Thoreau - Walking and Dillard - Seeing

Thoreau -- Walking
So, I promised myself a few years ago that I would never learn to love Thoreau; he always seemed a bit too annoyingly sure of himself, and devoid of any vulnerability.
He is the founder of the American nature essay, or at least, a major founder, and his work is less a personal essay in some ways than it is a persuasive one. Sure, he says "As for me," a lot, but he I still feel that the essay is more about his point; that society is diseased and unhealthy; his cynicism is fairly heavy about this. Nevertheless, I found myself giving into Thoreau, and realizing that he was definitely speaking for me; I enjoy a nice long walk where one can "get lost." And there were times when Thoreau said Truth; said things like "This was the heroic age itself," speaking of the present, or of the vastness of even the walkable area around where a man lives. Though sometimes he can be a bit boring for my tastes, since I've heard the "improvements and progress are but in vain" line before, he still is one of the best writers I've had a chance to read. He is a priest of Wildness, and his religious allusions really fit better in Nature than almost anyone else's. Also, when he said that the Walker is a fourth estate, outside Church and State and People, I really smiled, since that is my last name. The last section of the essay is unbelievably beautiful, true, and necessary for everyone to read; I read it to my girlfriend as we were coming back from a long walk in Keosauqua, and she was silent for a long time before she said "It's beautiful!"
Thoreau has the power to bring out our innate love of nature, and our inner knowledge that life is better when simple. He is a revolutionary against the confinement of humanity, successfully showing the Emperor has no clothes. As a fellow rebel I can't argue with that one bit.

Annie Dillard -- Seeing
What a delicious essay! I really felt this was my favorite of the three. Seeing is a very visual essay; so full of colors, images, ideas, joy, and madness that I couldn't stop reading. I will admit that sometimes during my reading, I was struck by the thought, "This woman seriously needs help," but knew she was really communicating her experiences honestly. Her vulnerability, curiosity, wonder, confusion, and awe in the face of how Nature (and in this essay, she seems to be talking about the big "N" of all phenomena in creation rather than an area somewhere in the wilderness) functions completely reveal how magical the human experience really is. Science trivia, remarkable stories, quotes from Thoreau, all of these really come together to create a perfect picture of the mystery of life.
I really enjoyed the part about the blind people seeing for the first time, as I think anyone who reads this essay would. There's a certain vicarious pleasure hearing about bringing vision to the blind. After all, it is someone else's vision, not mine, but it brought me great joy nonetheless. The color patches she mentions come alive with the reading of her essay, both abstractly and concretely.
Also, the innocence that Dillard seeks in her life -- an experience born from direct contact with the divine, not filtered through the mind (the simplest creatures see the universe as it is!). This truly comes alive in the final section, and I feel she must be a very highly evolved person. She understands, at least, that life is perfect without labels or judgments; light has its own force (Vedic Science = Sattwa) and that all that is necessary is to allow it to come into your life more and more and more.

On Elyse's entry for Berry - An Entrance to the Woods:
Link to Elyse's Blog
I found it a bit different with my reading of Berry. I do see what you mean by "melancholy" and "sadness," because it is throughout the piece. But I also really detected a silence to Berry, an awareness of the is-ness of things. He, like Thoreau, makes his position clear: "I trust nature more than any government," or however he put it. He saw the madness of the twentieth century, and it made him realize that society was ill, and not in accord with natural laws. This is why I also really vibed with that part about life moving at too fast a pace. Like he said earlier in the essay, "my mind is still keyed to seventy miles an hour." I feel this way every day after I use my computer. Like right now. I suppose I should get some sleep.