A Book of the Seasons: December 11 (Great winter itself reflecting rainbow colors like a precious gem.)

The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

 December 11

By mid-afternoon 

I will see the sun setting 

far through the woods.

That peculiar

clear greenish sky in the west

like a molten gem.

The day is short and 

we now have these early still 

clear winter sunsets. 

Two twilights merely –

the morning and the evening

now make the whole day.

December 11, 1854

December 11, 2020

An overcast afternoon and rather warm. December 11, 1858

Almost a complete Indian-summer day, clear and warm. I am without greatcoat. December 11, 1853

For the first time I wear gloves, but I have not walked early this season. December 11, 1855

No snow; scarcely any ice to be detected. It is only an aggravated November.  December 11, 1855

At 2 p. m. begins to snow, and snows till night. Still, normal storm, large flakes, warm enough, lodging. December 11, 1859

The sound of the snowflakes falling on the dry oak leaves (which hold on) is exactly like a rustling produced by a steady but slight breeze. But there is no wind. It is a gentle and uninterrupted susurrus.  December 11, 1859

This light snow, which has been falling for an hour, resting on the horizontal spray of the hemlocks, produces the effect of so many crosses, or checker or lattice work.  December 11, 1859

The snow on the ground in pastures brings out the warm red in leafy oak woodlands by contrast. December 11, 1858

All browns, indeed, are warmer now than a week ago. These oak woodlands half a mile off, commonly with pines intermingled, look like warm coverts for birds and other wild animals. December 11, 1858

While the oak leaves look redder and warmer, the pines look much darker since the snow has fallen (the hemlocks darker still. December 11, 1858 . December 11, 1858

A mile or two distant they are dark brown, or almost black, as, still further, is all woodland, and in the most distant horizon have a blue tinge like mountains, from the atmosphere. December 11, 1858

The boughs of old and bare oak woods are gray and in harmony with the white ground, looking as if snowed on. December 11, 1858

Already, in hollows in the woods and on the sheltered sides of hills, the fallen leaves are collected in small heaps on the snow-crust, simulating bare ground and helping to conceal the rabbit and partridge. December 11, 1858

A gray rabbit scuds away over the crust in the swamp on the edge of the Great Meadows beyond Peter’s. December 11, 1854

A partridge goes off, and, coming up, I see where she struck the snow first with her wing, making five or six as it were finger-marks. December 11, 1854

We find Heywood's Pond frozen five inches thick.  December 11, 1853

C. says he found Fair Haven frozen over last Friday, i. e. the 8th. I find Flint’s frozen to-day, and how long?  December 11, 1854

Walden is about one-third skimmed over. December 11, 1858

It is evident that whether a pond shall freeze this side or that first depends much on the wind.  December 11, 1858

See one sheldrake in Walden.  December 11, 1859

I see no birds, but hear, methinks, one or two tree sparrows.    December 11, 1855

I hear rarely a bird except the chickadee, or perchance a jay or crow.  December 11, 1854

This ice being whitened and made partially opaque by heat, while the surface is quite smooth, perhaps from new freezings, reflects the surrounding trees, their forms and colors, distinctly like water.  December 11, 1853

The white air-bubbles are the quicksilver on the back of the mirror. December 11, 1853

This pond is bordered on the northeast with much russet sedge grass beneath the bushes, and the sun, now falling on the ice, seems to slide or glance off into this grass and light it up wonderfully, filling it with yellowish light. December 11, 1853

Great winter itself looked like a precious gem, reflecting rainbow colors from one angle.  December 11, 1855

We get only transient and partial glimpses of the beauty of the world.  December 11, 1855

I saw this familiar fact at a different angle. It is only necessary to behold thus the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair’s breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance. To perceive freshly, with fresh senses, is to be inspired. December 11, 1855

My body is all sentient. As I go here or there, I am tickled by this or that I come in contact with, as if I touched the wires of a battery. December 11, 1855

