Thoreau Farm

December comes, the dark month on the heels of November’s lightedness; it’s the month when we string trees with winking reminders, when we hang reflecting globes from branches, anything to shed or catch a little light. And as I walk out along the river or into the woods, I find myself wondering about all the life that’s gone to ground, that rests or sleeps as I walk by.

In Estabrook Woods, I pause along the trail that passes Stump Pond, and through the leafless trees, on its far side, I see the gray hump of the longstanding beaver lodge; I wonder if a next generation still lives there, and, if they do, what today’s like under that woody dome.

All of this puts me in mind of Donald Griffin, prominent 20th-century scientist and Lexington resident, who died a decade or so ago. One day, while ambling in these woods, I’d come across the unusual sight of a car backed down close to the edge of Stump Pond. I’d broken off from my path to have a look. There, rooting around in the back of his station wagon, I’d found an older man with clear eyes and a bristling brush cut of gray hair.

“I bet you wonder what I’m doing,” he said.
“Um, yes,” I answered. “I’ve never seen a car here.”
“Ah,” he said. “I’ve gotten too old to lug all my gear in here, so the school [Harvard University owns and manages the core of these woods as research field station] let’s me drive this far in for my research. I bet you want to know what that research is,” he said.
“Well, yes,” I answered.
“Take a look,” said Griffin, gesturing to the small screen of a compact laptop, and he pressed return. A small beaver appeared on the screen, and it was clear he was inside some woody structure. Before the beaver, there was a dark patch of water, and suddenly from it came a much larger beaver.
“That’s the mother,” said Griffin. “Now, watch this.” First, there was a moment of what seemed to be disagreement between the two beavers; then, without pause, the mother seized the little beaver with both forepaws, lifted him and ducked him under the water, holding him there for long seconds. When she lifted the small beaver out, he squalled and pawed the air in protest. Mother was having none of that and plunged her child back under water; I counted to ten and whispered,     “Whoa, how long’s she going to keep him under?”
“Pretty remarkable, eh?” said Griffin. “Must be some sort of training going on here.”

Griffin was an early crosser-of-scientific lines, venturing into the territory of animal consciousness when most of his stiff-minded peers saw such speculation as Science’s equivalent to literature’s pathetic fallacy, wherein supposedly pathetic writers see all sorts of evidence for human awareness in natural phenomena. Consciousness, the ability to think about your thought and life, to mull over its past and plan for its future, was, for most scientists, deemed an exclusively human province. “Perhaps not,” said Griffin, and here in his late 80s he was still filming and analyzing animals for deeper signs of this consciousness and so their nearer kinship with us.

“Kind of makes you think there’s a lot going on under that dome, don’t you think?” said Griffin, pointing to the gray humped mass of a beaver lodge across the pond.
“How’d you get those pictures?” I asked, and Griffin’s face wrinkled with a smile; he settled in to what seemed to be a favorite story. The vertical jut of what turned out to be a pole rose from the lodge, and Griffin told me that it was a pipe he’d inserted carefully into the lodge; down the pipe’s throat he’d slid an infrared camera, and, after a short period of acclimation, he’d noticed that the beavers paid the pipe and camera no attention. Here then, to Griffin’s knowledge, were the first unsullied, recorded actions of beavers inside their lodge; here was raw footage that might cast more light on his central question.

“Well, that sure looks like the mother’s thought out what she’s doing,” I said straightening from watching the screen and feeling my cooled muscles protest.

A few minutes later, I was on my way back to town and its knit of work and thought, but burred to me were Griffin’s images and story.

Today, as I walk along, whether the domes I see are heads or beaver lodges or simply bumps of earth, I’m guessing that even in dark December there is a lot going on inside. Memory’s mind is also a lodge into which we like to peer, looking for signs of its order and our intentions.

In late November, night’s grip on the sky eases early. But along the rivers and ponds, beneath their banks, cold darkness often holds on, and if you are of a mind to find it, skim ice spreads its first hands – sometimes you can see it form even while you linger, your back and high head in the sun, your feet in the still gloom. What is it about watching the world turn solid that transfixes us?

