with the firm, solid, and sustaining earth; the depth, distance, and expanse of ether; the age, tamelessness, and ceaseless motion of the ocean; the stars, and the unknown in space; by all those things which are most powerful known to me, and by those which exist, but of which I have no idea whatever, I pray. Further, by my own soul, that secret existence which above all other things bears the nearest resemblance to the ideal of spirit, infinitely nearer than earth, sun, or star. Speaking by an inclination towards, not in words, my soul prays that I may have something from each of these, that I may gather a flower from them, that I may have in myself the secret and meaning of the earth, the golden sun, the light, the foam-flecked sea. Let my soul become enlarged; I am not enough; I am little and contemptible. I desire a great-ness of soul, an irradiance of mind, a deeper insight, a broader hope. Give me power of soul, so that I may actually effect by its will that which I strive for.
In winter, though I could not then rest on the grass, or stay long enough to form any definite expression, I still went up to the hill once now and then, for it seemed that to merely visit the spot repeated all that I had previously said. But it was not only then.
In summer I went out into the fields, and let my soul inspire these thoughts under the trees, standing against the trunk, or looking up through the branches at the sky. If trees could speak, hundreds of them would say that I had had these soul-emotions under them. Leaning against the oak’s massive trunk, and feeling the rough bark and the lichen at my back, looking southwards over the grassy fields, cowslip-yellow, at the woods on the slope, I thought my desire of deeper soul-life. Or under the green firs, looking upwards, the sky was more deeply blue at their tops; then the brake fern was unrolling, the doves cooing, the thickets astir, the late ash-leaves coming forth. Under the shapely rounded elms, by the hawthorn bushes and hazel, everywhere the same deep desire for the soul-nature; to have from all green things and from the sunlight the inner meaning which was not known to them, that I might be full of light as the woods of the sun’s rays. Just to touch the lichened bark of a tree, or the end of a spray projecting over the path as I walked, seemed to repeat the same prayer in me.
The long-lived summer days dried and warmed the turf in the meadows. I used to lie down in solitary corners at full length on my back, so as to feel the embrace of the earth. The grass stood high above me, and the shadows of the tree branches danced on my face. I looked up at the sky, with half-closed eyes to bear the dazzling light. Bees buzzed over me, sometimes a butterfly passed, there was a hum in the air, greenfinches sang in the hedge. Gradually entering into the intense life of the summer days—a life which burned around as if every grass blade and leaf were a torch—I came to feel the long-drawn life of the earth back into the dimmest past, while the sun of the moment was warm on me. Sesostris on the most ancient sands of the south, in ancient, ancient days, was conscious of himself and of the sun. This sunlight linked me through the ages to that past consciousness. From all the ages my soul desired to take that soul-life which had flowed through them as the sunbeams had continually poured on earth. As the hot sands take up the heat, so would I take up that soul-energy. Dreamy in appearance, I was breathing full of existence; I was aware of the grass blades, the flowers, the leaves on hawthorn and tree. I seemed to live more largely through them, as if each were a pore through which I drank. The grasshoppers called and leaped, the greenfinches sang, the blackbirds happily fluted, all the air hummed with life. I was plunged deep in existence, and with all that existence, I prayed.
Through every grass blade in the thousand, thousand grasses; through the million leaves, veined and edge-cut, on bush and tree; through the song-notes and the marked feathers of the birds; through the insects’ hum and the colour of the butterflies; through the soft warm air, the flecks of clouds dissolving—I used them all for prayer. With all the energy the sunbeams had poured unwearied on the earth since Sesostris was conscious of them on the ancient sands; with all the life that had been lived by vigorous man and beauteous woman since first in dearest Greece the dream of the gods was woven; with all the soul-life that had flowed a long stream down to me, I prayed that I might have a soul more than equal to, far beyond my conception of, these things of the past, the present, and the fullness of all life. Not only equal to these, but beyond, higher, and more powerful than I could imagine. That I might take from all their energy, grandeur, and beauty, and gather it into me. That my soul might be more than the cosmos of life.
I prayed with the glowing clouds of sunset and the soft light of the first star coming through the violet sky. At night with the stars, according to the season: now with the Pleiades, now with the Swan or burning Sirius, and broad Orion’s whole constellation, red Aldebaran, Arcturus, and the Northern Crown; with the morning star, the light-bringer, once now and then when I saw it, a white-gold ball in the violet-purple sky, or framed about with pale summer vapour floating away as red streaks shot horizontally in the east. A diffused saffron ascended into the luminous upper azure. The disk of the sun rose over the hill, fluctuating with throbs of light; his chest heaved in fervour of brilliance. All the glory of the sunrise filled me with broader and furnace-like vehemence of prayer. That I might have the deepest of soul-life, the deepest of all, deeper far than all this greatness of the visible universe and even of the invisible; that I might have a fullness of soul till now unknown, and utterly beyond my own conception.
In the deepest darkness of the night, the same thought rose in my mind as in the bright light of noontide. What is there which I have not used to strengthen the same emotion?
Three years have passed since discovering this small book in that shop on the Maine Coast. We’ve read it many times. We’ve read what others have written about it. We’ve followed Richard Jefferies through the part of England where he was born and lived. We sat at the desk where he wrote, and looked out over the same landscape. And we walked some of the same paths he walked nearly every day of his life. I’ve reconstructed the history of my relationship with The Story of My Heart, and have a good idea how he managed to hijack my attention and then hold onto it this long. The more I learn about Richard Jefferies, the more I wonder why.
Terry started reading out loud. We were sitting on a rocky beach on the Maine Coast, perched against giant, pink granite boulders separating the forest from the sea. The autumn afternoon sun beat down on our shoulders and legs. On page one of The Story of My Heart, I heard the perfect combination of words: “An inspiration—a long deep breath of the pure air of thought,” a promise of new expansive ideas that would challenge some of my beliefs and support others.
Finding Jefferies was the latest marker along a path I’d been following for three decades, since discovering that a different life existed beyond the “work for the man till you’re 65”—suppress your passions—loyal Mormon life I’d been given.
Terry and I met at a fork in my path—one paved and lit, complete with a secure job selling plumbing supplies, with “eternal life” guaranteed. The other was overgrown and wild and seemed difficult to follow, with no obvious goal. I’m not sure I could have negotiated this unpredictable, “road less travelled” alone. Knowing we could explore that unknown path together gave us courage.
Meeting Terry meant meeting her grandmother, Kathryn— “Mimi,” we called her. Mimi had an insatiable appetite for knowledge and had accumulated an amazing library by some of the world’s great thinkers. When Terry was five, Mimi first took her bird watching. They danced and painted and explored. Mimi fostered in Terry a clear sense of her own uniqueness that no one could challenge.
I, on the other hand, struggled.
I’ve struggled, knowing I play a role in our long-term ability to thrive on this blue spinning orb we call Earth, but pulled by a constant force toward the life modern men are supposed to live. Mimi left me her library when she died. These books by Carl G. Jung, Marie-Louise von Franz, J. Krishnamurti, Alan Watts, Ira Progoff, Joseph Campbell, and others have helped me understand
