Getting Psyched For Spring!

Spring is just around the corner. I know you say, "But Diane today we are having a huge blizzard!" Well, I choose to disregard this weather and think Spring!

Today I was reminded of a notable author, whose writing on the human condition, nature and anarchy against big government were prolific. Henry David Thoreau, was from Concord, Massachusetts, the son of a pencil factory entrepreneur. He studied at Harvard, and refused to pay the five dollar fee for his graduation diploma. The diploma was written on sheep skin, and Thoreau commented that he was saving the poor sheep. His friends were fellow writers, such as Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Nathaniel Hawthorne's son Julian. He strongly opposed slavery, and often spoke out against it. Thoreau was a man of high moral principles, yet remained an admirable individualist.

His love of nature, and the lovely area of Massachusetts that he called home inspired much of his writing. While spending a great deal of time in the woods of Maine in search of primeval America, he learned that a balance between the two; wilderness, and civilization was the most appropriate way for man to live his life.

Today there is a group founded with the purpose of preserving his writing, and educating those who are interested in learning more about this one of a kind human being. Here is a link to The Henry David Thoreau Society:

http://www.thoreausociety.org/

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." Henry David Thoreau from Walden.

It is now the twenty-fifth day of February, with Spring just around the corner, and I am reading Thoreau, and his words of wisdom are psyching me up for a Spring that will be the new beginning of a more active and fulfilling life. I look forward to once again getting out there, amongst the squirrels, chipmunks, and bunnies enjoying the beauty of nature while listening to the cheerful song of the birds as they move lightly and swiftly, darting from tree to tree in my own little piece of the world that I call neighborhood.

"We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake . . . by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor." Henry David Thoreau from Walden.