I become a transparent eyeball

while i still struggle to find time to write the 100s of things running in my head, in the midst of maddening chaos around me i am glad i stumbled upon this, wondered why i hadn't found this before, was i meant to find this now....days in my life when i am stretched beyond what i ever thought was possible... i wud never know..but what i do know is that for an immediate moment, reading this did give me a break from the madness, it did give me a feeling of perfect bliss. a moment of exhilaration.


I Become a Transparent Eyeball
from “Nature”
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
Collected Essays, Penguin USA, New York NY, 1982

Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky,
without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune,
I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration.
I am glad to the brink of fear.
In the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough,
and at what period soever1 of life is always a child.
In the woods is perpetual youth.
Within these plantations of God, a decorum2 and sanctity reign,
a perennial festival is dressed,
and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years.
In the wood, we return to reason and faith.
There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, -
no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair.
Standing on the bare ground,-
my head bathed by the blithe3 air and uplifted into infinite space,-
all mean egotism vanishes.
I become a transparent eyeball;
I am nothing;
I see all;
the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me;
I am part or parcel of God.
The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental:
to be brothers, to be acquaintances, master or servant,
is then a trifle and a disturbance.
I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty.
In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate4 than in streets or villages.
In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon,
man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.


Glossary:
1 – soever: whatsoever
2 – decorum: dignity
3 – blithe: a happy, light-hearted feeling
4 – connate: congenial; agreeing in nature