Here’s what Henry Thoreau thought one late fall day when the ice arrived: “The first ice is especially interesting and perfect, being hard, dark and transparent, and affords the best opportunity that ever offers for examining the bottom where it is shallow; for you can lie at your length on ice only an inch thick, like a skater insect on the surface of the water…” (Housewarming, Walden)

For me following Henry Thoreau’s fascination through these few pages of “Housewarming” is akin to returning to childhood. Then, I kept close eye on the nearby pond I walked by on my way to school. Rabbits Pond was an unremarkable scrap of water not far from the middle of town, but like all water it had also its romance – its few small fish in the summer, its hours of skating in the winter. And, like all water, it drew occasional visitors – ducks and geese passing through, the odd heron; once, story has it, the pond was even the scene into which an irate future movie star named Bogart pitched his dormitory supervisor from the nearby independent school.

When the coming winter’s ice first formed, we would gather beside the pond and begin our calculations – when would it bear us? When could we lace on our skates and glide over this new world? The thin blades of our skates would provide the final test, but as children impatient to cast off into this season, we had earlier ones. And here we mimicked Walden’s “child,” Henry Thoreau.

Though fond of food, I was among the slightest, and so, after some tossed rocks had skipped pingingly off the pond’s new surface, I would lie down on the shore with my hands outstretched on the ice. And like a seal pup I would begin to wiggle and paddle forward, feeling the ice flex, wondering wondering. Usually, it held. And a yard or so from shore I would lie there looking across the smooth expanse and its perfect glassiness. As the cold seeped up through my thin jacket, I would look down into the “parlor of the fishes” and wonder some more. Sometimes, when the light was right, I’d see another me looking up. A few days later, if all was right with the weather world, we would be skating and whooping over the pond.

First ice still brings back being a kid, still summons the excitement of the little worlds that will soon be open to you, even as others are sealed off for the winter.

We’ve not reached it yet, that moment that Henry Thoreau waited for, when the new ice will bear a body’s weight, just. Or at least we’ve not had the cold night that thickened the ice enough for me to risk a dousing with some majority of confidence. But I’m checking, and the week’s wintry forecast says that soon, I’ll be able to lie down at water’s edge and slide over its flexing skin for a yard or so. And then I’ll look down.

By Corinne H. Smith

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” ~ “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,” WALDEN

At the conclusion of our house tours, we encourage our visitors to consider how some of Thoreau’s philosophies apply to their lives. How have they chosen to live deliberately? How have they turned thought into action? If they wish, our guests can write their declarations on cards and tack them up on our bulletin board. Here are some of our favorite answers, gathered since we opened the Thoreau Farm Birthplace to the public in 2010.

~ By being thankful each morning when I wake up. I’m alive, well, and have all that I need.

~ I recycled an old, found sweater with new buttons, and I’m wearing it.

~ I make music with non-musicians from everyday objects.

~ I stop and look my children in their eyes when they talk to me — give them my whole attention.

~ I usually don’t do anything, which isn’t fun.

~ I changed professions from dentistry to human services with a large decrease in monetary remuneration. I devote much non-working time for working to change society: to a society based on production for human need, not profits, and to an end to social injustice.

~ I’m writing a script based on the life and teachings of Thoreau. I hope my work will inspire others to live their best lives, the way HDT did.

~ By conserving my usage of electricity, reducing waste, and reusing anything I can. Walking!

~ I try not to judge, but to understand. It’s hard work.

~ I give the cat a pat on the head.

~ By treasuring each moment of my day, of my life – even the most horrible ones! And by sharing this sense of “gift-moment” around me!

~ I am educating myself about where the food we eat comes from, and making choices about what I eat based on what I learn!

~ Ignore regulations. Respect the heart of Civil Disobedience, of love for the earth.

~ I gather local wild berries and other edible wild plants and mushrooms, and prepare and share them with family, friends, and other folks interested in connecting to nature via their taste buds.

~ We recycle. We grow some vegetables. We plant flowers. We recycle.

~ I try to live in the moment. Follow your bliss!

~ I enjoy being in a private place in nature. I think about the wonderful mixture of gases that I inhale and the biochemical processes of photosynthesis that produce our oxygen, food and water. As I exhale, I thank the plants by giving them the carbon dioxide that they need to live and to continue to extend life on our unique and beautiful planet.

~ I try to be a good caretaker of the little bits of history and life that are around me.

~ We haven’t had a TV for 35 years, haven’t eaten animal flesh for 35 years, and have been practicing vegan living of the interconnectedness of all life for 32 years and haven’t been to doctors in 35 years. Life is a celebration of loving kindness. We are all related!

~ By being thankful each morning when I wake up. I’m alive, well, and have all that I need.

We feel inspired by these examples provided by our new friends. What about YOU, blog readers? How have YOU chosen to live deliberately? Our online bulletin board awaits your input below.