Beauty and music are not mere traits and exceptions. They are the rule and character. It is the exception that we see and hear. December 11, 1855

Standing there, though in this bare November landscape, I am reminded of the incredible phenomenon of small birds in winter. December 11, 1855

When some rare northern bird like the pine grosbeak is seen thus far south in the Winter, he does not suggest poverty, but dazzles us with his beauty. December 11, 1855

Now it is wild apples, now river reflections, now a flock of lesser redpolls.  December 11 1855

I am struck by the perfect confidence and success of nature.  The existence of these delicate creatures, their adaptedness to their circumstances. Here is no imperfection.  The-winter, with its snow and ice, is not an evil to be corrected. It is as it was designed and made to be. December 11, 1855 

Standing at the right angle, we are dazzled by the colors of the rainbow in colorless ice. From the right point of view, every storm and every drop in it is a rainbow.  December 11, 1855

We have now those early, still, clear winter sunsets over the snow. It is but mid-afternoon when I see the sun setting far through the woods, and there is that peculiar clear vitreous greenish sky in the west, as it were a molten gem. December 11, 1854 

The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely; the morning and the evening twilight make the whole day. You must make haste to do the work of the day before it is dark. December 11, 1854

December 11, 2020

*****

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Indian Summer

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Sunsets

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The anthropic principle

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Winter Birds

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  The Sheldrake (Goosander, Merganser)

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, First Ice

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Winter Colors

*****

November 1, 1857 ("When I enter the woods I notice the drier crispier rustle of withered leaves on the oak trees, – a sharper susurrus.")

November 27, 1853 ("The days are short enough now. The sun is already setting before I have reached the ordinary limit of my wall . . . In December there will be less light than in any month in the year.”)

November 28, 1859 ("We make a good deal of the early twilights of these November days, they make so large a part of the afternoon.”);

November 30, 1858 (“The short afternoons are come.");  

December 4, 1853 ("Flint's Pond only skimmed a little at the shore, like the river.")

December 5, 1853 (" Fair Haven Pond is skimmed completely over."); 

December 7, 1856 (" Take my first skate to Fair Haven Pond”)

December 9, 1856 (“Yesterday I met Goodwin bringing a fine lot of pickerel from Flint's, which was frozen at least four inches thick.”)

December 9, 1856 ("Coming through the Walden woods, I see already great heaps of oak leaves collected in certain places on the snow-crust by the roadside, where an eddy deposited them.")

December 9, 1856 ("There is scarcely a particle of ice in Walden yet . . .This is, no doubt, owing solely to the greater depth of Walden.")

December 9, 1856 ("The worker who would accomplish much these short days must shear a dusky slice off both ends of the night”)

December 9, 1859 (“I observe at mid-afternoon that peculiarly softened western sky , . . . giving it a slight greenish tinge.")

December 10, 1856 (“How short the afternoons! I hardly get out a couple of miles before the sun is setting”)

Great winter itself 

reflecting rainbow colors

like a precious gem. 

December 11, 1855

December 12, 1859 ("The night comes on early these days, and I soon see the pine tree tops distinctly outlined against the dun (or amber) but cold western sky.");

December 14. 1851 ("There is a beautifully pure greenish-blue sky under the clouds now in the southwest just before sunset.")

December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified. . . .That of the 11th was a still storm, of large flakes falling gently in the quiet air, like so many white feathers descending in different directions when seen against a wood-side, — the regular snow-storm such as is painted. A myriad falling flakes weaving a coarse garment by which the eye is amused. The snow was a little moist and the weather rather mild.")

December 19,1856 ("Walden froze completely over last night.This is very sudden,.");

December 20, 1858(“Walden is frozen over, except two small spots, less than half an acre in all, in middle.”)

December 20, 1859 ("December. 11th was a lodging snow, it being mild and still, like to-day (only it was not so moist). Was succeeded next day noon by a strong and cold northwest wind.")

