Eager to Report

January 1, 2010

Happy New Year everyone !

Yes it's a day for those high-flying resolutions, and even someone as disciplined as our friend Henry Thoreau could come up with a list of them.

I guess there's always room for self-improvement !

These are from his Journal; though written on a March evening, they will do nicely on a day like today, when we are all pondering our hopes, prayers and dreams for the coming year.

The air is as deep as our natures.

Is the drawing in of this vital air attended with no more glorious results than I witness?

The air is a velvet cushion against which I press my ear.

I go forth to make new demands on life.

I wish to begin this summer well;
to do something in it worthy of it and of me;
to transcend my daily routine and that of my townsmen;
to have my immortality now,
that it be in the quality of my daily life;
to pay the greatest price, the greatest tax, of any man in Concord,
and enjoy the most!!
I will give all I am for my nobility.
I will pay all my days for my success.
I pray that the life of this spring and summer may lie fair in my memory.
May I dare as I have never done!
May I persevere as I have never done!
May I purify myself anew as with fire and water, soul and body!
May my melody not be wanting to the season!
May I gird myself to be a hunter of the beautiful, that naught escape me!
May I attain to a youth never attained!
I am eager to report the glory of the universe;
may I be worthy to do it ...