WALDEN: A SACRED GEOGRAPHY By Joy Whiteley Ackerman A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Environmental Studies at Antioch New England Graduate School (2005) i Dear H, Could I have spent my time better than digging in this dirt? Fondly, J ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was supported in part by a Thoreau Society Fellowship. An extra measure of support was also given by Antioch New England Graduate School; and by Roger and Marilyn Whiteley. The guidance of my committee members Alesia Maltz, Mitchell Thomashow, and Steven Guerriero, generously given from their particular gifts, helped to bring more theoretical depth, methodological focus, and narrative clarity to the work. The joy and courage to endure through the sticky parts was provided in large measure by my companions in the doctoral program and my friends at Antioch. Special thanks are due to Jen Wilhoit, my writing partner over this last year; and to Carolyn Norback, my perennial host; and to the staff at Brewbakers. The patient understanding of my family, as well as their tangible support, allowed me to entertain this undertaking in the first place. Mike, Mary, and Rachel have kept my car on the road, my computer functioning, my dog fed, and my spirits up. They alone know the cost of my distance and distraction over the last six years. This work was enriched by the generous participation of many pilgrims, and the support and interest of Walden’s gatekeepers. Special thanks to Fred Taylor, Brian Maurer, Bradley Dean, Laura Walls, Barry Andrews, Tom Blanding, Don Strauss, Dorothy Jean Ray, Linda Allen, and Alex Dunn for their commitment to this project; to Denise Morrisey, Jon Fadiman, and Jeff Cramer for their support and direction; and to Barry Andrews for his spiritual insight. iii Valuable opportunities to present and discuss my research in conference settings was aided and abetted by my colleagues in the Geography of Religion and Belief Systems Specialty Group at AAG; and further encouragement for my work came in the form of a David Sopher Award for a preliminary essay, “Walden: A Sacred Geography.” iv ABSTRACT In this study, I explore Walden as a place of pilgrimage. Walden Pond is located in Concord, Massachusetts, a place associated with Henry David Thoreau, a 19th century icon of American environmentalism. The site of his simple dwelling (and the focus of his book by the same name) is now a state park and national landmark that receives over half a million recreational users and tourists each year, in addition to visitors with a particular interest in Thoreau’s life and writing. I took two approaches to Walden’s sacred geography, using phenomenological methods to explore the poetics of pilgrimage and a hermeneutic reading of the landscape to interpret Walden’s sacred space. In-depth interviews of ten Walden pilgrims provided the basis for a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to eliciting themes of pilgrim movement and connection. I further explored the themes of journey, ritual and stillness; and person, place and text in the pilgrim experience. I approached the politics of place through a critical hermeneutic reading of the historic and contemporary landscape. Here, Chidester and Linenthal’s conception of the production of sacred space provided the basis for reading Walden’s sacred geography in terms of ritualization, interpretation and the contested politics of place. The theme of person, place and text was taken up again from the gatekeeper perspective. This dissertation contributes to the literature of pilgrimage and place by bringing the perspectives of poetics and politics together in the study of Walden. By drawing on both a hermeneutics of suspicion to explore the production of space, and a v hermeneutics of recollection to recover the phenomenal experience of pilgrimage, we move beyond the mystical naiveté of a purely poetic perspective and the nihilism associated with a solely political approach to understanding sacred space. vi CONTENTS DEDICATION i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii ABSTRACT iv TABLE OF CONTENTS vi CHAPTER 1. THE HEART OF THE MATTER 1 2. RESEARCH AS PILGRIMAGE 11 3. WALDEN PILGRIMS: THEIR STORIES 48 4. MAKING SPACE: RITUAL, INTERPRETATION, AND NEGOTIATION 142 5. MAKING PILGRIMAGE: JOURNEY, RITUAL, AND STILLNESS 188 6. THE PLACE OF PILGRIMAGE: PERSON, PLACE AND TEXT 231 7. RETURN 262 NOTES 279 LITERATURE CITED 300 APPENDIX 306 CHAPTER 1 THE HEART OF THE MATTER Heaven is under our feet, as well as over our heads. Thoreau, Walden Prelude In late September, Walden Pond looks just like its picture postcard. The woods surrounding the shoreline present their fall array of colors, the deep red, yellow and bronze of turning leaves mingled with the steadfast green of tall pines. The display is amplified by the trees’ reflection in the still waters of the Pond, a