Through the Looking Glass: Nature's Restorative Mirror

Finding balance and self through art and introspection on Walden Pond

Nov 20, 2024

Welcome to The Creative Convergence! Here, essays, stories, and art come together to shift perspectives and transform how we see ourselves, our communities, and the world. We create opportunities to express our individuality by overlapping our passions in ways that are unique to us. Where our passions converge lies a sweet center, a place where we feel more whole than if we had kept ourselves siloed on separate interest paths. I call these “Creative Convergence moments” and I write about them here, encouraging myself and you to find and cherish such moments as an opportunity for reflection and growth.

This publication is also home to the Refugee Artist Support Circle, chronicling the lives of 15 young refugee artists living, creating, and teaching art to refugee children and youth in Uganda’s Nakivale Refugee Settlement. Paid subscriptions to The Creative Convergence fund the artists' materials, supplies, and free art education programs.

“This World Is But A Canvas To Our Imagination” - Henry David Thoreau

These last few months, I have been writing primarily about the life and aspirations of young artists and crafters half way across the world. For months, my focus has been external, helping other people realize their creative dreams and birthing them to life.

The September 28th Young Artist Expo and Auction was the culmination of that work (follow-up post forthcoming). I’m so proud of those accomplishments, but found that it was time to take a break and return to my own creative practice and life.

This need for a break coincided with the seasonal pull of Autumn, which to me always signals that it is time to contract inwards and redirect my focus to the internal. I’ve been regrouping, recovering and returning to my self, my family and work obligations. Does Autumn draw you inwards as well? How does the change in season redirect your energy, if at all?

On Walden Pond: A Photo Journal Essay

One step towards recovering my balance recently was not necessarily internal. But, it had that effect. I said yes to an artist friend’s invitation to visit Walden Pond, that gloriously gorgeous nature reserve made famous by writer, philosopher, and short-term solitary inhabitant Henry David Thoreau.

The enticement of the invitation was two-fold: camaraderie and creativity. The goal was simple: to experience with all five senses the present condition of Autumn in New England. And, to paint with watercolor on site.

As is the case with so much in life, it was the unique experience, the journey itself, that mattered most. We left much richer and fuller than when we had arrived.

It was stepping over knotted roots along the path, treading soft fallen pine needles, and gazing into the mirror-like water that mattered.

It was acorns balanced on stone cairns, fish flipping out of the shallow waters, and summer’s last green reeds standing at attention that mattered.

It was circumambulating a glittering pond on a crisp day together, sharing stories and histories, and pausing to watch Autumn’s last gem-like leaves dance precariously above the mirrored water in the breeze that mattered.

It was the gift of reflection, connection, and introspection that mattered.

This is what you happens when you say yes to a friend’s invitation to meet nature on her own terms. Reflection is what happens naturally when we visit bodies of water. Introspection and connection is what happens when we open ourselves up to the world as “a canvas to our imagination”, in the company of a friend, wholeheartedly and with an open mind, ready to give and receive.

“The Question Is Not What You Look At, But What You See” - Henry David Thoreau

As we walked the perimeter of the pond, stopping now and then to let chatty Harvard University parents pass by, we paid attention with all five senses. We watched the morning light change to early afternoon light, followed the swimmers braving the cold waters, listened to the squeaks of chipmunks and leaf-crunching footfalls of squirrels, felt the chill in the shade and the warmth of solar rays reflecting off the pond, and watched the fallen leaves on the surface of the water lap against stones.

We also paid attention to the interplay of our imaginations with our surroundings. We looked for layered meanings, stories, symbols and metaphor in what nature had to offer to us that day.

Enjoy these 8 seconds of shimmering beauty as the sun bounces off rippling water at Walden Pond

As we walked, we talked of composition, subject, and story. Diffuse light, the mirroring quality of still water, the pixelating effect of tree reflections on moving water.

I was fascinated by the reflections of the birch trees in particular, zooming in to achieve pure abstraction.

Zoomed-in pixelated reflection of birch trees; rotated 90 degrees because why not?

There’s a secluded spot nearly half way around the pond, near the original location of Thoreau’s small cabin. Protected from the breeze, the water is so still that the mirrored image of the trees prompts the query: which side is up and which side is down? Which side is root, which side is crown?

There were hidden messages, symbols, everywhere we turned. Nature in its infinite beauty. Do you see infinity in the image below?

Nature is rich in symbolism and metaphor if we stay open and curious.

Half way around the pond, we came upon some of summer’s last greenery: marshy reeds, soldiers standing guard and at attention as October began to close her doors and usher in a new season. I imagined them as old souls, beings who have stood watch over generations of seasons for eons.

In contrast, signs that trees and other flora were readying themselves for winter’s dormancy were all around us. These hanging luminescent gems (below) captivated my imagination. My friend asked, Why do they matter to you? Why are they interesting? What is their story?

It’s because they are the last that they are the most precious, I answered.

A Return to Balance

We reached the site of Thoreau’s cabin, no longer there but replaced by stone cairns placed by visitors in homage to Thoreau, one of the most well-known writer-philosophers of the American Transcendentalist movement of the mid-1800s.

The stone cairns called to me, reminding me it was time to find some balance. To put me first after putting so many others first for many months…

One cairn in particular caught my attention. Look closely. What do you see at the top?

Aren’t we all just an acorn balancing atop a pile of stones placed there by others before us? I painted this picture when I returned home as my own homage to the experience and the lesson to strive for balance in life.

We Painted in Plein Air

After we made it all the way around Walden Pond, it was time to find a subject to paint. While we were drawn to the scenery, the idea of drawing and painting Thoreau’s cabin was enticing.

I had pre-painted the background in my sketchbook the day before not expecting to draw over it at Walden. But, when we got there, it seemed so natural to use that page for my drawing. The deep blue and green of the background allowed me to let go and imagine Thoreau’s house deep in the woods on a summer’s eve, imagining the yellow as moonlight.

If you look closely, you’ll see that it’s not all squiggles and lines. There are words in those bushes! I wrote all of my feelings and thoughts of the moment into that darkness.

That’s me after an hour and a half sitting under an oak tree in the cold, waiting for acorns to fall and strike. Miraculously, we were spared.

Bodies of Water: An Invitation to Reflect

The visit to Walden Pond was an invitation to reflect, literally because it is a prehistoric body of crystalline water, dug out by receding glaciers eons ago. Water, whether still or rushing, salt or fresh, ocean, pond or river, is a natural beacon that guides us and invites us to reflect. Water is nature’s original mirror. While I never saw myself literally in the pond (didn’t think to try), I think I metaphorically did. I felt more me than I had in a long while. Like attracts like. We are mostly water after all.

Have you traveled recently to a body of water? What did you do there? How did that experience impact you?

All nature is doing her best each moment to make us well—she exists for no other end. Do not resist her. With the least inclination to be well we should not be sick. - Henry David Thoreau

The Creative Convergence