𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑺𝒖𝒏 𝑰𝒔 𝑩𝒖𝒕 𝒂 𝑴𝒐𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓 ☀️

Of the multitude of things I have read in my twenty-nine years of life, one of the most impactful has been the book Walden, by the American essayist, poet, and philosopher Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862). Today, I am sharing with you the last two paragraphs of Walden which come from the book’s Conclusion. (See below for the full text of these two paragraphs.) This is a previously unpublished continuation of the video that I had published on January 5th, 2025, titled “Give Me Truth,” in which I had read aloud another notable passage from the Conclusion of Walden.

Thoreau’s words are pure and beautiful to me. They are like fresh air and rest to a weary soul, or like sustenance to a starving child. I especially adore the last three sentences of the Conclusion—“Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.” To me, this means that true awareness and enlightenment arise from within rather than from without. The “morning star” symbolizes the new hope and potential that comes with the start of each day. Let this thought permeate your mind each time you awaken to a new day and all of the opportunities it brings. 🧡

“The life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this year higher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched uplands; even this may be the eventful year, which will drown out all our muskrats. It was not always dry land where we dwell. I see far inland the banks which the stream anciently washed, before science began to record its freshets. Every one has heard the story which has gone the rounds of New England, of a strong and beautiful bug which came out of the dry leaf of an old table of apple–tree wood, which had stood in a farmer's kitchen for sixty years, first in Connecticut, and afterward in Massachusetts—from an egg deposited in the living tree many years earlier still, as appeared by counting the annual layers beyond it; which was heard gnawing out for several weeks, hatched perchance by the heat of an urn. Who does not feel his faith in a resurrection and immortality strengthened by hearing of this? Who knows what beautiful and winged life, whose egg has been buried for ages under many concentric layers of woodenness in the dead dry life of society, deposited at first in the alburnum of the green and living tree, which has been gradually converted into the semblance of its well–seasoned tomb—heard perchance gnawing out now for years by the astonished family of man, as they sat round the festive board—may unexpectedly come forth from amidst society's most trivial and handselled furniture, to enjoy its perfect summer life at last!

“I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.”

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[JeremyLeigh]

I feel like I am that strong and beautiful bug, climbing out of my tree, finally able to enjoy the perfect summer life at last, the life I was meant to have. This is my resurrection.