December 20, 1854 ("The sky in the eastern horizon has that same greenish-vitreous, gem-like appearance which it has at sundown,")

December 21, 1855 (“Walden is skimmed over, all but an acre, in my cove.”);

December 21, 1854 (“Walden is frozen over, apparently about two inches thick.”)

December 24, 1851 (“Saw also some pine grosbeaks, magnificent winter birds, among the weeds and on the apple trees; . . .when they flit by, are seen to have gorgeous heads, breasts, and rumps, with red or crimson reflections, more beautiful than a steady bright red would be.”)

December 29, 1855 ("Am surprised to find eight or ten acres of Walden still open. . . It must be owing to the wind partly.")

December 30, 1853 ("The pond [Walden] not yet frozen entirely over; about six acres open, the wind blew so hard last night.")

December 11, 2020

If you make the least correct

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853 

December 10 <<<<<<<<  December 11  >>>>>>>> December 12

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December 11

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 ©  2009-2023

A Book of the Seasons: The season of two twilights.

 

December 11

By mid-afternoon 

I will see the sun setting 

far through the woods.

That peculiar

clear greenish sky in the west

like a molten gem.

The day is short and 

we now have these early still 

clear winter sunsets. 

Two twilights merely --

the morning and the evening

now make the whole day.

December 11, 1854 

Winter sky; winter sunsets

December 8, 1854 (“There is a glorious clear sunset sky, soft and delicate and warm”)

 

December 9, 1856 ("The worker who would accomplish much these short days must shear a dusky slice off both ends of the night”)

 December 9, 1859 (" I observe at mid-afternoon, the air being very quiet and serene, that peculiarly softened western sky, which perhaps is seen commonly after the first snow has covered the earth. . . .[T]here is just enough invisible vapor, perhaps from the snow, to soften the blue, giving it a slight greenish tinge. Thus, methinks, it often happens that as the weather is harder the sky seems softer")

 Decenber 10 1856 ("I see the sun set from the side of Nawshawtuct, and make haste to the post-office with the red sky over my shoulder. . . .on my return, the apparently full moon has fairly commenced her reign, and I go home by her light."")

 December 12, 1859 ("The night comes on early these days, and I soon see the pine tree tops distinctly outlined against the dun (or amber) but cold western sky. )

 December 18, 1853 ("The western hills, these bordering it, seen through the clear, cold air, have a hard, distinct edge against the sunset sky. ")

December 20, 1854 ("The sky in the eastern horizon has that same greenish-vitreous, gem-like appearance which it has at sundown, as if it were of perfectly clear glass, —with the green tint of a large mass of glass.")

December 21, 1851 ("How swiftly the earth appears to revolve at sunset, which at midday appears to rest on its axle!")

December 23, 1851 ("I see that there is to be a fine, clear sunset, and make myself a seat in the snow on the Cliff to witness it.")

 December 25, 1851 (“I go forth to see the sun set. Who knows how it will set, even half an hour beforehand ?”)

December 25, 1858 ("How full of soft, pure light the western sky now, after sunset! . . . In a pensive mood I enjoy the complexion of the winter sky at this hour.")

December 27, 1853 ("It is a true winter sunset, almost cloudless, clear, cold indigo-y along the horizon.")

January 11, 1852 ("The glory of these afternoons, though the sky may be mostly overcast, is in the ineffably clear blue, or else pale greenish-yellow, patches of sky in the west just before sunset.")

 January 17, 1852 (“In proportion as I have celestial thoughts, is the necessity for me to be out and behold the western sky sunset these winter days. That is the symbol of the unclouded mind that knows neither winter nor summer. . . .As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind.")

January 26, 1852. ("Would you see your mind, look at the sky. Would you know your own moods, be weather-wise.")

Long after the sun has set,

and downy clouds have turned dark,

and the shades of night

have taken possession of the east, 

some rosy clouds will be seen

in the upper sky

over the portals 

of the darkening west. 

December 21, 1851

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  The Season of Two Twilights

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 ©  2009-2023

The sound of the snowflakes falling on the dry oak leaves.

