Infinite regret

October 26

I awoke this morning to infinite regret.

In my dream . . .  I was in my own small pleasure-boat, learning to sail on the sea , and I raised my sail before my anchor, which I dragged far into the sea. I saw the buttons which had come off the coats of drowned men, and suddenly I saw my dog –when I knew not that I had one – standing in the sea up to his chin, to warm his legs . . .

And then I was walking in a meadow . . .  and there I met Mr. Alcott, and we fell to quoting and referring to grand and pleasing couplets and single lines which we had read in times past; and I quoted one which in my waking hours I have no knowledge of, but in my dream it was familiar enough. I only know that those which I quoted expressed regret, and were like the following, though they were not these:

 "The short parenthesis of life was sweet,"

"The remembrance of youth is a sigh," etc.

The instant that I awoke, methought I was a musical instrument from which I heard a strain die out, a bugle, or a clarionet, or a flute.  My body was the organ and channel of melody, as a flute is of the music that is breathed through it. My flesh sounded and vibrated still to the strain, and my nerves were the chords of the lyre . . .

I heard the last strain or flourish, as I woke, played on my body as the instrument. Such I knew I had been and might be again, and my regret arose from the consciousness how little like a musical instrument my body was now . . . 

I awoke, therefore, to an infinite regret, — to find myself, not the thoroughfare of glorious and world-stirring inspirations, but a scuttle full of dirt . . .

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 26, 1851

I awoke this morning. See May 24, 1851 ("Our most glorious experiences are a kind of regret . . . the painful, plaintively sad surprise of our Genius remembering our past lives and contemplating what is possible. . . My most sacred and memorable life is commonly on awaking in the morning. I frequently awake with an atmosphere about me as if my unremembered dreams had been divine, as if my spirit had journeyed to its native place, and, in the act of reentering its native body, had diffused an elysian fragrance around . . .It is glorious for us to be able to regret even such an existence."); June 12, 1851 ("Listen to music religiously, as if it were the last strain you might hear."); June 22, 1851 ("The world is a musical instrument. The very touch affords an exquisite pleasure. I awake to its music with the calmness of a lake when there is not a breath of wind.”);; July 16, 1851 ("This earth was the most glorious musical instrument, and I was audience to its strains. To have such sweet impressions made on us"); March 17, 1852 ("I am conscious of having, in my sleep, transcended the limits of the individual"); September 12, 1853 ("It occurred to me when I awoke this morning . . . that man was to be treated as a musical instrument, and if any viol was to be made of sound timber and kept well tuned always, it was he, so that when the bow of events is drawn across him he may vibrate and resound in perfect harmony. A sensitive soul will be continually trying its strings to see if they are in tune."); December 19, 1856 ("For all Nature is a musical instrument on which her creatures play, celebrating their joy or grief unconsciously "); October 29, 1857 ("Such early morning thoughts as I speak of occupy a debatable ground between dreams and waking thoughts. They are a sort of permanent dream in my mind . . . we cannot tell what we have dreamed from what we have actually experienced. "); January 15, 1857 ("What is there in music that it should so stir our deeps?"); November 30, 1858 ("I can only think of precious jewels, of music, poetry, beauty, and the mystery of life. "); August 27, 1859 ("All our life, i.e. the living part of it, is a persistent dreaming awake.");  November 12, 1859 ("I do not know how to distinguish between our waking life and a dream."); April 1, 1860 ("I occasionally awake in the night simply to let fall ripe a statement which I had never consciously considered before, and as surprising and novel and agreeable to me as anything can be. As if we only thought by sympathy with the universal mind, which thought while we were asleep.") and Walden (“Only that day dawns to which we are awake.”)

October 26. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 26 and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The seasons and all their changes are in me.

I knew I had been 

and might be again and 

my regret arose.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Infinite regret

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

Because the distance between each degree of latitude is approximately 69 miles.

December 2

As the stars, though spheres, present an outline of many little points of light to our eyes, like a flower of light, so I notice to-night the horns of the new moon appear split.

