks, to collect the hazelnuts and dry them; many of their leaves are turned.

 The Jersey tea fruit is blackened.

 The bushy gerardia is apparently out in some places.

 Blueberries pretty thick in Gowing’s Swamp.

 Some have a slightly bitterish taste.

 A wasp stung me at one high blueberry bush on the forefinger of my left hand, just above the second joint.

 It was very venomous; a white spot with the red mark of the sting in the centre, while all the rest of the finger was red, soon showed where I was stung, and the finger soon swelled much below the joint, so that I could not completely close the finger, and the next finger sympathized so much with it that at first there was a little doubt which was stung.

 These insects are effectively weaponed.

 But there was not enough venom to prevail further than the finger.

 Trillium berry.

 

 

Life in the roots

November 17.

I notice that many plants about this season of the year or earlier, after they have died down at top, put forth fresh and conspicuous radical leaves against another spring. 

So some human beings in the November of their days exhibit some fresh radical greenness, which, though the frosts may soon nip it, indicates and confirms their essential vitality. When their summer leaves have faded and fallen, they put forth fresh radical leaves which sustain the life in their root still, against a new spring.

The dry fields have for a long time been spotted with the small radical leaves of the fragrant life-everlasting, not to mention the large primrose, johnswort, etc., etc. And almost every plant, although it may show no greenness above ground, if you dig about it, will be found to have fresh shoots already pointing upward and ready to burst forth in the spring.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 17, 1853

Many plants about this season of the year . . . put forth fresh and conspicuous radical leaves against another spring. See November 3, 1853 ("Now is the time to observe the radical leaves of many plants, which put forth with springlike vigor and are so unlike the others with which we are familiar that it is sometimes difficult to identify them."); December 23, 1855 ("At Lee’s Cliff I notice these radical(?) leaves quite fresh: saxifrage, sorrel, polypody, mullein, columbine, veronica, thyme-leaved sandwort, spleenwort, strawberry, buttercup, radical johnswort, mouse-ear, radical pinweeds, cinquefoils, checkerberry, Wintergreen, thistles, catnip, Turritis strictae specially fresh and bright.")



The life in their root still . . . See May 12, 1851 (" You exist in your roots, like a tree in the winter.")

In the leafless November twilight awaiting the onset of the wind.

 November 14

There is a clear air and a strong northwest wind drying up the washed earth after the heavy rain of yesterday. The road looks smooth and white as if washed and swept.

I climb Annursnack. Under this strong wind more dry oak leaves are rattling down. 

All winter is their fall. A distinction is to be made between those trees whose leaves fall as soon as the bright autumnal tints are gone and they are withered and those whose leaves are rustling and falling all winter even into spring.

October is the month of painted leaves, of ripe leaves, when all the earth, not merely flowers, but fruits and leaves, are ripe. With respect to its colors and its season, it is the sunset month of the year, when the earth is painted like the sunset sky. This rich glow flashes round the world. 

November 14, 2020

This light fades into the clear, white, leafless twilight of November, and what ever more glowing sunset or Indian summer we have then is the afterglow of the year.

In October the man is ripe even to his stalk and leaves; he is pervaded by his genius, when all the forest is a universal harvest, whether he possesses the enduring color of the pines, which it takes two years to ripen and wither, or the brilliant color of the deciduous trees, which fade the first fall.

From this hill I am struck with the smoothness and washed appearance of all the landscape. All these russet fields and swells look as if the withered grass had been combed by the flowing water. Not merely the sandy roads, but the fields are swept. All waters — the rivers and ponds and swollen brooks — and many new ones are now seen through the leafless trees — are blue reservoirs of dark indigo amid the general russet and reddish-brown and gray.

October answers to that period in the life of man when he is no longer dependent on his transient moods, when all his experience ripens into wisdom, but every root, branch, leaf of him glows with maturity. What he has been and done in his spring and summer appears. He bears his fruit.

Now for the bare branches of the oak woods, where hawks have nested and owls perched, the sinews of the trees, and the brattling of the wind in their midst. For, now their leaves are off, they've bared their arms, thrown off their coats, and, in the attitude of fencers, await the onset of the wind.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 14, 1853

I climb Annursnack. See May 8, 1853 ("They have cut off the woods, and with them the shad-bush, on the top of Annursnack, but laid open new and wider prospects"); September 13, 1858 ("Looking from the top of Annursnack, the aspect of the earth generally is still a fresh green, especially the woods, but many dry fields,. . . are a very pale tawny or lighter still."); October 12, 1857 ("Looking from the Hill . . . I am not sure but the yellow now prevails over the red in the landscape, and even over the green. The general color of the landscape from this hill is now russet, i.e. red, yellow, etc., mingled . . .I can see very plainly the colors of the sproutland, chiefly oak, on Fair Haven Hill, about four miles distant, and also yellows on Mt. Misery, five miles off, also on Pine Hill, and even on Mt. Tabor, indistinctly. November 28, 1860 ("To Annursnack. Looking from the hilltop, I should say that there was more oak woodland than pine to be seen.")

