Our consolation
New Hampshire’s Franconia Notch State Park, a place of refreshing solitude. May 2009
“Gladly do we quit the dust and din …to go and breathe peacefully in some far-off nook of the woods, all surprise that the brook is so limpid, the forest so still, the solitude so enchanting. Thank God there are yet these uninvaded corners…The realm of silence is vaster than the realm of noise. Herein is our consolation.”
— Charles Wagner
One year ago I quoted a different passage from this same work by Wagner, noting the irony that his words were penned over 100 years ago, before the onslaught of electronic stimulation we face today. The need for quiet places to find solace in nature seems a timeless and universal trait of humans.
Today, I hope you will grab your planner and prioritize a time this afternoon, this week or this month to step outside your routine obligations and bask in the enchanting solitude Wagner describes. It may not be urgent, but it has always been important.
One year ago today:
This post was first published seven years ago today. The original post, comments and photo are linked, along with two other related posts, below. These links to related posts, and their thumbnail photos, do not appear in the blog feed; they are only visible when viewing the individual posts by clicking on each one. I have no idea why, nor do I know how they choose the related posts. That’s just the way WordPress does things.
- Posted in: Uncategorized
- Tagged: calm, contemplation, forests, meditation, nature, peace, quiet, reflection, solace, Solitude, streams
Defeat Despair 