Background: Session One
Why Emerson? An overview of what we personally have in common with Transcendentalism. Lyle will also present a "Glossary of Emersonian Terms".Session Summary
Paul (Arthur Paul Patterson) introduced the course as one that will change our perception and understanding of the poetic thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson, at whatever stage we begin. Each individual will have a different outlook at the end of the course than now at the start. So it is good to reflect a little on how we come in. As we will discover, he said Emerson has a lot in common with Watershed history and vision. For instance, in Emerson (and the Transcendentalists) we find a lack of creed, a lack of organizational structure, a movement away from organized religion, and even a failed publication (eg. "The Dial" vs. the late "Watershed Journal"). In their place is a distinctive seeking, a trusting in the real beyond the appearances that is inspiring and confidence-building. Paul said one of the central themes of Emerson is that "life is worth living", thus he reads him when he needs some incentive.It was also emphasized that while studying Emerson we will notice inconsistencies that need not be troubling. They suggest an evolution and development of his thought as he moved through his life, just as we find in our own. There are "different" Emersons (eg., a "Spring" Emerson, "Summer" Emerson, "Fall" Emerson and a "Winter" Emerson) which we will learn to compare and evaluate.
After a few initial sessions on Emerson's biographical and philosophical background, the majority of the course will feature individuals in the group giving presentations on selected essays of Emerson. Creativity in presentation is encouraged including dramatic, artistic or musical elements. The keys are: to summarize Emerson's essential argument as we understand it; to contextualize Emerson's central theme in our life; and to state what we affirm and reject from our personal perspective.
Personally, Paul says Emerson fits his personality more than any thinker he has studied. For example, Carl Jung, however wise, was more into scientific jargon and into impressing his professional colleagues than the more humble Waldo (Emerson's preferred name). Paul says he can also relate closely to Emerson's vision because he shares with him a basic Christian ethos that underlies all he did and said.
Historically, Paul came to be interested in Emerson through a bizarre "past life regression" episode he experienced while visiting an old family friend about five years ago. For a few brief moments his imagination was filled with vivid images that included the sounds of horses' hooves, a man watching loved ones die, a stormy ocean voyage, an older man upstairs studying at a desk with a quill pen with the letters "RWE" etched in the wood. Later it was pointed out to him that RWE probably stood for Ralph Waldo Emerson.
He has since read and written extensively on Emerson, and taught a tutorial with Lyle on uncovering the meaning of what "RWE" is about. He said he has come across many personal parallels to Emerson's life. These include both finding disappointment in one's mentors and travels, both experiencing dis-ease with their initial vocation as Christian ministers, both becoming empowered to change life courses through a vision of romantic love, both leaving the conventional ministry in order to write and teach in an independent setting, both loving the essay writing form, and perhaps most importantly, both developing a personal vision of love and learning based on grace in the invisible world. (Oh yeah, there is the oddest syncronicistic experience of Paul's cat, Coal, typing the word "Emerson" with his paws at the computer last winter!)
Others talked about their interest in Emerson so far. Cal noted that he appreciated and relates to Emerson's spiritual outlook on life that is disconnected from church. Lyle said that he is inspired by Emerson's words to think more expansively and contemplatively.
The group skimmed a compiled list of Emersonian terms and probably meanings printed for the course.
Janice initiated discussion on Emerson's meaning of the term "existence" which a scholar (Geldard) interprets as "the soul's need for an organ in nature". We talked about how Emerson is refering to the Platonic ideal that the Universal "Soul" decides what is to become in existence and that what we are is the partial embodiment of that Soul response. Paul said this a way of saying "As above, so below" that mystics have talked about for centuries.
We briefly reflected on the unprovable but enlightening notion that, according to Emerson, justice is an instantaneous transaction that occurs in Nature (beyond the physical realm) often without our awareness. What then will our desire for revenge be turned into?
We discussed the weird notion that inspiring ideas are really not our possession nor do they come from "us", although we often think that they do. Often, though, these ideas we gain by intuition are the only ones that really work in our lives. These are our "wow" moments. This is perhaps why Emerson says "Reality" is an elusive realm which we can only enter into through human consciousness. Silence and art and poetry seem like the best forms for expressing the unexpressible, that which IS. Emerson writes: "There lies the unspoken thing, present, omnipresent. Every time we converse, we seek to translate it into speech, but whether we hit or whether we miss, we have the fact".
We seemed to all relate in some way to Emerson's "paradox of Human Experience". He writes: "Our moods do not believe in each other. Today I am full of thoughts and can write what I please. I see no reason why I should not have the same thought, the same power of expression tomorrow. What I write, whilst I write it, seems the most natural thing in the world; but yesterday I saw a dreary vacuity in this direction in which now I see so much; and a month hence, I doubt not, I shall wonder who he was that wrote so many continuous pages. Alas for this infirm faith, this will not strenuous, this vast ebb of a vast flow! I am God in nature; I am a weed by the wall."
We ended our first session by discussing Emerson's aversion to linear logic and clear structure in his writing. It has been said that Emerson's very quotable sentences tend to overpower his paragraphs. Does his writing, then, express bad form that obscures his point to make? Or does it in poetic fashion bring the medium into the message, that we live in a circle encompassed by ever larger Circles? A simple logical structure just won't do. Stay tuned...
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