Emerson's Science of the Spirit
[1st Edition]

This book will be a treasure to anyone who appreciates Emerson, or who has a love of Nature, like John Muir, and especially of the giant Sequoias, or who loves to think deeply about being human. Bruce Kirchoff has extracted key thoughts from Emerson's "Natural History of Intellect" and presented them with beautiful - even deeply moving - photographs of the Sequoias along with his own commentary. Example:

* Emerson on 'will': Will is always miraculous, being the presence of God to men.
* Photograph: the majestic crown of a giant Sequoia against a bright blue sky, with the textures of the leaves, branches, and shadows playing against the sunlit trunk and azure sky.
* Commentary: Our actions affect all things, all life. When we do anything, the world is changed. Every action, as it leaves us, becomes less of us and more of the world. Our actions are no longer ours when they are done. We will claim them again when we realize the unity that is implicit in our natures, but until then, they are part of the world. Their origin comes through us, borne on the angel-wings of will.

And if that were not enough, the whole of Emerson's "Natural History" is there as well. Each of the book's three sections, the quotations and photographs, the commentaries and the complete Emerson essay, are all wonderfully cross-referenced. The reader can approach these texts from just Emerson's thought-kernels and the accompanying photographs, from Kirchoff's commentaries, from the entire essay, or from any combination of these.

The "Natural History of Intellect" was Emerson's last, great work, his masterwork. Emerson presented it as lectures at Harvard University in 1870 and 1871. Shortly after the second presentation, Emerson traveled west to California and met John Muir in the Yosemite Valley. Emerson was so impressed by the enthusiasm of the 33-year-old Muir that he included Muir in his list of "My men" ("Journal," 1871).

In a real way, Kirchoff endeavors in this book to reunite these two great men and their greatest legacies.

Kirchoff's photographs are marked by their variety of subjects, textures and techniques. By far the great Sequoia is most often featured: the trees, the trunks, the stands but also the leaves, cones, seeds and the textures and colors of the wood and bark. There are also photographs of the context of these great beings of Nature: the fields, the stones, the mountains, and the forest floor litter. The photographs are almost always sharply focused with bright - even brilliant - colors, as befits the sharp clarity of Emerson's thought.

I believe Kirchoff titled his book "Emerson's Science of the Spirit" in recognition that Emerson's transcendentalism, especially as expressed in the "Natural History," is a *science* that seeks to know and understand the Spirit of humanity and the Spirit of Nature. Kirchoff developed his commentaries from a broad perspective including both Western and Eastern philosophy and spiritual thought. I found that the quotations and photographs provide an opening into Emerson's thought, and when they are read with Kirchoff's corresponding commentary, the combination has the flavor of a Zen koan, followed by commentary from another Zen teacher.

This is one of those books that must be sampled, dwelt upon and pondered. You can't read it all in one sitting: it is too rich. It must be absorbed in small bites and savored. One more example to savor:

* Emerson on 'the key': Therefore our own organization is a perpetual key, and a well-ordered mind brings to the study of every new fact or class of facts a certain divination of that which it shall find.
* Photograph: In the distance, two hikers walk through a field of tall yellow-brown grass. Further still beyond them, a stand of giant Sequoias dwarfs them.
* Commentary (in part): This is the hardest part: seeing that we ourselves are the key. The idea that the human being is a microcosm of macrocosmic creation is one form in which this has traditionally been expressed....