Reply #5: the peace of Ralph Waldo Emerson... [View All]

"Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television."

--From Commencement Speech by Peter Hawken, May 2009, Portland University

We may gaze up into that starry starry night,

or work in good directions until one sees stars,

or start from the proper and few guide-star principles, but,

in each case,

it is not always to the stars that we go?

"Hitch your wagon to a star." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Nothing can bring you peace but yourself" (Ralph Waldo Emerson) but in the final analysis that's because we always have here and now all that we need, or if not, Emerson assures us it is assimilable via the stars.

I couldn't miss a change to plug the Hawken commencement address in its full text, it will help one to see the stars even on a smoggy day.

See Hawken's address, Hailed by Humanity.org as one of the best commencement speeches of the last 75 years, at http://www.up.edu/shownews.aspx?id=3784 (link to full text)