The skeleton which at first sight excites only a shudder in all mortals becomes at last not only a pure but suggestive and pleasing object to science. The more we know of it, the less we associate it with any goblin of our imaginations. The longer we keep it, the less likely it is that any such will come to claim it. We discover that the only spirit which haunts it is a universal intelligence which has created it in harmony with all nature.

Science never saw a ghost, nor does it look for any, but it sees everywhere the traces, and it is itself the agent, of a Universal Intelligence.

A communication to a newspaper, dated Bangor, 28th (November), says of the Penobscot :

“The navigation is closed here, the anchor ice with the surface ice making an obstruction of several feet thickness. There are enclosed in the ice from 60 to 80 vessels with full cargoes, besides the steamers. The ice obstruction extends about five miles," etc.

There is still no ice in the Concord River, or the skimming which forms along the shore in the night almost entirely disappears in the day. On the 30th I paddled on it in the afternoon, and there was not a particle of ice, and even in the morning my constantly wet hands were not cold.

The latitude of Lynn church is 42° 27' 51".

Calling Concord, at a venture, 42° 27', Bangor being 44° 47' 50', the difference equals about 2° 21'.

The length of a degree of latitude in Italy (43° 1') being, according to Boscovich and Lemaire's measurement, 68.998 English miles, call it in this case 69 miles, and the difference of latitude in miles between B. and C. is about 162 miles.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 2, 1853

I notice to-night the horns of the new moon appear split. See August 8, 1851 (“The moon has not yet quite filled her horns”); December 23, 1851 (“ I detect, just above the horizon, the narrowest imaginable white sickle of the new moon.”); July 20, 1852 ("The horns of the moon only three or four days old look very sharp , still cloud like , in the midst of a blue space , prepared to shine a brief half - hour before it sets . . . and, as it sinks in the west . . . the outline of the old moon in its arms is visible if you do not look directly at it.”)

Penobscot navigation is closed. See January 20, 1857 (" I hear that Boston Harbor froze over on the 18th, down to Fort Independence."); January 26, 1857 ("Saw  Boston Harbor frozen over (for some time). Reminded me of, I think, Parry's Winter Harbor, with vessels frozen in . . . [Ice did not finally go out till about Feb. 15th.] ")

 

There is still no ice in the Concord River. . . the skimming which forms along the shore in the night almost entirely disappears in the day. See December 2, 1852 ("Started in boat before 9 A.M. down river to Billerica . . .. I do not remember when I have taken a sail or a row on the river in December before. . . . The banks are white with frost. The air is calm, and the water smooth.") Compare November 30, 1855 ("River skimmed over . . . remained iced over all day."); November 30, 1858 ("The river may be said to have frozen generally last night."); December 4, 1856 ("Dark waves are chasing each other across the river . . . Smooth white reaches of ice, as long as the river, on each side are threatening to bridge over its dark-blue artery any night. They remind me of a trap that is set for it, which the frost will spring. "); December 5, 1853 ("The river frozen over thinly in most places and whitened with snow, which was sprinkled on it this noon"); December 5, 1856 ("The river is well skimmed over in most places . . . The ice trap was sprung last night")

The sad surprise of remembering our past lives

May 24 

Saturday. 

Our most glorious experiences are a kind of regret. Our regret is so sublime that we may mistake it for triumph. It is the painful, plaintively sad surprise of our Genius remembering our past lives and contemplating what is possible.

It is a regret so divine and inspiring, so genuine, based on so true and distinct a contrast, that it surpasses our proudest boasts and the fairest expectations. 

My most sacred and memorable life is commonly on awaking in the morning. I frequently awake with an atmosphere about me as if my unremembered dreams had been divine, as if my spirit had journeyed to its native place, and, in the act of reentering its native body, had diffused an elysian fragrance around. 

The Genius says: 

"Ah! That is what you were! That is what you may yet be!” 

It is glorious for us to be able to regret even such an existence. 

A sane and growing man revolutionizes every day. What institutions of man can survive a morning experience? 

A single night's sleep, if we have indeed slumbered and forgotten anything and grown in our sleep, puts them behind us like the river Lethe. It is no unusual thing for him to see the kingdoms of this world pass.

It is remarkable that men commonly never refer to, never hint at, any crowning experiences when the common laws of their being were unsettled and the divine and eternal laws prevailed in them. Their lives are not revolutionary; they never recognize any other than the local and temporal authorities.

