Who doesn’t dream about a simpler life? Living life simply is such a grand goal for any one of us, especially in this uncertain time. How about going “wild” as Henry David Thoreau suggests?
American religious historian and author Lydia Willsky-Ciollo has introduced “wildness” as an idea for living simply. I was definitely intrigued with Lydia’s conclusions in her new book, Wildness: Henry David Thoreau and the Making of an American Theology. Coincidentally Thoreau seems to be gaining in popularity with a recent PBS film and resonating with environmental, social justice and mindfulness groups.
Thoreau was always coming home to people, because of the wildness he found in nature. Wildness is the connective tissue between nature, the self and community (and the divine, of course).
Lydia Willsky-Ciollo
As we approach the summer months and hopefully slow down, TWE was curious about how Lydia explores our connection to nature through Thoreau’s writings, which just might make a simpler life, fuller and very achievable.
EYE: What is it that intrigues you personally about Henry David Thoreau, born in 1817, now?
LYDIA: Thoreau sees himself as someone who is in a constant state of evolution. If he were the same person today as he was six months ago, he believed he had done something wrong.
EYE: So you think this fact makes him significant to our current times?
LYDIA: This fact makes him the most relevant to our current moment. Imagine if we saw “truth” as something to be in search of and not something we had achieved? To see every new fact, idea, or proposal as something to genuinely consider? It is so easy and so human to become fixed in a state of belief.
Thoreau constantly delighted in the idea that nature and people could surprise him and make him look at the world anew. This is the most significant lesson I have taken from Thoreau and one I, very imperfectly, try to apply in my interactions with the world around me.
EYE: How do you define the word “wildness” that is the title of your book?
LYDIA: As I believe Thoreau does. To him, wildness was divinity, which existed in throughout the created world, including in the self. For this reason, wildness doesn’t exist only in nature, though it is most often found there.
To understand that wildness exists in the self; in the ground under one’s feet; the air pulled into one’s lungs; the animals moving quietly or loudly throughout the world, was and is to shift one’s orientation to the world as a place where divinity is inherent, not earned or bestowed.
EYE: How does Thoreau’s “wildness” play into our everyday lives?
LYDIA: What is universal about wildness is that everyone has it, meaning that everyone has the ability to connect to that divine spark within and to find it in the natural world and in other people. What is specific about wildness is that it is experienced differently, with different levels of awareness, in different contexts by each person (and living being)—all of which can change over a lifetime or even on a given day.
EYE: How do you use “wildness?”
LYDIA: There are days where my mind and soul are closed off to my inner wildness—I’m focused on the day-to-day tasks, the wages of parenting, and the drum of the news reel. Then there are other days where it feels like some inner channel is open—usually I can tell it’s going to be that kind of day when I see a particularly glorious sunrise—and I’m just more aware of my surroundings somehow, both natural and manufactured. I feel smaller and calmer (oddly) and more attuned to my senses, especially smell and hearing.
To me, I experience wildness as a moment of recalibration, a way of combating the inertia I can experience when I feel like I need to do more, be more. I am not the center of the universe, but I can move the wheel towards a better, wilder world in whatever minor ways that I can.
I would be very curious to know, for those who read the book and resonate with this idea of “wildness,” how they experience it.
EYE: Thoreau is well known for building and living in a tiny 10X15 foot house, in the woods. How do you explain his desire to live like that?
LYDIA: I love thinking of Thoreau as inspiration for the tiny house movement as a general phenomenon. There is so much about building and living in a tiny house, whether it be a replica of Thoreau’s cabin or not, that speaks to Thoreau’s aims in building his cabin.
He believed in reducing one’s economic and ecological footprint; focusing on necessities and avoiding the cycle of consumerism; and working with one’s own hands to connect with and take joy in the labor.
I have met college professors who, when they teach Walden, also have their students build a replica of Thoreau’s house during the semester—built from a kit that they purchase online. The connecting of “doing” what Thoreau does with reading what Thoreau says is exactly what he hoped people would do with his work.
2 months and 2 days.
I do think it speaks to the perennial impact of what he did at Walden, which was to figure out how he could exist in the world while, simultaneously, doing the least damage to nature and to society; contributing to his community even while living apart from it; and advancing spiritually and intellectually. It is also important to recognize that he did not do these things without help—nor would he deny it.
EYE: Why do you think Thoreau is so popular right now? He was not widely known while alive.
LYDIA: Over time, he has become a household American name and a featured contributor to the American literary “canon.” There have always been people who see in his retreat to Walden or his love of nature an example of how to live “authentically”—mileage varies on how that authenticity is expressed, of course.
But, I do think that amid a climate crisis that is joined by a rise of authoritarianism worldwide and the rolling back of hard fought protections for minorities, Thoreau feels like an apt model for those who feel trapped by external circumstances.
And the fact that he was not perfect in his attempts to do good in the world is also something worth spotlighting. To do good imperfectly feels like a message that so many need to hear right now.
EYE: Have you walked around Walden Pond? What is its allure?
LYDIA: I have. I grew up in Bedford, Massachusetts, which is the town immediately to the east of Concord. The first time I remember visiting Walden was during a High School class trip, and I recall being excited to walk around with my friends more than anything.
