The Universe and the Soul: Richard Jefferies on Nature as Prayer for Presence

How to grow “absorbed into the being or existence of the universe.”

There are moments in life when something breaks open, something breaks free, something dissolves and resurfaces as large as the universe. Moments when we access what G.K. Chesterton called “the submerged sunrise of wonder.” Moments when we part what Virginia Woolf called “the cotton wool” gauzing our view of raw reality. Moments when the boundaries of the self fall away and we find ourselves in oneness with what Margaret Fuller...