December 11

At 2 p. m. begins to snow, and snows till night. Still, normal storm, large flakes, warm enough, lodging.

See one sheldrake in Walden. 

As I stand on the railroad at Walden, at R. W. E.'s crossing, the sound of the snowflakes falling on the dry oak leaves (which hold on) is exactly like a rustling produced by a steady but slight breeze. But there is no wind. It is a gentle and uninterrupted susurrus. 

This light snow, which has been falling for an hour, resting on the horizontal spray of the hemlocks, produces the effect of so many crosses, or checker or lattice work.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 11, 1859

Still, normal storm, large flakes, warm enough, lodging. December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified. . . .That of the 11th was a still storm, of large flakes falling gently in the quiet air, like so many white feathers descending in different directions when seen against a wood-side, — the regular snow-storm such as is painted. A myriad falling flakes weaving a coarse garment by which the eye is amused. The snow was a little moist and the weather rather mild."); December 20, 1859 ("December. 11th was a lodging snow, it being mild and still, like to-day (only it was not so moist). Was succeeded next day noon by a strong and cold northwest wind.")

A gentle and uninterrupted susurrus. See April 18, 1855 ("I hear a susurrus in the shrub oak leaves"); November 1, 1857 ("When I enter the woods I notice the drier crispier rustle of withered leaves on the oak trees, – a sharper susurrus.")

Walden is about one-third skimmed over.

December 11. 

P. M. — To Walden. 

An overcast afternoon and rather warm. The snow on the ground in pastures brings out the warm red in leafy oak woodlands by contrast. These are what Thomson calls “the tawny copse.” So that they suggest both shelter and warmth. All browns, indeed, are warmer now than a week ago. These oak woodlands half a mile off, commonly with pines intermingled, look like warm coverts for birds and other wild animals. How much warmer our woodlands look and are for these withered leaves that still hang on! Without them the woods would be dreary, bleak, and wintry indeed.  Here is a manifest provision for the necessities of man and the brutes. These leaves remain to keep us warm, and to keep the earth warm about their roots. 

While the oak leaves look redder and warmer, the pines look much darker since the snow has fallen (the hemlocks darker still). A mile or two distant they are dark brown, or almost black, as, still further, is all woodland, and in the most distant horizon have a blue tinge like mountains, from the atmosphere. The boughs of old and bare oak woods are gray and in harmony with the white ground, looking as if snowed on. 

Already, in hollows in the woods and on the sheltered sides of hills, the fallen leaves are collected in small heaps on the snow-crust, simulating bare ground and helping to conceal the rabbit and partridge, etc. They are not equally diffused, but collected together here and there as if for the sake of society. 

I find at the Pout’s Nest, now quite frozen over, air-holes and all, twenty-two pollywogs frozen in and dead within a space of two and a half feet square, also a minnow — apparently a young shiner, but it has a dark longitudinal line along side (about an inch and a half long)—with the bream.

The terminal shoots of the small scarlet oaks are still distinctly red, though withered. 

A “swirl,” applied to leaves suddenly caught up by a sort of whirlwind, is a good word enough, methinks. 

Walden is about one-third skimmed over. It is frozen  nearly half the way out from the northerly shore, excepting a very broad open space on the northwest shore and a considerable space at the pines at the northeast end; but the ice, thin as it is, extends quite across from the northwest side to the southwest cape (west side of the railroad bay) by an isthmus only two or three rods wide in its narrowest part. 

It is evident that whether a pond shall freeze this side or that first depends much on the wind. If it is small and lies like Walden between hills, I should expect that in perfectly calm weather it would freeze soonest along the south shore, but in this case there was probably wind from the north or northwest, and the more sheltered and smooth north side froze first.

The warmth reflected from the pines at the northeast corner may account for the open water there, but I can not account for the open space of the northwest end. [It must be because it is there open to the rake of the north Wind. the shore being flat and gently sloping backward a long way, while the protection of Heywood‘s Peak may account for the ice isthmus being met by the break-wind of the west railroad cape.]

