Thoreau, Yogi of the Woods
Colette Poggi and Émilie Poggi

In 1844, a young 28-year-old Harvard graduate decided to retire for two years in the woods, on the edge of a pond called "Walden", in the heart of Massachusetts, with Homer and the Bhagavad Gita in his luggage. He built a cabin, walked, smelled, contemplated, meditated, immersed body and soul in the "wild" life, tasted a sober but joyful existence, far from society, worldliness, urbanization and galloping industrialization. This young disciple and friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson, a budding yogi, precursor of the ecological cause and civil disobedience, was called Henry David Thoreau.

Living to the rhythm and listening to the forest, he soon became one with the vibrant fabric of Nature, with Yoga, which means union, resonance with universal Life in all its aspects. A lucid sentinel of a changing world, Thoreau first left his mark on the minds of Gandhi, Romain Rolland, Jean Giono, Leo Tolstoy, Ernest Hemingway, Jim Harrisson, Kenneth White, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, the architect Frank Lloyd Wright and the naturalists John Burroughs and John Muir before becoming, a century and a half later, the icon of environmentalists, ZADists, vegetarians and other defenders of life such as Vandana Shiva or the group Extinction Rebellion.

We know Thoreau the philosopher of the woods, but what do we know about Thoreau the yogi of the woods? How does Thoreau's philosophy allow us to think together and therefore to connect the living of which we are a part to yoga and meditation? How does Thoreau allow us to experiment and think about a new relationship with the world and with ourselves? What if Thoreau was a precursor of ecospirituality? Thanks to the magnificent original illustrations of Émilie Poggi and the poetic and striking language of Colette Poggi, we are transported to the side of Walden, between philosophical walk and wild meditation, and the influences of Indian philosophy.

Hardcover - 16.8cm x 22.4cm - Color Illustrations
240 Pages
Author: Ray Long
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