The Beauty of Nature

The Beauty of Nature

Ah, nature. It’s beautiful isn’t it? Birds, trees, clouds, grass. So much to see. So much to write about.

Emerson’s “The Poet,” reinforces what I had already known about Romanticism. Wander out in nature and find not only yourself but a bond and connection to a deeper meaning and spiritual reality. Break away from the conventions of society, break down those barriers and constraints of form. Be your own person. In the woods. In a tree. By a lake.

I’m reminded of the movie Dead Poet’s Society, where Robin Williams plays a young English teacher of poetry who changes his class of adolescent boys in blooming transcendentalists. The boys sneak off into the woods to a cave where they are one with nature and they read and write poetry. They break free from the constricting norms of the preparatory school and find not only an autonomy of their souls but a deeper connection with a spiritual reality bigger than themselves.

The movie, and Emerson’s “The Poet,” says that we can all be transcendentalist romantics. We can all be poets. It’s there inside of us. We all have the capabilities of going and observing nature and connecting with a higher reality other than ourselves and our society. We are all observers. We have been gifted with sight, we have the ability to see all that our world provides to us. The trick is if we choose to see. If we choose to observe. If we choose to be poets. We all have it in us- it’s just if we actually do it. And not all of us will. We can’t all be poets. Just a fact of life. So the select few- the select few who choose to see the world like others choose not to- are special. They dig deeper and think harder than others. Are they more human because they are poets? I don’t know about “more human” but I think they are more in tune with what it means to be human. They are more in tune with the body the mind and the soul.

Ah, the beauty of nature and its effect on the human species…