Meditations of Henry David Thoreau: A Light in the Woods

Chris Highland is an interspiritual chaplain, author, songwriter and poet. He completed his undergraduate studies in religion and philosophy in Seattle, Washington, before settling in the San Francisco Bay Area to complete his Masters degree. A passionate saunterer, he enjoys an intimate relation with Nature in forests, mountains and waterfalls. An avowed heretic (“one who seeks new paths”), Chris’ writing reflects his exploration of the edges of human society and his playful search for what Emerson called “high, clear and spiritual conversation,” to be had by each and every one of us as “beggars on the highway.” Chris is the author of “Meditations of John Muir: Nature’s Temple,” “Meditations of Henry David Thoreau: A Light in the Woods,” and “Meditations of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Into the Green Future,” all from Wilderness Press.

Silence

As we looked up in silence to those distant lights, we were reminded that it was a rare imagination which first taught that the stars are worlds, and had conferred a great benefit on mankind. It is recorded in the Chronicle of Bernaldez that in Columbus’ first voyage the natives “pointed towards the heavens, making signs that they believed that there was all power and holiness.” We have reason to be grateful for celestial phenomena, for they chiefly answer to the ideal in man. The stars are distant and unobtrusive, but bright and enduring as our fairest and most memorable experiences. “Let the immortal depth of your soul lead you, but earnestly extend your eyes upwards.”

As the truest society approaches always nearer to solitude, so the most excellent speech finally falls into Silence. Silence is audible to all men at all times, and in all places. She is when we hear inwardly, sound when we hear outwardly. Creation has not displaced her, but is her visible framework and foil. All sounds are her servants, and purveyors, proclaiming not only that their mistress is, but is a rare mistress, and earnestly to be sought after. They are so far akin to Silence that they are but bubbles on her surface, which straightway burst, and evidence of the strength and prolificness of the undercurrent; a faint utterance of Silence, and then only agreeable to our auditory nerves when they contrast themselves with and relieve the former. In proportion as they do this, and are heighteners and intensifiers of the Silence, they are harmony and purest melody.

Silence is the universal refuge. . . .

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“ There was little conversation, for an impressive scene overawed speech.”
~Mark Twain
Hawaii