Ralph Emerson, Willie Cronan and the bliss of Sumblimation

Hello gang,

I feel it quite necessary to weave all reading this blog, a minute yarn about my endeavor that I had with nature the other day.

I was somewhere on Court St. when I stumbled upon a hill that was decorated on both sides with trees that we dressed in their fall attire, which immediately made me think about the passing of time (something that I mentioned on the first day of class). I couldn't help but also take the time to listen to the light breeze blowing in between the trees as I was prompted to look up and see the clouds above, threatening a rainstorm of sorts. On this semi-abandoned street I even managed to see a racoon scamper across someone's driveway and rush headlong to a place where human technologies (such as cars, bicycles, etc.) could not reach it.

This racoon darting away got me thinking a bit about William Cronan's essay about how our perceptions of nature are all wrong and misguided to begin with. He states on page 69 that "American wilderness stands as the last remaining place where civilization , that all too human disease, has not fully infected the earth." Seems like an incredibly harsh thing to say, but it also made me ponder if it was true or not. Maybe that was why the raccoon ran away from the quiet little street that I found myself on. Perhaps the raccoon was able to recognize a certain blight that I myself or the everybody else is unaware of.

Normally when I go into nature, I like to take in the sights, the trees, the humidity, the chill autumn air or the animals that surprise me every now and again. In other words, I tend to regard nature in the eye of the sublime (another idea that Cronan talks of). My walk was pleasant and I enjoyed taking in the sweet sights and sounds that are apart from the things I normally hear in a classroom or college campus in general (also as a random sidenote, don't you think it's fascinating that college campuses go out of their way to try to make the grass, flowers, trees, etc, look as appealing as possible for newcomers?).

Though I may be victim to the notion of sublimating nature, I really like the main point that Cronan makes about nature at the end of his essay when he states that, "It means never imagining that we can flee into a mythical wilderness to escape history and the obligation to take responsibility for our own actions that history inescapably entails." (90). This point brings me back to the whole idea of how we manipulate nature to our liking (like with the college campus example I gave). Why do we decorate college campuses the way we do? What exactly are college kids running away from? Is there an innate history in which we are all running from or is it only found in certain people? And what exactly was the raccoon running away from? It's past?

I guess I found his concepts of wilderness vs. history and escape the most compelling because I myself never thought that I was personally escaping anything. I walk all the time so the nature walk wasn't really anything I considered out of the ordinary.

Emerson's ideals were also similar to that of Cronan, except that his writings WERE INCREDIBLY HARD TO FOLLOW...at times that is.

However, amongst his unrelenting rant, the most fascinating part about it was how he talked about language and how it is prove that we as humans are naturally imbued with the gifts of nature. On pages thirteen and fourteen he states that, "Right means straight; wrong means twisted; primarily means Spirit means wind... An enraged man is a lion, a cunning man is a fox, a firm man is a rock,a learned man is a torch."

Now I've always been aware of the certain comparisons between man and beast, but never really noticed the parallels of natural symmetry with the formation of language. This newly cemented concept is something that I wish to take with me and make note of on the next nature walk that I take, because I'm curious to see if I can gather a sense of nature on a communicative level. It seems like Emerson managed to in someways so maybe I can as well.

All in all, I preferred Cronan over Emerson because he was more clear and concise and also, because of his clear division between that of the sublime and that of the frontiersmen.

Very fascinating indeed.