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adyashanti
May 2009 
Captaining huckleberry parties.
Posted on Apr 22nd, 2009
by 
Michael
Michael
In Walking, Thoreau said, "In wildness is the preservation of the world," yet when he submitted his talk, the publisher re-wrote it as "In wildneress is the preservation of the world," as if it were a misspelling, which is was not.
Emerson eulogized Thoreau for lacking ambition: "Wanting this, instead of engineering for all America, he was the captain of a huckleberry party." Thoreau had taken their shared literature and explored it, while Emerson studied it. After that, he could never understand Thoreau, because he himself had never woken up.
During the sixties, on Beacon Hill in Boston, I used to lead Adventures. Often in the middle of the night. I would take peopleon tours into adventure. Most popular was Visiting The Old Witch. I would swear she was three hundred years old. That they could ask her when we got there. That they could sit in their lap. And anyone that had already been on that adventure would nod their head reverently. The later and darker it was the better. I would lead a little tour, up over the cobblestones, up, up to the State House shining it it's glory, a copy of the Federal Capitol. Then in the quiet, I'd lead them into the bushes, behind a certain tree, and there, right up against the building, was the bronze statue of Mary Dyer. I would tell her story speaking slowly quietly, looking into her eyes. Murdered for witchcraft, unappreciated adventuring perhaps, captaining huckleberry parties Not everyone climbed to sit in her lap.
No, Emerson never "got it." He never got that if Thoreau had stayed back in the rough like Emerson, he'd never have allowed Emerson to speak over his grave. But Thoreau never minded, his hucklberry party was in the wings, ready for another adventure.
Emerson eulogized Thoreau for lacking ambition: "Wanting this, instead of engineering for all America, he was the captain of a huckleberry party." Thoreau had taken their shared literature and explored it, while Emerson studied it. After that, he could never understand Thoreau, because he himself had never woken up.
During the sixties, on Beacon Hill in Boston, I used to lead Adventures. Often in the middle of the night. I would take people
No, Emerson never "got it." He never got that if Thoreau had stayed back in the rough like Emerson, he'd never have allowed Emerson to speak over his grave. But Thoreau never minded, his hucklberry party was in the wings, ready for another adventure.
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Looking at what I wrote, I see that like Thoreau, I did not proceed and make anything of my captaing no more than Thoreau.
Wait. So ok I see more. Thoreau. So THAT's why I like Thoreau so much, I identify with him! Not just in what I already knew, but he too was unappreciated in the Work he did. In captaining huckleberry jaunts, usually with children, he understood of course how others would think them “unproductive.” He totally got understood that he valued fun while they did not to the same degree. For Thoreau, keeping the sense of childhood was a thing to live, not theory.
Wait. So. It's about that work we have done was unappreciated. He took pains to do good work, and people did not respond. He had to do it on faith. When his faith ran out, his Journals became not hisw place to work (write and edit) but mere technical nature observations. Time and place of spring flowering, like that.
For many years he went back to the worldly, with no expectations and little production. People had encouraged him only in private messages. Not enough. Not like he encouraged. He was already a big cheerleader for others.
Then he got sicker and had to stay in bed. With others encrouragment, he worked on editing his old work/journals on his deathbed. But even that work was left with others, and only in 1906 resurrected. Fifty years later.
So I see this. I've felt all along here a kind of background complaint but I didn't know what it was. It was not me complaining, it was the voice of Thoreau telling me I'm getting wasted, that I'm still alive, and that it was up to me to present myself, somehow, in some fashion, somewhere. And yet it's not about complaining that I'm not appreciated. But I DO see that until then, my life is over, useless, no matter what I might do for myself, I'll always know, like Thoreau knew, that my work is far more important … . and … . important. And I sit here knowing this, and at the same time, knowing I know not what to do, and that nothing I do will change it, that it's all about someone else getting it and taking the thing and publishing it, or something, doing something with it, this message, this work, or in the end I might as well have not lived all the way that near-death I had a few years ago. Because since then each of these moments are identical, each of shining beauty, but more or less, one is as long as all of them, and in an eartly way, no point in longing for more. This one is lovely, but I will no more miss it than if it hadn't happened. And I see I just wrote,
getting it and taking the thing and publishing it, or something, doing
something with it, this message, this work