Darkness and light

We went out for a walk at 6:00 a.m. this morning in Dublin.  It was pitch black and the thermometer read 2F.  We’ve had record snowfalls and the road is narrow and the snowbanks high.  The occasional vehicle was simple a pair of headlights and a rush of air.  The two mile uphill segment was icy, Barbara held my arm the whole way.  When we turned the sky and clouds in the east were beginning to fluoresce in shades of pink, salmon, and scarlet, that grew more intense as we walked south to the house.  Barbara said, still holding my arm, that the sky was almost scary.  I took a quick pic to IM to John in Manhattan, and said a quick gratitude prayer.

Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne and the whole Concord group focused on nature and the transcendent while other compatriots were perceiving nature as “wilderness” that needed to be subdued..  Thoreau came up here from Concord and spent some time on Mt. Monadnock.  The European Romantics perceived the same thing and contributed to the separation of the transcendent from God.  Earlier the forests, mountains and wilderness places of Europe had been perceived as haunts of spirits and gods.

It does make a difference whether its “merely” transcendence or whether transcendence is the finger pointing to the moon.  Whatever the case I’m fortunate to experience the powerful transition from utter darkness through sunrise to the light.