Thus, for me, Walden Pond wouldn’t loom quite as large until I began my work on Thoreau. And given how large it looms as a cultural symbol, as much as a natural landmark, it is understandably surprising to people that the pond isn’t larger.
What is alluring about the pond, then, is not its grandeur.
As an historian, I love the idea that I am walking the same paths of so many people whose work and ideas I value. As a New Englander, the pond, with all its pine trees and low granite outcroppings that emerge around the border of the pond, also just feels like home.
EYE: What did you find out about Thoreau as a person, beyond his famous writings?
Courtesy: Concord Free Public Library
LYDIA: I loved learning about both his nuclear and extended family. His siblings were the greatest (human) loves of his lives. I write about the impact of his brother John’s death in the sixth chapter of the book and, suffice it to say, the Thoreau we know on the page likely would not exist in the same way without having experienced this seismic tragedy.
His mother and sisters were civic force of natures, spearheading Concord’s anti-slavery society. His aunts were central to the schism between the liberal and orthodox factions of the First Parish church; his aunts remained orthodox, while Thoreau and his family leaned liberal.
Yet, his Aunt Maria was the one who bailed him out of Concord jail and his Aunt Louisa was at his deathbed to comfort him. I read Thoreau’s choices, professional and personal, through the lens of his family’s support.
A well-trodden critique of Thoreau is that his frequent forays home for meals cooked by his mother undermine his efforts to “live deliberately” in the woods. Other scholars have debunked the idea that his time at Walden was about being cut off from society. To that I’ll only add: what about the fact that it gave his mother joy to see him—and he her?
EYE: As you researched and wrote Wildness, did anything change how you look at your life or Nature?
LYDIA: Yes, in so many ways—but I’ll only list two—a personal lesson and a lesson about nature. As someone who wishes to promote justice in the world, but who has often struggled with how and where to start, Thoreau’s social justice work is aspirational, not because he was the best at it or even consistent in his efforts (e.g., his record on women’s rights and Indigenous people is abysmal and patchy, respectively), but because he did it despite these imperfections.
His efforts were sometimes big and grandiose, but often small. Over the last few years, I have worked to give myself grace for my imperfect social justice work without absolving myself of the need to do it. For a Type A, performance-anxiety-having, recovering perfectionist, accepting that I will be imperfect at something I’m going to do has been vital.
EYE: And the other?
LYDIA: Most people would rightfully hold the view that Thoreau sought to know Nature—as a divine, creative force—and nature—as divine creation—down to the smallest detail. But what is perhaps less known is that Thoreau absolutely delighted in the idea that nature could surprise him, despite his best efforts to anticipate her.
He absolutely bought into the idea that Nature did not exist for him, and he could not contain or understand her fully.
What he could do was to observe and seek community with her and be thankful when she let him in and thankful, believe it or not, when she shut him out. Thus, I’ve come to understand that nature can be loving, indifferent, and cruel, that I cannot bend nature to my will, but that I should try to be in community with nature nonetheless. I think my love toward nature has become more unconditional—even though I still absolutely curse the sky at bad weather.
EYE: What is it about being in nature that can bring a reflection of spirit?
LYDIA: Reflection of spirit is a major reason to go to the woods or out into nature in the first place. There are some, like Thoreau, who went out seeking such spiritual reckoning and others who find it by accident. What prompts such reflection certainly varies.
For me it’s (sun)light that does this for me, especially sunrises and sunsets. I stop what I’m doing and become consumed by it—body, mind, and spirit. Though I am a scholar of American religious history who just wrote a book claiming that Thoreau is a theologian of wildness, I am not a religious person by upbringing or inclination.
But the experience of light—the fact that it looks and feels different every day, that it will disappear as the earth rotates or hides behind rainclouds—awes me. It is a way that I experience nature as a force beyond my control—and yet still within reach, which is what the divine or God is to many people.
EYE: What do you want readers to take from your book?
LYDIA: I hope that readers take Thoreau and me up on the offer to seek wildness in nature, in oneself, and in each other. This pursuit is deeply human at its foundation. Thoreau was always returning from the nature to which he retreated.
EYE: What is your favorite Thoreau quote?
LYDIA: I struggled here. There are so many quotes that I love.
But if I had to pick one, it would be: “I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a wearer of new clothes,” which appears in the “Economy” chapter of Walden. This quote hits on so many levels.
It evokes his critique of the slave system, in particular the complicity of Massachusetts, whose textile mills fueled the Southern cotton economy. It points to a thematic center of his thought: that pursuit of the inner life, the betterment of the self, soul, and mind, was the purpose of life and of living.
And finally, I just find his choice of words so delightfully funny. I picture Thoreau delivering the first part of the phrase with the deadpan of Miranda Priestley from The Devil Wears Prada. It’s good advice given with a sideways glance; in other words, Thoreau at his best.
EYE: Thanks so much for helping us understand the wildness of Henry David Thoreau’s life and his current popularity, Lydia. TWE highly recommends taking a good break to delve into your book and to consider whether a dose of wildness might enhance their life. We wish you continued success!
Photos of Walden Pond: P. Burke
Social Media for Lydia and Notre Dame Press:
Website: lydiawillsky-ciollo.com
Instagram: @lydiaeeva
Thoreau Society: thoreausociety.org
UND Press (University of Notre Dame Press):
Twitter: @UNDPress
Instagram: undpress
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