October is the month of painted leaves . . . the sunset month of the year, when the earth is painted like the sunset sky . . . This light fades into the clear, white, leafless twilight of November.  See October 24, 1858 ("Every fruit, on ripening, and just before its fall, acquires a bright tint. So do the leaves; so the sky before the end of the day, and the year near its setting. October is the red sunset sky, November the later twilight.")

What he has been and done in his spring and summer appears. He bears his fruit. See August 18, 1853   ("Now is the season of fruits; but where is our fruit? The night of the year is approaching. What have we done with our talent?")

For, now their leaves are off, they've bared their arms, thrown off their coats, and, in the attitude of fencers, await the onset of the wind. See November 14, 1857 ("This strong and cutting northwest wind makes the oak leaves rustle dryly enough to set your heart on edge.") See also October 29, 1858 ("Nature now, like an athlete, begins to strip herself in earnest for her contest with her great antagonist Winter. In the bare trees and twigs what a display of muscle!")

November 14. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November 14

October light fades

into the clear white leafless

November twilight.

Now the bare branches

of the oak woods await the

onset of the wind. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The leafless November twilight 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-531114

Now begins the year's dark green early afternoon (The seasons of the day, the year . . . a life.)

August 23

August 23, 2013

Observing the blackness of the foliage, especially between me and the light, I am reminded that it begins in the spring, the dewy dawn of the year, with a silvery hoary downiness, changing to a yellowish or light green, — the saffron-robed morn, — then to a pure, spotless, glossy green with light under sides reflecting the light, — the forenoon, — and now the dark green, or early afternoon, when shadows begin to increase, and next it will turn yellow or red, — the sunset sky, — and finally sere brown and black, when the night of the year sets in.

I am again struck by the perfect correspondence of a day — say an August day — and the year. I think that a perfect parallel may be drawn between the seasons of the day and of the year. Perhaps after middle age man ceases to be interested in the morning and in the spring.

Poke stems are now ripe. I walked through a beautiful grove of them, six or seven feet high, on the side of Lee's Cliff, where they have ripened early. Their stems are a deep, rich purple with a bloom, contrasting with the clear green leaves. Its stalks, thus full of purple wine, are one of the fruits of autumn. It excites me to behold it. What a success is its! What maturity it arrives at, ripening from leaf to root! 

May I mature as perfectly, root and branch, as the poke! It is a royal plant. I could spend the evening of the year musing amid the poke stems.

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. Let them be your only diet drink and botanical medicines. In August live on berries. Be blown on by all the winds. 

Open all your pores and bathe in all the tides of Nature, in all her streams and oceans, at all seasons. Grow green with spring, yellow and ripe with autumn. Drink of each season's influence as a vial, a true panacea of all remedies mixed for your especial use. 

For all Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. She exists for no other end. Do not resist her. "Nature" is but another name for health, and the seasons are but different states of health. 

Some men think that they are not well in spring, or summer, or autumn, or winter; it is only because they are not well in them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 23, 1853

The perfect correspondence of a day and the year. See August 19, 1853 (“The day is an epitome of the year.”)

Live in each season as it passes. See April 24 1859 (Find your eternity in each moment)

Seasons of life. See July 3, 1840 (We will have a dawn, and noon, and serene sunset in ourselves.); October 7, 1851 (There is a great difference between this season and a month ago, -- as between one period of your life and another); November 14, 1853. (October answers to that period in the life of man when he is no longer dependent on his transient moods, when all his experience ripens into wisdom, but every root, branch, leaf of him glows with maturity. What he has been and done in his spring and summer appears. He bears his fruit.); January 30, 1854 (We are not to suppose that there is no fruit left for winter to ripen. It is for man the seasons and all their fruits exist. The winter was made to concentrate and harden and mature the kernel of his brain, to give tone and firmness and consistency to his thought. Then is the great harvest of the year, the harvest of thought. Now we burn with a purer flame like the stars…)

Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. See December 16, 1853 (Would you be well, see that you are attuned to each mood of nature); July 14, 1854 (Health is a sound relation to nature). See also Walden (" Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength.").



The blackness of the
foliage between me and
the light reminds me

it begins in spring,
the dewy dawn of the year,
silver downiness,

the saffron-robed morn,
a yellowish or light green,--
then pure glossy green

undersides reflect
the light, — the forenoon -- and now
early afternoon,

the dark green shadows
begin to increase, and next
it will turn yellow

or red, — the sunset --
finally black when the night
of the year sets in.

