Becoming Elemental

Upper Michigan, July 2009, Photo by Martin Saunders

The mind moves naturally toward quietness as one enters and dwells in the wilderness. Sometimes it takes only an hour or so on the beach of Lake Superior, or sitting in a stream deep in the woods, before you find that you have returned to beginner’s mind.

Jay Parini, in his wonderful book, Promised Land: Thirteen Books That Changed America, points in the direction of “the church of the woods”:

Thoreau was no abstract philosopher, nor was he an original thinker. Instead, he sought what Emerson called “an original relation with the universe.” Emerson had shown him how to do this — not in church, but in the church of the woods, alone. This was quite revolutionary in itself. One did not hover over sacred texts, but simply went off into the natural world to make contact with the divine spirit.

The following photo essay by Martin Saunders captures the elemental quality of the natural world in a way that words alone fail to do:

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