It is remarkable that the south edge of the ice projects southward in a cape corresponding to the deep triangular bay in the south side, though it is in the middle of the pond, and there is even a rude correspondence else where along the edge of the ice to the opposite shore.  This might seem to indicate that the ice to some extent formed first over deepest water. 

When the ice was melting and the trees dripping, on the morning of the 6th, I noticed that the snow was discolored, — stained yellow by this drip, — as if the trees were urinating. 

The large scarlet oak in the cemetery has leaves on the lower limbs near the trunk just like the large white oaks now. So has the largest black oak which I see. Others of both, and all, kinds are bare. 

Some, being offended, think sharp and satirical things, which yet they are not prepared consciously to utter. But in some unguarded moment these things escape from them, when they are as it were unconscious. They betray their thoughts, as it were by talking in their sleep, for the truth will out, under whatever veil of civility.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, December 11, 1858

Already, in hollows in the woods and on the sheltered sides of hills, the fallen leaves are collected in small heaps on the snow-crust. See December 9, 1856 ("Coming through the Walden woods, I see already great heaps of oak leaves collected in certain places on the snow-crust by the roadside, where an eddy deposited them."); January 28, 1857 ("Notice many heaps of leaves on snow on the hillside southwest of the pond, as usual.");  February 4, 1856 ("The oak leaves which have blown over the snow are collected in dense heaps on the still side of the bays at Walden, where I suspect they make warm beds for the rabbits to squat on.").. Also  January 7, 1857 ("Though the rest of the broad path is else perfectly unspotted white, each track of the fox has proved a trap which has caught from three or four to eight or ten leaves each."); January 8, 1852 ("almost every track which I made yesterday in the snow - perhaps ten inches deep - has got a dead leaf in it, though none is to be seen on the snow around.")

Walden is about one-third skimmed over. See December 9, 1856 ("There is scarcely a particle of ice in Walden yet, and that close to the edge, apparently, on the west and northwest sides. . . .This is, no doubt, owing solely to the greater depth of Walden."); December 19,1856 ("Walden froze completely over last night.This is very sudden, for on the evening of the 15th there was not a particle of ice in it. In just three days, then, it has been completely frozen over, and the ice is now from two and a half to three inches thick, a transparent green ice, through which I see the bottom where it is seven or eight feet deep."); December 20, 1858 (“Walden is frozen over, except two small spots, less than half an acre in all, in middle.”) December 21, 1855 (“Walden is skimmed over, all but an acre, in my cove.”); December 21, 1854 (“Walden is frozen over, apparently about two inches thick.”)


It is evident that whether a pond shall freeze this side or that first depends much on the wind. See December 29, 1855 ("Am surprised to find eight or ten acres of Walden still open, notwithstanding the cold of the 26th, 27th, and 28th and of to-day. It must be owing to the wind partly."); December 30, 1853 ("The pond [Walden] not yet frozen entirely over; about six acres open, the wind blew so hard last night.");

Minott's woodlot.

December 11.

 

Minott tells me that his and his sister's wood-lot together contains about ten acres and has, with a very slight exception at one time, supplied all their fuel for thirty years, and he thinks would constantly continue to do so. They keep one fire all the time, and two some of the time, and burn about eight cords in a 

year. 

He knows his wood-lot and what grows in it as well as an ordinary farmer does his corn-field, for he has cut his own wood till within two or three years; knows the history of every stump on it and the age of every sapling; knows how many beech trees and black birches there are there, as another knows his pear or cherry trees. 

He complains that the choppers make a very long carf nowadays, doing most of the cutting on one side, to avoid changing hands so much. 

It is more economical, as well as more poetical, to have a wood-lot and cut and get out your own wood from year to year than to buy it at your door. 

Minott may say to his trees: "Submit to my axe. I cut your father on this very spot." How many sweet passages there must have been in his life there, chopping all alone in the short winter days! How many rabbits, partridges, foxes he saw! A rill runs through the lot, where he quenched his thirst, and several times he has laid it bare. 