H. D Thoreau, Journal, May 24, 1851

A kind of regret . . . the painful, plaintively sad surprise of our Genius remembering our past lives and contemplating what is possible. See  August 18, 1851 ("It plainly makes men sad to think. Hence pensiveness is akin to sadness"); October 26, 1851 ("I awoke this morning to infinite regret.");  August 18, 1856 ("I hear the steady (not intermittent) shrilling of apparently the alder cricket. . .It reminds me of past autumns and the lapse of time, suggests a pleasing, thoughtful melancholy, like the sound of the flail."): August 20, 1858 ( There is more shadow in the landscape than a week ago, methinks, and the creak of the cricket sounds cool and steady. The grass and foliage and landscape generally are of a more thought-inspiring color, suggest what some perchance would call a pleasing melancholy.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting

My most sacred and memorable life is commonly on awaking in the morning.  March 17, 1852 (“I am conscious of having, in my sleep, transcended the limits of the individual . . . There is a moment in the dawn . . . when we see things more truly than at any other time.”); November 23, 1852 ("I had a thought in a dream last night which surprised me by its strangeness, as if it were based on an experience in a previous state of existence, and could not be entertained by my waking self. Both the thought and the language were equally novel to me, but I at once perceived it to be true and to coincide with my experience in this state. );  Walden (“Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me.”); October 29, 1857 ("Such early morning thoughts as I speak of . . . are a sort of permanent dream in my mind . . . we cannot tell what we have dreamed from what we have actually experienced."); April 1, 1860 (“I am surprised that my affirmations or utterances come to me ready-made, - not fore-thought, - so that I occasionally awake in the night simply to let fall ripe a statement which I had never consciously considered before, and as surprising and novel and agreeable to me as anything can be. As if we only thought by sympathy with the universal mind, which thought while we were asleep”)

May 24. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 24 

The sad surprise of

remembering our past lives –

glorious regret.

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

Against the night.

There is a moment in the dawn

when your soul returns from a voyage

with the spark of your own life 

and you awake full of new experience.

There is a moment in the glare of the day 

when bent upon the work at hand 

you suddenly see from the side of your eye

that you are at one with the whole universe.

There is a moment in the twilight 

when the first star appears in the sky

and you do not know how much earlier

you might have seen it had you looked.

In these moments are the dawn, and noon,

and serene sunset in ourselves.

Zphx 20160601

With apologies to HDT:

March 17, 1852 ("As if in sleep our individual fell into the infinite mind, and at the moment of awakening we. . . take up our bodies and become limited mind again. . .There is a moment in the dawn, . . . when we see things more truly than at any other time.”); April 1, 1860 ("As if we only thought by sympathy with the universal mind, which thought while we were asleep. There is such a necessity to make a definite statement that our minds at length do it without our consciousness.”)

June 14, 1853.("Open to great impressions, ... you see those rare sights with the unconscious side of the eye, which you could not see by a direct gaze before."); November 18 1851 ("The man who is bent upon his work is frequently in the best attitude to observe what is irrelevant to his work."); April 12, 1854 ("It is when I have been intently, and it may be laboriously, at work . . . that the muse visits me, and I see or hear beauty. It is from out the shadow of my toil that I look into the light."); May 28, 1854 ("To be serene and successful we must be at one with the universe.")

July 20, 1852 ("We see the first star in the southwest, and know not how much earlier we might have seen it had we looked.")

July 3, 1840 ("We will have a dawn, and noon, and serene sunset in ourselves").

Against the night. See January 8, 1854 ("The morning hope is soon lost in what becomes the routine of the day, and we do not recover ourselves again until we land on the pensive shores of evening, shores which skirt the great western continent of the night")

There is a moment in the dawn

March 17

I catch myself philosophizing most abstractly when first returning to consciousness in the night or morning. I make the truest observations and distinctions then, when the will is yet wholly asleep and the mind works like a machine without friction.

I am conscious of having, in my sleep, transcended the limits of the individual, and made observations and carried on conversations which in my waking hours I can neither recall nor appreciate. As if in sleep our individual fell into the infinite mind, and at the moment of awakening we found ourselves on the confines of the latter. 

