Unity of Nature and the Mind. Referencing Emerson’s Nature Essay (1836)

CRITICAL and CREATIVE 

Week 4 Blog 1

Choose a sentence/s from Emerson’s essay “Nature” that really struck you as being accurate to your own experience of nature. Write a paragraph that captures an experience of nature of your own that supports what you understand to be Emerson’s vision of nature. 

Emerson highlights the importance and sacredness of a child’s innocence.

“The sun… shines into the eye and the heart of the child.”

He encourages how through returning to nature one can successfully seek and achieve “perpetual youth”. Thus, alleviating the burdens of societal expectations. Though uniting with nature, one can escape the relentless and unmerciful mental strain that metropolitan contexts necessitate.

This conscious space of innocence and respect for natural creation, however, I believe returns unintentionally when you grow old. When there is nothing more to worry about except imminent death, beauty is found in the smallest of things and the most seemingly insignificant of moments. This state of reflection inspires tranquillity, much like that prestigious appreciation a child has.

Arguably, the state of reflection for an individual awaiting their impending mortality, can be even more remarkable opposed to that of a child. Simply because an experienced individual can attain a more thorough understanding of how truly special and beautiful a moment, both past and present could be. By utilising the experiences already lived in life, it is easier to effectively and actively appreciate the beauty in all moments as it could be one of few remaining. A child whose whole life is still ahead of him, lacks this depth that is used to translate these moments into noumenal understandings.

My Nonno has dementia, and I’d like to think he cherishes these natural moments. He has always appreciated the beauty of nature. From migrating from Italy to Australia by boat in the 1920’s, he has seen exquisite displays of nature and culture in his life.

Emerson writes;

“Italians expressed by defining beauty “il piu nell’ uno.” Nothing is quite beautiful alone: nothing but is beautiful in the whole.”

This reinforces the importance of those moments and expresses the unity of nature and the mind. Whether in a melancholic or meditative state, one can find the connection they desire in or amongst nature.

I remember embarking on travel expeditions through my Nonno’s extensive garden when I was younger.

I’d climb through the loosely organised foliage, and dance through the brightly coloured roses, as they knelt down humbly one by one, and beckoned me to indulge in their sweet scent; I would dash through the side of the house where the sun didn’t reign, to quickly return to the safety of the glittering sapphire pool, which was surrounded by tomatoesandlemonsandbasilicoand more roses!

My Nonno continues to care for his now slightly unformed garden and still relishes in its beauty. This metaphorically reflects his interiority and depicts his slow transformation into dementia. He insists on watering the garden three times a day.

Maybe he has forgotten that he had already done it.

Or perhaps he is embarking on his own travel expedition? Perhaps he is imagining living in repose, amidst nature; in the mountainous valleys and vineyards in Abbruzi, channelling the innocent child he once was. Nevertheless, he is exercising his interiority and immersing himself in the natural haven, he once so beautifully decorated.