I was in Bedford, MA for work recently and it turned out that Walden Pond was just 7 miles away. Our team was able to get away after the course finished one evening and had a lovely time visiting Walden Pond.

I had been to Walden Pond once before, almost 6 years ago to the day: 06.26.12 and had put up a blog about that visit.

This time it was getting near dusk and the light was beautiful on the pond and through the trees.

There was cloud iridescence over the pond.

We walked back along the pond trail to the site of Thoreau’s original cabin. There is a long-standing tradition of putting stones near the original site of the cabin.

I had purchased Henry David Thoreau: A Life by Laura Dassow Walls and read a little bit of it sitting by the cabin.

Here are a few quotes from that book:

“Everyone who comes to Thoreau has a story.”

“By the time Thoreau built his house on Walden Pond at the edge of town, he had come of age among a circle of radical intellectuals called ‘Transcendentalists,’ for their belief in higher ideas that ‘transcended’ daily life.”

“Moving to Walden Pond thus had a double purpose: it offered a writer’s retreat, where Thoreau could follow his calling as a spiritual seeker, philosopher, and poet; and it offered a public stage on which he could dramatize his one-person revolution in consciousness, making his protest a form of performance art.”

“In writing Walden, Thoreau encouraged his readers to try the experiment of life for themselves, rather than inheriting its terms from others – including himself.” (Walls, xi-xiii)

[I will pick up the thread of the recent trip to UK and Iceland soon in another blog…]