The Human Mind is Meant to Be a "Temple Open to the Sky"

 

"Not without a slight shudder at the danger, I often perceive how near I come to admitting into my mind the details of some trivial affair, - the news of the street; and I am astonished to observe how willing people are to lumber their minds with such rubbish, - to permit idle rumors and incidents of the most insignificant kind to intrude on ground which should be sacred to thought.  Shall the mind be a public arena, where the affairs of the street and the gossip of the tea-table chiefly are discussed?  Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself, - a temple open to the sky, consecrated to the service of the gods?  I find it so difficult to process the few facts which to me are significant, that I hesitate to burden my attention with those which are insignificant . . . Such is, for the most part, the news in newspapers and conversation.  It is important to preserve the mind's chastity in this respect.  Think of admitting the details of a single case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to stalk profanely through their holy-of-holies for an hour, ay, for many hours! to make a very bar-room of the mind's inmost apartment, as if for so long the dust of the street had occupied us, - the very street itself, with all its travel, its bustle, and filth, had passed through our thoughts' shrine!  Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide? . . . We should exclude such trespassers from the only holy ground which can be sacred to us.  It is so hard to forget what it is worse than useless to remember!  If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain-brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town-sewers . . . If we have thus desecrated ourselves, - and who has not? - the remedy will be wariness and devotion to reconsecrate ourselves, and make once more a temple of the mind.  We should treat our minds, that is, ourselves, as innocent and naive children, whose guardians we are, and be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention.  Read not the Times.  Read the Eternities . . . Knowledge does not come to us by details, but in flashes of light from heaven.  Yes, every thought that passes through the mind helps to wear and tear it, and to deepen the ruts . . ."

Henry David Thoreau, "Life Without Principle"

Photo: This pond is located in the midst of an old burn in the Snowy Range, WY, August 26, 2011.  I see the pond as symbolizing what Thoreau calls the "temple open to the sky" - the "hypaethral temple," he calls it.  The dead snags represent the devastation that happens to us when we feed our minds only with "the affairs of the street" instead of with true spiritual nourishment.