At last rheumatism has made him a prisoner, and he is compelled to let a stranger, a vandal, it may be, go into his lot with an axe. 

It is fit that he should be buried there.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 11, 1856

. . .supplied all their fuel for thirty years, and he thinks would constantly continue to do so. See August 30, 1860 ("Minott is an old-fashioned man and has not scrubbed up and improved his land as many, or most, have. It is in a wilder and more primitive condition.”) Compare October 16, 1860 ("The history of a wood-lot is often, if not commonly, here, a history of cross-purposes, - of steady and consistent endeavor on the part of Nature, of interference and blundering with a glimmering of intelligence at the eleventh hour on the part of the proprietor.”) with November 2, 1860 ("Ebby Hubbard's [wood]was never cut off but only cut out of.")

A transient perception of immortal beauty. Angels from the north.

December 11

P. M. —To Holden Swamp, Conantum. 

I am a body

connected to all bodies

awake in the world.

For the first time I wear gloves, but I have not walked early this season. 

I see no birds, but hear, methinks, one or two tree sparrows. No snow; scarcely any ice to be detected. It is only an aggravated November. 

I thread the tangle of the spruce swamp, admiring the leafets of the swamp pyrus which had put forth again, now frost bitten, the great yellow buds of the swamp-pink, the round red buds of the high blueberry, and the fine sharp red ones of the panicled andromeda. 

Slowly I worm my way amid the snarl, the thicket of black alders and blueberry, etc.; see the forms, apparently, of rabbits at the foot of maples, and catbirds’ nests now exposed in the leafless thicket. 

Standing there, though in this bare November landscape, I am reminded of the incredible phenomenon of small birds in winter. ...

The traveller is frozen on his way. But under the edge of yonder birch wood will be a little flock of crimson-breasted lesser redpolls, busily feeding on the seeds of the birch and shaking down the powdery snow! As if a flower were created to be now in bloom, a peach to be now first fully ripe on its stem. 

I am struck by the perfect confidence and success of nature.

There is no question about the existence of these delicate creatures, their adaptedness to their circumstances. When some rare northern bird like the pine grosbeak is seen thus far south in the Winter, he does not suggest poverty, but dazzles us with his beauty. 

The winter, with its snow and ice, is not an evil to be corrected. It is as it was designed and made to be, for the artist has had leisure to add beauty. My acquaintances, angels from the north. ....

.... My acquaintances, angels from the north. I had a vision thus of these birds as I stood in the swamps. I saw this familiar fact at a different angle.

It is only necessary to behold thus the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair’s breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance. 

Only what we have touched and worn is trivial, —our scurf, repetition, tradition, conformity. 

To perceive freshly, with fresh senses, is to be inspired. 

Great winter itself looked like a precious gem, reflecting rainbow colors from one angle. 

My body is all sentient. As I go here or there, I am tickled by this or that I come in contact with, as if I touched the wires of a battery. I can generally recall-- have fresh in my mind --several scratches last received. These I continually recall to mind, reimpress, and harp upon. 

The age of miracles is each moment thus returned. Now it is wild apples, now river reflections, now a flock of lesser redpolls. 

In winter, too, resides immortal youth and perennial summer.

We get only transient and partial glimpses of the beauty of the world. 

Standing at the right angle, we are dazzled by the colors of the rainbow in colorless ice. From the right point of view, every storm and every drop in it is a rainbow. 

Beauty and music are not mere traits and exceptions. They are the rule and character. It is the exception that we see and hear. 

Then I try to discover what it was in the vision that charmed and translated me. For I am surprised and enchanted often by some quality which I cannot detect. 

