Originally published 14 March 1988
The sap is rising, the ice is thawing, and next Sunday morning at 4:39 a.m. the sun will cross the celestial equator into northern skies. Meanwhile, the folks out in Concord are fighting again the never-ending battle of Walden Pond.
Certain admirers of Henry David Thoreau want to turn the 333-acre reservation into a restricted-access sanctuary, open to everyone, but only for the contemplation of nature. Others, apparently the majority, would retain the present status of the reservation as a multi-use recreational facility, including swimming, cross-country skiing, and fishing.
The battle of Walden Pond is merely a skirmish in a war that has long been waged in the American heart — between our enthusiasm for progress and our nostalgia for the wilderness. It is a conflict that has been well documented by historians and scholars. Perhaps no other nation on earth has been so emotionally torn between these two poles of the spirit. Thoreau himself was not entirely free of the dichotomy.
Whatever Thoreau was — and he was a complex, contradictory man — it is what he has become that is important. Thoreau and his pond are powerful symbols for that part of ourselves that wishes to live in tune with nature, unencumbered by the baggage of material civilization.
Don’t get me wrong. Few of us would turn our backs on civilization. Thoreau’s brother died of lockjaw after cutting the tip of his finger while stropping his razor, and I am confident that even the hermit of Concord would have willingly sacrificed the wildness of Walden Pond for access to tetanus antitoxin.
Civilization has its price
But technological civilization has its price in lost innocence and simplicity. “We need to see the honest and naked life here and there protruding,” wrote Thoreau, on the day of the spring equinox 130 years ago. And at no time of the year do we need a glimpse of the “honest and naked” more than now, at the turning point of the seasons. What follows are extracts from Thoreau’s journal for the week of March 14 – 20 in the year 1858:
March 14: “I have seen many more tracks of skunks within two or three weeks than all the winter before; as if they were partially dormant here in the winter, and came out very early.”
March 16: “A thick mist, spiriting away the snow. The fog is one of the first decidedly spring signs; also the withered grass bedewed by it and wetting my feet… I walk in muddy fields, hearing the tinkling of newborn rills.”
March 17: “[Walk] to the hill. The air is full of bluebirds. I hear them far and near on all sides of the hill, warbling in the tree-tops… Ah! there is the note of the first flicker, a prolonged, monotonous wick-wick-wick-wick-wick-wick, etc… This note really quickens what was dead. It seems to put a life into withered grass and leaves and bare twigs, and henceforth the days shall not be as they have been.”
March 18: “The rather warm but strong wind now roars in the wood — as in the maple swamp — with a novel sound. I doubt if the same is ever heard in winter. It apparently comes at this season, not only to dry the earth but to wake up the trees, as it were, as one would awake a sleeping man with a smart shake.”
March 19: “To Hill and Grackle Swamp… I see little swarms of those fuzzy gnats in the air… It is their wings which are most conspicuous, when they are in the sun… They people a portion of the otherwise vacant air.”
March 20: “We cross the Depot Field, which is fast becoming dry and hard. At Hubbard’s wall, how handsome the willow catkins! … Talk about a revival of religion! All Nature revives at this season… If a man do not revive with nature in the spring, how shall he revive when a white-collared priest prays for him?”
Rebirth, revival
Rebirth, waking up, revival — it’s a common theme in the writings of Thoreau. “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake,” he wrote, “not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.”
I drove out to Walden a week ago, in expectation of the awakening season and in need of a boost for my fading spirit. It was one of those grey, drizzly days so typical of the last weeks of winter, but it had the advantage that I met not a single soul in my circumnavigation of the pond.
On every side I saw signs of the Department of Environmental Management’s efforts to reverse the damage caused by the hundreds of thousands of visitors that come to Walden each year, some to play, some to honor the memory of Thoreau. I was impressed by the magnitude and sensitivity of the restoration program. Here was encouraging evidence of success in our ongoing battle to balance progress against wildness.
The beauty of the place, and a hint of spring in the air, gave my spirit the required lift. I observed no skunk tracks, heard no flickers, saw no sunlight glisten on the wings of gnats, touched no willow catkins. But just before I got into my car for the drive home along America’s Technology Highway, I heard — or imagined that I heard — the distant melodious call of the bluebird of happiness.
