Earth Day falls on April 22 each year and was established back in 1970 to celebrate mother earth in all its glory.
April 22nd was picked because it is the birthday of John Muir, the American conservationist who used his influence to create protection for our national parks.
Some have credited John Muir with saving the American soul from total surrender to materialism.
Muir was a friend to Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American poet best known for his transcendental belief in the healing power of nature.
This year Long Island had an Earth Day festival at Bailey’s Arboretum in Lattingtown and I was lucky enough to attend. Dan Kriesberg, a science teacher from Friend’s Academy, took a large group of us on a walking tour through the 40-plus acres of woods, rolling hills, ponds and gardens of the Bailey Estate and Arboretum.
I was there on my secret mission to find some transcendence in the woods.
I arrived late for the tour and was anxious and worried that I would miss something. I rushed up, armed with pen, pad and camera as Mr. Kriesberg was talking about animal life at the arboretum.
He stood before a large table showing a collection of skulls of local wild life including a deer, fox, rabbit and even the shell of a box turtle.
At this point I took up my position in the back of the pack and spent the tour wandering along the trail and looking at all the different trees including sugar maples, large-leaved Linden’s, red maples, junipers, Oriental spruce, Easter hemlock, Flowering quince, Eastern white pine, flowering dogwood, magnolias, and Japanese Skimmia.
I caught up to the pack when they stopped at a foot of a large Dawn Redwood imported from Szechuan, China.
I recalled seeing these kinds of trees when I visited Muir Woods many years ago.
I continued taking photos and before you know it the tour was over and I had not found any transcendence that I was aware of.
I was mildly disappointed in this but still had a pleasant time strolling through the woods.
On the drive back to my office in Williston Park I thought of the poem by Joyce Kilmer which started
“I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest,
Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast.
A tree that looks at God all day;
And lifts her leafy arms to pray.”
Granted that was one sweet poem but I still felt I was missing the grand point of both Earth Day and the Bailey Arboretum. When I feel lost like this I turn to the one good thing the internet has to offer….. Wikipedia. It was there I found the Emerson essay called Nature. Emerson talked about how nature contains a perpetual presence of the sublime and how it wears the colors of the spirit.
“Nature wears the colors of the spirit.” I like that line. When I drive my car in the evening I’m always comparing the color, tone and shading of the moon to the flat, harsh and painful color of traffic lights or street lights.
Almost everything that is manmade has a nasty and plain even monotone look. But the colors of nature are more interesting and I think they do have some kind of spirituality to them. I was given some orchids which are now in my office which are purple and pink with a bright yellow on the inside. I think this is what Emerson meant when he said nature wears the colors of the spirit.
I also like the strange unpredictability of trees. The branches go every which way and seem to fit together nicely. Compare that to the form of any building or home you look at. Buildings always look very predictable and boring. I don’t think I ever saw a boring tree.
I am not sure that I discovered any transcendence at the Bailey Arboretum but I am glad they gave me a chance to hunt for it. And I am glad that it got me to discover Ralph Waldo Emerson who is now another American poet I will have the pleasure of reading and learning from.
So thank you Frank Bailey, thank you Dan Kriesberg and thank you John Muir for your love of sublime in nature.
What I learned is that the only way one can enjoy something in a special or transcendent way is to arm yourself with knowledge before you go. This is where the writers and the poets come into play.
The transcendental movement took place in the early part of the 19th century and included guys like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau (“Walden Pond”) and Walt Whitman (“Leaves of Grass.”)
These poets all liked nature and solitude and quietness. I suspect it was inevitable that the movement would die out and make room for commercialism and materialism and the law of acceleration as the favored American philosophy.
Give me Walden Pond every time. It appears to be far more profitable to spend ones time meditating upon on the colors and form of trees then it is to meditate upon the colors and form of your new car.
That is unless you own a vintage Alpha Romeo.
Short of owning an Alpha Romeo I suggest sticking to nature. You will enjoy it more and who knows you may even find some transcendence as you do so.