It is a wonderful fact that I should be affected, and thus deeply and powerfully, more than by aught else in all my experience, — that this fruit should be borne in me and bear flowers and fruits of immortal beauty.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 11, 1855

It is only necessary to behold thus the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair’s breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance. See 1850 (“What shall we make of the fact that you have only to stand on your head a moment to be enchanted with the beauty of the landscape ?”); March 29, 1853 ("Not till we are lost do we begin to realize where we are, and the infinite extent of our relations. ")

My body is all sentient. See July 16 1851 ("I was all alive, and inhabited my body with inexpressible satisfaction . . To have such sweet impressions made on me”); the Maine Woods (" Daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it-rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world!"); June 21, 1852 ("With our senses applied to the surrounding world we are reading our own physical and corresponding moral revolutions."); ;August 23, 1852 ("There is something invigorating in this air, which I am peculiarly sensible is a real wind blowing from over the surface of a planet.”); August 30 1856 (“ I believe almost in the personality of such planetary matter”); January 12, 1855 ("What a delicious sound! It is not merely crow calling to crow, for it speaks to me too. I am part of one great creature with him; if he has voice, I have ears. I can hear when he calls."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A body awake in the world.

I am a body

connected to all bodies

awake in the world.

Zphx

But under the edge of yonder birch wood will be a little flock of crimson-breasted lesser redpolls, busily feeding on the seeds of the birch and shaking down the powdery snow! See November 21, 1852  ("The commonest bird I see and hear nowadays is that little red crowned or fronted bird I described the 13th. . . . They have a mewing note which reminds me of a canary-bird. They make very good forerunners of winter. ); March 5, 1853 ("They have a sharp bill, black legs and claws, and a bright-crimson crown or frontlet, in the male reaching to the base of the bill, with, in his case, a delicate rose or carmine on the breast and rump. [I]t has been the prevailing bird here this winter."); January 8, 1860 ("See a few on the top of a small black birch by the pond-shore, of course eating the seed. . . .When I heard their note, I looked to find them on a birch, and lo, it was a black birch!"); January 24, 1860 (" See a large flock of lesser redpolls, eating the seeds of the birch (and perhaps alder) in Dennis Swamp by railroad. . . . They alight on the birches, then swarm on the snow beneath, busily picking up the seed in the copse"); January 29, 1860 ("To-day I see quite a flock of the lesser redpolls eating the seeds of the alder, picking them out of the cones just as they do the larch, often head downward; and I see, under the alders, where they have run and picked up the fallen seeds, making chain-like tracks, two parallel lines. "); ; See also A Book of the Seasons, the Lesser Redpoll

When some rare northern bird like the pine grosbeak is seen thus far south in the Winter, he dazzles us with his beauty. See December 24, 1851 (“Saw also some pine grosbeaks, magnificent winter birds, among the weeds and on the apple trees; . . .when they flit by, are seen to have gorgeous heads, breasts, and rumps, with red or crimson reflections, more beautiful than a steady bright red would be.”)

Great winter itself looked like a precious gem, reflecting rainbow color. See January 21, 1838 ("The scene changed at every step, or as the head was inclined to the right or the left. There were the opal and sapphire and emerald and jasper and beryl and topaz and ruby"); December 11, 1854 ("It is but mid-afternoon when I see the sun setting far through the woods, and there is that peculiar clear vitreous greenish sky in the west, as it were a molten gem.”); February 13, 1859 ("The old ice is covered with a dry, powdery snow about one inch deep, from which, as I walk toward the sun, this perfectly clear, bright afternoon, at 3.30 o’clock, the colors of the rainbow are reflected from a myriad fine facets. It is as if the dust of diamonds and other precious stones were spread all around. The blue and red predominate."); compare April 9, 1855 ("With April showers, me thinks, come rainbows. Why are they so rare in the winter?")

We get only transient and partial glimpses of the beauty of the world. See June 21, 1852 ("The perception of beauty is a moral test"); January 21, 1838 ("If I seek her elsewhere because I do not find her at home, my search will prove a fruitless one.")

December 11. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December 11

In this bare landscape

I am overcome by the 

beauty of the world.

Great winter itself 

reflecting rainbow colors

like a precious gem.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  A transient perception of immortal beauty. 

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-551211