{"id":363,"date":"2011-07-15T09:31:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-15T09:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/b7d00444-8f51-49a1-a474-e56ef7da9d75"},"modified":"2011-07-15T09:31:00","modified_gmt":"2011-07-15T09:31:00","slug":"ralph-waldo-emerson-americas-mystic-and-the-new-curriculum-for-teenagers-of-all-ages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/?p=363","title":{"rendered":"Ralph Waldo Emerson–America’s Mystic, and the New Curriculum for Teenagers of All Ages"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\u201cLife is a series of surprises.\u201d–Emerson<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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I propose we throw out all the text books in all of our nation\u2019s high schools and make Ralph Waldo Emerson\u2019s essays required reading (alongside the poetry of Mary Oliver).  Have every student create a story or play, a song or a dance, or a mural based on their understanding of one of Emerson\u2019s essays.  Have them write their own essays and speeches modeled after Emerson\u2019s.  Not only would the drug and crime rates drop in our country, but the country would blossom in unimaginably beautiful ways when our young people are infused with such depth and breadth of wisdom as Emerson\u2019s words contain.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

One essay I would have every high schooler read would be the one entitled, \u201cCircles.\u201d It is challenging and inspiring, moving and frightening, poetic and profoundly wise.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

It begins: <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end.\u201d<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

In this masterful essay Emerson uses the form of circles to describe the nature of human progress, and the course of our conversations.  He uses the image of circles to describe relationship between friends.  He uses the circle to describe our religious longings and leanings. He employs the image of ever widening ripples to challenge our experience of permanence and the efficacy of our ideas.  He uses the circle to describe the growth of a person\u2019s life.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe life of man is a self-evolving circle, which, from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides outward to new and larger circles and that without end.\u201d<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

We find even the poets (whom Emerson both values and writes as) use this image.  Here\u2019s Rilke translated by Robert Bly:<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


                        I live my life in growing orbits
                        which move out over the things of the world.
                        Perhaps I can never achieve the last,
                        but that will be my attempt.<\/p>\n

                        I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,
                        and I have been circling for a thousand years,
                        and I still don\u2019t know if I am a falcon, or a storm,
                        or a great song.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

                        <\/span>–Rilke<\/span> <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

In his essay Emerson also prefigures what we call today the Law of Attraction when he says:<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 \u201cLike draws to like; and\u2026the goods which belong to you, gravitate to you, and need not be pursued with pains and cost.\u201d<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover Emerson tells us the only reason we are aware of this movement of circles in our lives is because we have \u201csome principle of fixture of stability in the soul.  While the eternal generation of circles proceeds, the eternal generator abides.\u201d<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

And to me, that \u201ceternal generator\u201d of new horizons is our Heart\u2019s Desire as spoken by God into our very souls–it is the fixed point from which we move.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

But following our dreams can be difficult.  We will need to change and to rise up from where we are presently.  We must accept that life changes, that life is indeed cyclical in nature:<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThus there is no sleep, no pause, no preservation, but all things renew, germinate, and spring.\u201d<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Emerson encourages us to challenge the idea that we even need to grow old\u2014spiritually, that is.  He says we should, \u201cgrow young.\u201d  For it is the state of infancy Emerson suggests that is \u201creceptive, aspiring, with religious eye looking upward\u2026and that abandons itself to the instruction flowing from all sides.\u201d  <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

And how do we become like little children?  What do we seek in this life full of circles?  Emerson puts the answer this way:<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe one thing which we seek with insatiable desire, is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose out sempiternal [eternal, unchanging] memory, and to do something without knowing how or why; in short, to draw a new circle.\u201d<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

And if you ever watch a young child drawing, one of the first things they ever scribble, perhaps the very first\u2014are circles\u2014in the sand, on the wall, with finger paint, on paper\u2014young children adore drawing circles.  We must regain this innocence and ability to create.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

To do this Emerson says we need enthusiasm.  For \u201cnothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.\u201d  When we are following our dreams, pursuing and dancing with our dreams right to the utmost horizons we are driven by passion and enthusiasm.  For, \u201cthe way of life is wonderful\u2026it is abandonment.\u201d  We must abandon ourselves to our dreams, to the drawing of new circles\u2014which is exactly the way a child draws.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

But there is a warning.  There is one thing Emerson says that can be almost as intoxicating as following our dreams, something that if we become ensnared in it, our dreams can easily die.  Something teenagers need to be truly educated in–in terms of the consequences and horriffic effects it causes. What is it he refers to?  Addiction.  In particular he mentions opium and alcohol, but we could add all the myriad of addictions that were not officially named in Emerson\u2019s time, but that our young people are subject to.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The point is addictions \u201cape in some manner the flames and generosities of the heart.\u201d They allure us with promises, counterfeit promises that once we touch them they dissolve in our hands, but as they do so they cast a spell which makes the addict crave more promises\u2014the next one will be different.  <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Emerson actually ends his beautiful meditation with the somber, frightening warning to steer away from the drugs that make our passions \u201cwild.\u201d  <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

But luckily, if we are astute readers, he gives the cure earlier in his essay:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key to every man,\u201d he says, \u201cis his thought.\u201d  We all have an inner helm \u201cwhich we obey.\u201d  And we can only be reformed by being shown \u201ca new idea which commands his own.\u201d  For the heart \u201crefuses to be imprisoned.\u201d  Eventually, (if the addict survives) the pain gets bad enough in his mind, in his body, or his soul , and he seeks a new thought, a new way of living, and is brought back from the gates of hell into the land of surprises, the land of the living, the land where dreams come true\u2014and his heart is set free.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cLife is a series of surprises.\u201d–Emerson   I propose we throw out all the text books in all of our nation\u2019s high schools and make Ralph Waldo Emerson\u2019s essays required reading (alongside the poetry of Mary Oliver).  Have every student create a story or play, a song or a dance, or a mural based on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}