On awakening we resume our enterprise, take up our bodies and become limited mind again. We meet and converse with those bodies which we have previously animated.

March 17, 2022

There is a moment in the dawn, when the darkness of the night is dissipated and before the exhalations of the day commence to rise, when we see things more truly than at any other time.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 17, 1852

Infinite mind. See April 1, 1860 ("I occasionally awake in the night simply to let fall ripe a statement which I had never consciously considered before, and as surprising and novel and agreeable to me as anything can be. As if we only thought by sympathy with the universal mind, which thought while we were asleep . . .without our consciousness.”) ) May 24, 1851 ("My most sacred and memorable life is commonly on awaking in the morning. I frequently awake with an atmosphere about me as if my unremembered dreams had been divine, as if my spirit had journeyed to its native place, and, in the act of reentering its native body, had diffused an elysian fragrance around.”);  February 19, 1854  ("The mind of the universe . . .,which we share.")

There is a moment in the dawn . . . when we see things more truly.  See Walden (“Only that day dawns to which we are awake.”); Walden ("We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, by an infinite expectation of the dawn.”);  December 29, 1851 (" What a fine and measureless joy the gods grant us thus, letting us know nothing about the day that is to dawn ! This day, yesterday, was as incredible as any other miracle."); January 26, 1853 (“There are from time to time mornings, … when especially the world seems to begin anew . . . I look back for the era of this creation, not into the night, but to a dawn for which no man ever rose early enough.”); March 22, 1853 ("As soon as these spring mornings arrive in which the birds sing, I am sure to be an early riser.. . .expecting the dawn in so serene and joyful and expectant a mood.");  Walden (“To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks say . . . Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me.”) and A Week (Tuesday):

Ply the oars! away! away! 

In each dew-drop of the morning 

Lies the promise of a day. 

Rivers from the sunrise flow, 

Springing with the dewy morn; 

Voyageurs 'gainst time do row, 

Idle noon nor sunset know, 

Ever even with the dawn, 

March 17. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 17

After the darkness

that moment in the dawn when

we see more truly.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  There is a moment in the dawn

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 © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-520317

Night fruit

April 1.

The fruit a thinker bears is sentences, - statements or opinions. He seeks to affirm something as true.

I am surprised that my affirmations or utterances come to me ready-made, - not fore-thought, - so that I occasionally awake in the night simply to let fall ripe a statement which I had never consciously considered before, and as surprising and novel and agreeable to me as anything can be. As if we only thought by sympathy with the universal mind, which thought while we were asleep. 

There is such a necessity to make a definite statement that our minds at length do it without our consciousness.

This occurred to me last night, but I was so surprised by the fact which I have just endeavored to report that I have entirely forgotten what the particular observation was.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, April 1, 1860

As if we only thought by sympathy with the universal mind ... while we were asleep. See May 24, 1851 ("My most sacred and memorable life is commonly on awaking in the morning. I frequently awake with an atmosphere about me as if my unremembered dreams had been divine, as if my spirit had journeyed to its native place, and, in the act of reentering its native body, had diffused an elysian fragrance around.");  March 17, 1852 ("I make the truest observations and distinctions then, when the will is yet wholly asleep and the mind works like a machine without friction. I am conscious of having, in my sleep, transcended the limits of the individual, and made observations and carried on conversations which in my waking hours I can neither recall nor appreciate. As if in sleep our individual fell into the infinite mind . . . On awakening we resume our enterprise, take up our bodies and become limited mind again."); February 19, 1854  ("The mind of the universe . . . which we share."); October 29, 1857 ("Such early morning thoughts as I speak of . . . are a sort of permanent dream in my mind . . . we cannot tell what we have dreamed from what we have actually experienced."); See also  March 11, 1859 ("What we do best or most perfectly is what we have most thoroughly learned by the longest practice, and at length it falls from us without our notice, as a leaf from a tree. It is the last time we shall do it, — our unconscious leavings.")

Sentences, statements,

opinions. affirmations — 

fruit a thinker bears.

 Thoughts by sympathy

with the universal mind 

while we are asleep