The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is 'look under foot.' You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.
Interpretation
Life encourages us to recognize the power and divinity that lies close at hand, often overlooked.
John Burroughs' quote suggests that we frequently overlook the simple yet profound sources of strength and truth that are available to us in our everyday lives. It serves as a reminder to look closely at our surroundings and circumstances, as they often hold the key to greater understanding and personal empowerment.
In practice
In a motivational speech, one might say: 'Remember, you are always nearer to your true power than you think, as John Burroughs reminds us.'
The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense is his life, large-brained, large-lunged, hot, ecstatic, his frame charged with buoyancy and his heart with song.
Naturalists, like poets, are born and then made only by years of painstaking observation.
Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance. Communion service is at all hours, and the bread and wine are from the heart and marrow of Mother Earth.
Next to the laborer in the fields, the walker holds the closest relation to the soil; and he holds a closer and more vital relation to nature because he is freer and his mind more at leisure.
Some of the animals outsee man, outsmell him, outhear him, outrun him, outswim him, because their lives depend more upon these special powers than his does; but he can outwit them all because he has the resourcefulness of reason and is at home in many different fields.
Unadulterated, unsweetened observations are what the real nature-lover craves. No man can invent incidents and traits as interesting as the reality.
Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.
My experience has taught me that a man who has no vices has damned few virtues.
Indecision may come from an instinctive hunch that there's more you need to know - which means it's time to learn everything you can about the pros and cons of each option. You can continue on this track, however, only as long as you're unearthing genuinely new information.
The way you think, the way you behave, the way you eat, can influence your life by 30 to 50 years.
I, also, would like to look and smile, sit and walk like that, so free, so worthy, so restrained, so candid, so childlike and mysterious. A man only looks and walks like that when he has conquered his Self. I also will conquer my Self.
If you do not possess the staff of caution and discrimination, use the eyes of him who sees. If there is no staff of caution and discrimination, do not wander on the road without a guide.
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