Perspective of the Transcendentalist

The Transcendentalist, Scope and Perspective 

The Transcendentalist is a blog/magazine devoted to literature, art, nature, and spirituality, from a perspective inspired by Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman, and an expanding list of other great spirits, writers, artists, and thinkers, such as Cervantes, Garcia Marquez, Castaneda, Jung, Goya, Huxley, Blake, John Burroughs, and many others whose work carries us to realms of insight and meaning beyond the range of ordinary perception.

This perspective is subjective, encompassing inner as well as outer worlds, seeking the ideal, the far outer (and inner) ranges of possible insight and perception, far from the objective or the average. Science too, though, has its ideals and outer ranges of insight and perception, and we value these and continue to learn from them, at the same time as we do not usually take them as ultimate truth – as superior, that is, to spiritual, artistic, philosophical truth, which embeds empirical fact in its subjective meaning. Spiritual, artistic, philosophical truth that sheds deeper meaning is more important in the thinking of the transcendentalist than the cobblestone of empirical fact is, though the facts will remain what they are, which we respect and only rarely challenge.

Some guiding philosophical principles derived from these influences that direct our efforts in developing and curating this site (in no particular order) include:

·    * We are one and continuous with nature, of the same material make-up and energy that compose and animate the earth and universe.

·    * We are whole in our being, composed as a harmony of body, mind, and spirit, neither raised above nor separated from nature, the mother which gave us birth and continues, despite our waywardness, ignorance, and ingratitude, to nurture us.

·   * Mind is integral and harmonious with, not dominant over, body and spirit. The body knows, the spirit walks, the mind flows, all together, naturally.

·   * Truth, beauty, oneness with nature, and simplicity are cardinal values toward which we strive.

·   * We learn what to perceive, and what we should not perceive or expect to perceive, from our socialization, even though perceptible reality may be much larger than what we learn to believe and perceive it to be.

·    * Others, and society at large, would like us to let them see and define the world for us – and we do.

·    * Consciousness is a quality of introspection, which is expanded by considering dreams, fantasies, visions, prophecies, and signs as forms of instruction, wisdom, direction, and inspiration, subject to fallible human sense and interpretation.

·    * Collective and personal unconscious, contents of which are super rich in meaning and insight, exist and connect us to universal spirit, nature, and mankind throughout all history. They speak to and through us, when we are able to tune out our conscious, rational mind, dismiss the totalitarian ego, and watch and listen to them flow by and through us, like a higher consciousness. Remembering and interpreting the flow requires discipline and practice.

·    * Achieving freedom and the fullest perception possible necessarily involves refusing to compromise with social norms and the blinders they put on us, as a result being able to discern a broader spectrum of phenomena surrounding us.

·    * Complete freedom is impossible, inasmuch as people need affiliation, and this requires a modicum of compromising one’s own values and perceptions to norms of relational compatibility.

·    * Lightness and darkness together, in all their forms, alternating or intermixed, form a natural wholeness. Neither, in itself, is morally good or evil or dominates or exceeds the other in beauty, profundity, or naturalness. Secrets and truths of both are to be sought and held in reverence.

·    * We conceive of universal spirit as creative, divine energy, present in us at varying levels, which we can build and replenish through meditation, reflection, exercising our human gifts and spirit toward objectives of truth, beauty, positive experience, and affiliation with others. It can be destroyed through focus on one’s self-importance and negative thought and action.

* These beliefs and values will form the warp and woof we weave into articles, essays, stories, poems, songs, and images we post on the site, striving to evoke and inspire transcendent spirit and perception, wholeness of body, mind, and spirit, and oneness with universal spirit.

We will pursue these themes through the mundane and the ethereal, the concrete and abstract, the large and small, in what happens around us and within us. We will find them in the river and sky, at home and in the street, in the village and city, the personal and the social, the lighthearted and deadly serious. We will find them within ourselves as well as in observations of and interactions with others. We will articulate them as effectively as we can in our writings and reflect them in curated selections from works of others.

This is not fundamentally a scholarly publication, though we may occasionally publish articles with a scholarly bent, but a spiritual and creative one, aligned primarily with literary, philosophical, and artistic objectives, and viewing transcendentalism as a perspective that is still emerging through ongoing articulation in a world of change. We are inspired by Emerson, Thoreau, et al. to view the world anew, through our own self-reliant filters and to freely and self-confidently express, as best we’re able, the voice and spirit of the universe as it blows uniquely through us. When we clear our ego-driven selves out of the way, the spirit may speak through us, unmuffled, natural, and free. We transcend ourselves when ego cedes to spirit.

We view the foundation laid by Emerson and Thoreau as a basis for inspiration, application, and elaboration, as an impetus toward transcendence, against resistance from all obstacles, timeless and new, rather than as an academic school of thought. We need this kind of thinking to grow through these troubled times.