Now begins the year's

dark green early afternoon

when shadows increase.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The year's

dark green early afternoon

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-530823

A different mood or season of the mind

August 25.

P. M. — To Conantum. 

The dandelion blooms again. 

One of the most noticeable wild fruits at present is the Viburnum nudum berries, their variegated cymes amid the green leaves in the swamps or low grounds, some whitish, some greenish, some red, some pink, some rose-purple and very beautiful, — not so beautiful, however, off the bush, — some dark purple or blue, and some black whose bloom is rubbed off, — a very rich sight. 

The silky cornel is the most common every where, bordering the river and swamps, its drooping cymes of amethystine (?) china or glass beads mingled with whitish. 

The fruit of the Viburnum Lentago is now very handsome, with its sessile cymes of large elliptical berries, green on one side and red with a purple bloom on the other or exposed side, not yet purple, blushing on one cheek. 

Many pyrus leaves are now red in the swamps, and some Viburnum nudum.

Yesterday was a hot day, but oh, this dull, cloudy, breezy, thoughtful weather in which the creak of the cricket sounds louder, preparatory to a cheerful storm!  How grateful to our feelings is the approach of autumn!  We have had no serious storm since spring.  What a salad to my spirits is this cooler, darker day!

I hear no birds sing these days, only the plaintive note of young bluebirds, or the peep of a robin, or the scream of a jay, to whom all seasons are indifferent, the mew of a catbird, the link link of a bobolink, or the twitter of a goldfinch, all faint and rare. The great bittern is still about, but silent and shy.

At length, before sundown, it begins to rain. You can hardly say when it began, and now, after dark, the sound of it dripping and pattering without is quite cheering. It is long since I heard it. One of those serious and normal storms ~ not a shower which you can see through, not a transient cloud that drops rain ~ something regular, a fall rain, coincident with a different mood or season of the mind.  

Methinks the truly weather-wise will know themselves and find the signs of rain in their own moods, the aspect of their own skies or thoughts, and not consult swallows and spiders. Does a mind in sympathy with nature need a hygrometer?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 25, 1852

See  September 18, 1860  ("If you are not happy to-day you will hardly be so to-morrow."); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Moods and Seasons of the Mind.

Methinks the truly weather-wise will know themselves and find the signs of rain in their own moods. See January 26, 1852 (" Would you see your mind, look at the sky. Would you know your own moods, be weather-wise.")

A cheering fall rain

brings a different mood or

season of the mind.

Berrying along the Walden road. A new spring

July 14.

How deep or perhaps slaty sky-blue are those blueberries that grow in the shade in dense drooping clusters under the fresh green of oak and hickory sprouts.

See to-day for the first time this season fleets of yellow butterflies in compact assembly in the road like a mackerel fleet with their small hulls and great sails now suddenly dispersing on our approach and filling the air with yellow in their zigzag flight, as when a fair wind calls schooners out of haven and disperses them over the broad ocean.

The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or perchance a palace or temple on the earth, and at length the middle-aged man concludes to build a wood-shed with them.

Trees have commonly two growths in the year, a spring and a fall growth, the latter sometimes equalling the former, and you can see where the first was checked whether by cold or drouth, and wonder what there was in the summer to produce this check, this blight. 

So is it with man; most have a spring growth only, and never get over this first check to their youthful hopes; but plants of hardier constitution, or perchance planted in a more genial soil, speedily recover themselves, and, though they bear the scar or knot in remembrance of their disappointment, they push forward again and have a vigorous fall growth which is equivalent to a new spring. 

These two growths are now visible on the oak sprouts, the second already nearly equalling the first.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 14, 1852

See to-day for the first time this season fleets of yellow butterflies in compact assembly in the road. See July 19, 1856 ("Fleets of yellow butterflies on road. “);July 26, 1854 ("Today I see in various parts of the town the yellow butterflies in fleets in the road, on bare damp sand, twenty or more collected within a diameter of five or six inches in many places.")


Two growths are now visible on the oak sprouts, the second already nearly equalling the first. See  May 25, 1853 ("Many do most of their growing for the year in a week or two at this season. They shoot - they spring - and the rest of the Year they harden and mature,. . .”);August 19, 1853 ("In the case of a single tree there is the dark glossy green of the lower, older leaves, — the spring growth, — which hang down, fading on every side into the silvery hoariness of the younger and more downy leaves on the edges, — the fall growth, — whose under sides are seen, which stand up, and more perhaps at this hour."); May 26, 1854 ("Some young red oaks have already grown eighteen inches, i. e. within a fortnight, before their leaves have two-thirds expanded. They have accomplished more than half their year's growth, as if,. . . now burst forth like a stream which has been dammed. They are properly called shoots.”);  June 30, 1854 ("Young oak shoots have grown from one and a half to three or four feet");