- Walden, Solitude, Henry David Thoreau
Visiting Henry David Thoreau's Walden this month as we travelled through New England has re-inspired me to the potential Walden of my own backyard. I long for that localized "genius of unequalled fertility" which he experienced in Nature around Walden Pond, the garden of his "friend" in whose herb garden he "loved to stroll sometimes, gathering simples." It was here he seemed to touch the Source of all that is, asking "Shall I not have intelligence with the earth?" as one who was "partly leaves and vegetable mould" himself. 
My own garden - which I propose to call Walden-on-Hudson - is starting to display faint glimmers of Nature's fertile genius - herbs, fruit trees, chickens, veggies, composting bins, a small pond.
I find it thrilling to experience that all we need for healthy living is freely given and to be found right outside our doors. It remains only for me to do the meticulous work of system design, followed by the hard work of making the appropriate connections between the multiple design elements, domesticating the ways of fertile Nature into the abundance of a Walden in my own yard.
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