In awe of my corporeal existence, I find myself preoccupied with a significant excerpt from Thoreau’s The Maine Woods. It has embedded itself in my thoughts, demanding attention before I can move on.

The passage that captivates me is well-known among Thoreau enthusiasts and scholars. The initial essay of The Maine Woods, titled “Ktaadn,” recounts Thoreau’s first of three journeys to Maine, focusing on his attempt to climb Mount Katahdin. Unfortunately, inclement weather obscured the vistas he anticipated. His account of the ascent stands out as some of his most engaging prose.

Despite two attempts, he never reached the summit. Curiously, it was only after descending past the clouds on his second try that he truly grasped the weight of his experience. This moment gives rise to the unforgettable passage that lingers in my mind:

> “I stand in awe of my body, this matter to which I am bound has become so strange to me. I fear not spirits, ghosts, of which I am one, — that my body might, — but I fear bodies, I tremble to meet them. What is this Titan that has possession of me? Talk of mysteries! Think of our life in nature, — daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, — rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? where are we?”

> “Ktaadn,” The Maine Woods

In a recent experience, I accompanied my brother to the emergency room. It was a grave situation that fortunately concluded positively after a short hospitalization. My brother, unable to communicate his feelings or needs, necessitated our utmost vigilance as we relied on our understanding of his behavior patterns to interpret his experience. Transporting him, especially to a medical facility, is immensely challenging for both him and us. While we aim for his health and necessary care, we must also consider whether his condition justifies another distressing experience in a clinical environment.

When I describe the trauma of visiting the hospital, I fear it may be misconstrued or dismissed as hyperbole. As I mentioned, my brother cannot express himself verbally, though he may vocalize and scream. In the hospital, he lacks comprehension of his surroundings, the reasons for his presence, or the roles of medical staff. Even something as benign as a pulse oximeter can elicit extreme agitation, thrashing, and self-harm. Blood draws or IV administration often require a significant number of personnel to restrain him or, at times, chemical sedation—sometimes both.

For those unfamiliar with caring for someone like my brother, my reflections on his “wildness” might come across as exaggerated or even ableist. Yet, conveying the intensity of his experiences without resorting to these descriptions proves challenging. Only those who have encountered such raw wildness can truly grasp the depth of what I’m expressing.

However, “sense” might be an inadequate term here, for it transcends rationality and intellect. It is visceral, emotional, a manifestation of sheer will. The tremendous force Thoreau felt on Katahdin resides within my brother as well.

In “Ktaadn,” Thoreau seems to grapple with reconciling his encounter with the fierce wildness of Katahdin—nature in its most primal form—with the gentler, nurturing aspects of nature found below the clouds. He contemplates whether these two dimensions of nature also correspond to something within us.

> “Transcendence is built on the dualism that underwrites alienation from the body and so necessitates that nature will always be ‘elsewhere.’ It splits open a gulf between body and spirit, elevates the spirit then annihilates the body, so the spirit may cry out perpetually for loss of a home, of bodily touch, of warmth — of ‘Contact!’”

> Seeing New Worlds, Laura Dassow Walls

It appears that Thoreau is not only struggling to relate these aspects of nature but also to unify them. I resonate with this desire; I, too, wish to comprehend the connection between these two realms of nature and discover how to integrate them, potentially reclaiming a sense of wholeness.

The Romantic and Transcendental project often hinges on a rift between spirit and matter, leading to an internalization of that divide within individuals. Many of us (myself included) experience ourselves as fragmented, projecting that split onto nature by categorizing wildness, matter, bodies, and the earth on one side, while culture, mind, spirit, and heaven occupy the other.

My experience in the emergency room has made me aware of my own familiarity with this dualism, which I often rely upon for protection. However, the prospect of unifying these dualities is daunting: keeping them apart makes the ferocity of matter seem less threatening, yet bridging the divide exposes us to the unpredictable nature of physical existence. Despite my yearning for unity, this idea is frightening.

I often critique how some public intellectuals discuss materiality and bodies. They rightly highlight how our lives—politically, religiously, philosophically—have been stripped of their material dimensions. They seek to reclaim the body as a site of liberation, resistance, and justice. Their advocacy for embodied practices represents a radical shift away from centuries of discourse that prioritized the spiritual, mental, and rational, which I view positively.

Nevertheless, my concern with this focus on embodiment is that our perceptions of matter and bodies are themselves influenced by this dualism. In essence, matter and bodies are already subdued before we engage with them. How few of us—myself included—have faced the daunting, raw power of nature? How many have felt trepidation in the presence of our own bodies, let alone those of others? Have we wrestled with the Titan that possesses us?

It seems to me that, despite our rhetoric, we actively evade these transformative experiences in two significant ways. First, we literally avoid encounters with the vast, titanic forces of nature that would compel us to confront our own strange and fearful bodies. Second, we shield ourselves from these forces by discussing matter and bodies in abstract terms, thereby rendering the material world less intimidating.

Often, discussions surrounding embodiment and materiality come off as overly tame and sanitized. We emphasize nature's beauty and abundance while neglecting its horror and destructiveness. This does not imply that nature is solely beautiful or only destructive; rather, the tone of discussions on embodiment shifts when one has confronted nature's full force, and those encounters seem absent from conversations about embodiment.

