Sun Showers and Sense-Making
The first time I saw a sun shower I thought someone had performed a miracle. Knowing little about clouds and climate, I had only the connection between overcast and downpour (rightfully so). I remember it as well as I can remember any sudden realization that occurred as a child, which means I just remember the feeling, and that it undeniably opened doors to things I didn’t know were possible.
But I saw one this morning, on my early morning walk with my dog, moments after dreading the cold summer air that left us shortly after we got home. I was happy to be there, grateful that I was able to bear witness.
I’m in the process of reading Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay collection Nature (1836) for the second time. The first, was when I was in university and was employed to read the text in the context of sacred geography, or rather, space which we consecrate. It’s a fascinating read, if you take away the age of it and a few disturbing remarks that are emblematic of the normalcy of racial and colonial violence at the time, not to say it’s not still normalized. I digress.
The series of essays look at nature as a site of symbolic interactionism (the idea that social behaviour is marked by an active engagement with symbols), establishing himself as an early transcendentalist- or someone who applies abstractions to his process of appreciating the natural world.
Basically, for him, it’s not just the objective miracles that occur in nature, but the processes through which we engage with and participate in nature as meaningful. We’ll get into it more in a second.
His first chapter begins with a quote, “To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society.”. This quote is significant for several reasons, one of which is related to the last few blog/essays I’ve posted on here. In many ways Emerson is suggesting the need for balance between internal and external worlds, marking solitude as a state which abandons any connotations of aloneness. It involves the abandonment of the self. He locates this space in nature, but for the reason of self-abandonment we can compare it to Winnicott and say it is characteristically transitional.
Unlike Winnicott, to Emerson this transitional space is a geographic and corporal space, one connected inherently to the location of where these meaningful interactions can take place. This is not to be confused with the literal sense of natural space where it is ephemeral and subject to die (though this can make it feel more significant), but rather nature as an eternally recurring force. Equally important to note, this space is approachable, unlike Winnicott’s transitional space, which is entirely abstract, you can physically approach it and exist within it.
There is a catch though. Emerson suggests that our ability to enjoy nature is not a power found in nature, or some inherent capacity for the natural world to strike awe in us, nor is it the human capacity to develop sacred meanings in otherwise profane space.
Instead, Emerson suggests a unique quality, that “Nature always wears the colors on the spirit.”. In this, he is not suggesting that we engage in an interplay with naturally occurring symbols, but that nature mirrors symbols only as they are present in the energy or state of our awareness. Basically, the symbols can change based on anything, and nature is simply a mirror to a wider pattern.
In short, our immediate nature is a microcosm both of our own perceptions and of a wider interpretation of the cosmos. He suggests that each facet of nature, which is in my estimation, unlimited, renders the likeness of the world. This is nature as axis mundi, or the axis of the earth, which bridges all realms, both celestial and earthly. (If you are unfamiliar with this concept, it’s a super fun rabbit hole to dive into).
So, when I woke up this morning and barely pried myself out of bed for my early morning walk and I was greeted with the same miracle I had seen only a handful of times in my life, I was able to interpret, through my collection of a lifetime of awe, the beauty and majesty of rain. But why?
Emerson believes that all that we encounter preaches to us. Meaning, in many ways that we engage in a dialogue. This may seem to contradict what we said early about nature having no inherent significance but imagine nature as a mirror. There is no universal signifier, we detect and determine contextually through the lens we possess at that time.
Again, this seems to contradict. How can we detect and determine what is not there and how can we be in a dialogue if neither party has the capacity to build meaning unto itself? Well first, Emerson never suggests that neither human nor the remainder of nature is incapable of formulating meanings for the other. Instead, he’s suggesting that neither force is met in harmony with one another or without. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s not cut and dry like we wish it would be. We cannot choose to project meaning and meaning cannot be called to be projected (remember surrender).
It may be helpful to view nature as an extension of the self where we can engage in a dialogue without differentiating parties or associating power. It’s all one organism. There is not one party talking, nor is anyone talking really at all. Instead, we can establish the whole of nature as a metaphor for the human mind, and extension of it at the widest breadth in a series of concentric circles. Nature is instead, an instrument of reflection or a tool for examining the totality of existence (though one must be careful with associating nature with a means to an end). Maybe it’s less of a co-creation than it is an observation, but again, this is complicated by the lack of objectivity in sense-making.
Throughout the essays, Emerson lists the ways nature serves humankind, many of which involve the material, and many of which involve the symbolic. My favourite is beauty.
Emerson believes that the world exists to fill the goal of beauty that our souls crave. He calls this the ultimate end. Again, we must be careful. Suggesting nature as an end in itself is fine, but as an instrument for the purpose of humankind risks establishing human dominion over our equally important non-human counterparts. Beauty is simply an expression of the universe, as are we and everything we’ll ever know in our time on Earth. It’s not just for us.
Again, we must establish this not as an inherent truth of nature but instead place nature as a vessel through which we observe the inward and eternal beauty of existence. It is not alone in itself; we are all involved in this cosmological extension. One of my favourite quotes from this work is as follows:
“Nothing divine dies. All good is eternally reproductive. The beauty of nature reforms itself in the mind, and not for barren contemplation, but for new creation…. Nothing is quite beautiful alone: nothing but is beautiful in the whole. A single object is only so far beautiful as it suggests this universal grace.”
So, if we extend this interpretation of nature to our analysis of the cosmos, we are left with an experience of totality, of intrigue and of a wider appreciation for sensory experience, mystery and perhaps even our own existence. Nature then is not beautiful because it exists but because of where (abstractly) it exists, in the contexts and spaces between itself where the fabric of sentience, insentience, mortality and immortality lie. Paradoxical and therefore somewhat annoying, but honest, like most of life.
I wrote this because I saw a sun shower this morning and I began to feel like life was infused with meaning. Like despite my worries, anger, and loneliness, that there was something beyond myself that bridged it all. I often feel this sense of divinity when met with beauty, but maybe it’s a principle of existence rather than a state of being that can be embodied by natural forces.
This was not thanks to the sun, or the clouds or even the rain, and especially not to me, but rather our totality. The only experience I can guarantee for sure is that we share a place here, and that we have nothing but time to learn from it.
So maybe Emerson was right in the sense that it’s not I as in me that allows for this sense of holiness but rather this as in us that grants us this wider sense of meaning. Nothing is concrete, we are all just mirrors of the other. What we see in the sun or other stars, we see in each other. We see hope or love or whatever it is that we see, and nature is an incredible geography to inhabit while we do so.
Read Emerson’s Nature (1836) here.