I open my mouth to the wind.

December 29

The snow is softened yet more, and it thaws somewhat. The cockerels crow, and we are reminded of spring. 

P. M. — To Warren Miles's mill. 

We must go out and re-ally ourselves to Nature every day. We must make root, send out some little fibre at least, even every winter day. I am sensible that I am imbibing health when I open my mouth to the wind. 

Staying in the house breeds a sort of insanity always. Every house is in this sense a hospital. A night and a forenoon is as much confinement to those wards as I can stand. I am aware that I recover some sanity which I had lost almost the instant that I come abroad. 

Do not the F. hyemalis, lingering yet, and the numerous tree sparrows foretell an open winter? 

The fields behind Dennis's have but little snow on them; the weeds rising above it imbrown them. It is collected in deep banks on the southeast slopes of the hills, — the wind having been northwest, — and there no weeds rise above it. 

By Nut Meadow Brook, just beyond Brown's fence crossing, I see a hornets' nest about seven inches in diameter on a thorn bush, only eighteen inches from the ground. Do they ever return to the same nests?

White oaks standing in open ground will commonly have more leaves now than black or red oaks of the same size, also standing exposed. 

Miles is sawing pail-stuff. Thus the full streams and ponds supply the farmer with winter work. 

I see two trout four or five inches long in his brook a few rods below the mill. The water is quite low, he having shut it off. Rich copper-brown fish darting up and down the fast-shoaling stream. 

When I return by Clamshell Hill, the sun has set, and the cloudy sky is reflected in a short and narrow open reach at the bend there. The water and reflected sky are a dull, dark green, but not the real sky.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 29, 1856

We must go out and re-ally ourselves to Nature every day. . . . I open my mouth to the wind. See July 23, 1851 ("The wind has fairly blown me outdoors; the elements were so lively and active, and I so sympathized with them, that I could not sit while the wind went by."); December 20, 1851 ("Go out before sunrise or stay out till sunset "); January 20, 1852 ("To see the sun rise or go down every day would preserve us sane forever.”);; November 4, 1852 ("I keep out-of-doors for the sake of the mineral, vegetable, and animal in me.") June 5, 1854 ("I have come to this hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity and put myself again in relation with Nature.”); July 14, 1854 ("Health is a sound relation to nature.”); November 13, 1857 ("See the sun rise or set if possible each day.") September 13, 1859 ("You must be outdoors long, early and late.")

 

It thaws somewhat. The cockerels crow, and we are reminded of spring. See December 29, 1851 ("It is warm as an April morning. There is a sound as of bluebirds in the air, and the cocks crow as in the spring.")

I see two trout four or five inches long in his brook a few rods below the mill. The water is quite low, he having shut it off. See May 7, 1856 ("Miles began last night to let the water run off. . . . The brook below is full of fishes, -—suckers, pouts, eels, trouts, -— endeavoring to get up, but his dam prevents.”)

The water and reflected sky are a dull, dark green, but not the real sky. See  December 30, 1855 (“Recrossing the river behind Dodd’s, now at 4 P. M., the sun quite low, the open reach just below is quite green”); January 18, 1860 ("The sky in the reflection at the open reach at Hubbard's Bath is more green than in reality.”).

Go out every day –

 even every winter day,

Ally with Nature

I have come to this hill to see the sun go down.

6 p. m. — To Cliffs. 

Now, just before sundown, a nighthawk is circling, imp-like, with undulating, irregular flight over the sprout-land on the Cliff Hill, with an occasional squeak and showing the spots on his wings. He does not circle away from this place, and I associate him with two gray eggs somewhere on the ground beneath and a mate there sitting. 

This squeak and occasional booming is heard in the evening air, while the stillness on the side of the village makes more distinct the increased hum of insects. I see at a distance a kingbird or blackbird pursuing a crow lower down the hill, like a satellite revolving about a black planet. 

I have come to this hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity and put myself again in relation with Nature. I would fain drink a draft of Nature's serenity. Let deep answer to deep. 

Already I see reddening clouds reflected in the smooth mirror of the river, a delicate tint, unlike anything in the sky as yet. The evergreens now look even black by contrast with the sea of fresh and light-green foliage which surrounds them. Children have been to the Cliffs and woven wreaths or chaplets of oak leaves, which they have left, for they were unconsciously attracted by the beauty of the leaves now. 

The sun goes down red and shorn of his beams, a sign of hot weather, as if the western horizon or the lower stratum of the air were filled with the hot dust of the day. 

I love to sit here and look off into the broad deep vale in which the shades of night are beginning to prevail. When the sun has set, the river becomes more white and distinct in the landscape. 

I return by moonlight.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 5, 1854

I associate him with two gray eggs. See June 1, 1853 and June 7, 1853.

I have come to this hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity and put myself again in relation with Nature. See July 14, 1854 (Health is a sound relation to nature); December 29, 1856 ("We must go out and re-ally ourselves to Nature every day. . . .I am aware that I recover some sanity which I had lost almost the instant that I come abroad."). See also August 14, 1854 ("I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon, — to behold and commune with something grander than man.”)

. . .to recover sanity: A reference to HDT's agitation over the rendition of Anthony Burns.??? Probably not.  See May 29, 1854 , June 9, 1854, June 16, 1854 and ""Slavery in Massachusetts,"("The remembrance of my country spoils my walk . . . I walk toward one of our ponds; but what signifies the beauty of nature when men are base?  We walk to lakes to see our serenity reflected in them; when we are not serene, we go not to them. Who can be serene in a country where both the rulers and the ruled are without principle? ") ~ Zphx

June 5. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 5

I would drink a draft

of Nature's serenity –

let deep answer deep.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, To see the sun go down

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

tinyurl.com/hdt-540605