deep clear blue that reflects the sky. Earth mirrors heaven, a pattern which suggests that nature’s value lies in its ability to refer us beyond itself, creation pointing to Creator. Our upward gaze affirms the hope that, although our feet may be mired in clay, we are surely heaven bound. But Thoreau wasn’t looking at reflections when he asserted that “heaven is under our feet, as well as over our heads.”1 He was at the Pond in winter and, having “cut through a foot of snow, and then a foot of ice,”2 Thoreau was pondering the watery habitation below. If Thoreau was right, if heaven is under our feet, then our sacred journeys may not lead us out of this world. If heaven is under our feet, the places we inhabit may not be left behind, vacated in the quest for a higher realm. If heaven is under our feet, we may need to be more careful where we step. 2 At the heart of this exploration of Walden’s sacred geography is a spiritual question about the relationship between earth and heaven, our material surroundings and our spiritual ideals. It is a question that has profound implications for our own posture toward the place we all inhabit, and obvious consequences for the world beneath our feet. I’ve chosen to explore this question through the conceptual framework of sacred geography, a stance that assumes a connection between the values we hold and the places in which we dwell. My guide through this territory is the pilgrim, one whose travel combines a material road with a spiritual pathway. Although the underlying question is broad and universal, my approach is focused and particular. The questions which I chose to pursue are aimed at understanding the power of place through the relationship of pilgrim and place. I began with a particular place of pilgrimage to study, and drew on the stories of particular individuals, my own included. The inquiry has an academic context located in the overlapping fields of geography, anthropology, and religion, rich ground where interest in place and pilgrimage intersect. And the study is not without merit for those with an interest in visiting and managing sacred places. But the deeper motivation and context for this work is a spiritual quest, one fired by experience of the more-than-human world as a revelatory participant in the celebration of the Divine. Overview In a given year, half a million people come to a certain park in the eastern suburbs of Massachusetts, most of them for ordinary recreational pursuits. A minority of these visitors come to Walden Pond State Reservation with a man in mind, recognizing Walden 3 as the site of Henry David Thoreau’s former dwelling and the focus of his written testament, Walden, or Life in the Woods. These people are pilgrims, making an intentional quest to an out of the ordinary place in search of a valued ideal.3 That Walden is sacred space may come as no surprise to those who journey from afar to pay homage to Thoreau. To speak of the sacred is to have reference to a breadth of phenomena that surpass the bounds of formal religion. The implicitly religious nature of ecological movements, as well as Thoreau’s establishment as a ‘green saint’ through literary canonization, lend support to the customary perception of Walden as sacred ground in American environmentalism.4 Understanding why pilgrims are drawn to Walden, as well as what they find when they arrive, can enhance our understanding of the experience of pilgrimage and the power of this place. This study explores the sacred geography of Walden in order to understand the ways that pilgrimage both shapes and reveals the power of place. Two related questions form the focus of inquiry: What is the pilgrim experience of place? And how does the perspective of pilgrimage inform an understanding of place? The mutuality of person and place expressed in these questions is integral with my conception of sacred geography, the understanding that human values and beliefs shape particular places even as certain places shape our ideals and responses.5 The questions and approaches to this study are located within, and seek to inform, a varied and growing literature of place that spans several disciplines, including humanistic geography; cultural, ethnographic, and religious studies; as well as aspects of history, philosophy, and architecture. In the following paragraphs, I outline several key 4 strands of the literature on place that have influenced the questions and course of this study. The implications of my epistemological approach for the format and style of the research writing are also discussed. The Matter of Place Place is more than mere location in the sense of this study and of the literature which it seeks to inform. Although geographic coordinates are related to the host of physical and cultural forces that shape the attributes of a place, other factors are much more fundamental aspects of place.