Thoreau trembles at his own strange body and those of others because he fears them. The same Titan that looms over Katahdin resides within him, having taken hold of his being. His body has become earth-born, awe-inspiring yet intimidating. Caring for my brother, both in the hospital and at home, evokes similar feelings of fear and strangeness within me.

Self-preservation is generally viewed as an instinct inherent in all living beings. However, this notion becomes much more complex when sitting beside my brother in a hospital bed, trying to clean his wounds while preventing him from self-harm or disrupting his IV. Naturally, I wanted him to heal, but I would be untruthful if I claimed he desired that for himself. His instinct to protect was not directed at his own body, identity, or life; it was aimed at something entirely different, something alien to me. The prospect of annihilation did not disturb him, regardless of the source.

It is easy to articulate a desire to unify spirit and matter, to bridge the chasm created by dualism, and to restore our sense of wholeness. This longing runs deep within me. Yet, what we seek to unify often resists that very unification.

The dualistic separation of matter from spirit serves as a safeguard against the indifferent forces of nature. These forces, which are “not bound to be kind,” resist our attempts to merge body and spirit. It seems that a part of us actively works against our desires while simultaneously representing our most vivacious essence. Our spirits may yearn for “contact!” and warmth, but not all matter is benevolent or inclined to treat humanity kindly.

At this juncture, I believe I have successfully dislodged the contact passage from my thoughts. Yet, I remain with a lingering question: how do I engage with these forces that are “not bound to be kind to man?”

Thoreau offers one possible insight in a journal entry from the winter following his Katahdin expedition. Laura Dassow Walls recounts it as follows:

> “All material things are in some sense man’s kindred, and subject to the same laws with him.” The very candle he burned to light his page was “his relative,” who wastes and decays the same as he, only on a shorter scale.

> “Some Star’s Surface” in Rediscovering the Maine Woods

In a conversation with Penobscot elder Louis Neptune before his journey to Katahdin, Thoreau inquires whether the mountain spirit, Pomola, would permit them to ascend. The elder replies that they must make an offering of rum to achieve the summit. Thoreau's account reveals disdain for the drinking habits of the local people and a lack of seriousness regarding the mountain's warnings.

Perhaps in a moment of humility atop Katahdin, Thoreau reflects:

> “The tops of mountains are among the unfinished parts of the globe, whither it is a slight insult to the gods to climb and pry into their secrets, and try their effect on our humanity. Only daring and insolent men, perchance, go there. [The indigenous] do not climb mountains, — their tops are sacred and mysterious tracts never visited by them. Pomola is always angry with those who climb to the summit of Ktaadn.”

> “Ktaadn,” The Maine Woods

Thoreau's audacity appears to have incurred punishment, based on his later account of profound existential disorientation. Even though he did not experience the sublime mountaintop moment he anticipated, he nonetheless returned with valuable insights, albeit after some time for them to take root.

The Penobscot, despite their hesitance to ascend Katahdin, maintain a relationship with the mountain and its spirit. The distinction between the physical mountain and the mountain spirit becomes less significant than their kinship with the Penobscot—they are relatives, bound in relationship.

The wild and powerful forces Thoreau faced on the mountain were kin to someone, even if initially unrecognizable. Wilderness and wildness are not “elsewhere,” separated from the body and spirit; rather, for the Penobscot, they are integrated into a relational framework as active subjects with agency and purpose. Despite the respectful fear they hold toward Katahdin and Pomola, these entities are still regarded as integral members of the community, part of a relational system. The Penobscot understand the mountain's moods because they are connected to it.

Ultimately, after his third and final trip to Maine, Thoreau began to embody the wisdom gleaned from Katahdin more fully. As Dassow Walls notes, the challenge of the Maine Woods shifted for Thoreau from crossing the boundary between the civilized and the wild to understanding the nature of that boundary itself.

> “…not crossing the boundary between civil and wild, as it has been twice before, but the nature of the boundary itself.”

> “…Thoreau, in the few productive years remaining to him, redoubled his own work to ‘be’ something like an indigenous intelligence in Concord, to model, albeit in white garb and with white tools, an Indian kind of being — as if embodied knowledge could be mobilized after all, in words and stories, words that could be carried from Maine back out to the world.”

> “Some Star’s Surface” in Rediscovering the Maine Woods

Like Thoreau, my recent hospital experience has prompted me to reflect on the nature of the boundary between myself and my brother.

Previously, I viewed his wildness as something inherently separate from me, much like Thoreau’s initial perspective on the Maine woods, both of us hoping that crossing into the wild would lead to wholeness. We acknowledge the core separation between our minds and bodies, yet we fail to recognize that this division has already tainted our perception of the wild: we approach nature incomplete and seeking unity, but the mere idea of a boundary between ourselves and nature—that nature exists “out there” and must be sought—dooms us to failure.

My yearning for wholeness and to bridge the divide between spirit and matter, mind and body, may stem from a desire to dissolve that boundary, to make them one. But they are not the same. Katahdin imparted this lesson to Thoreau, just as my brother has shown me in that hospital bed.

The mountain resisted Thoreau’s efforts to unify and left him feeling even more alienated from matter and his own body, at least initially. My brother similarly resists attempts to unify and tame matter, tethering spirit. How do we react when faced with such resistance? Do we resolve to conquer nature, domesticate the wild? Or perhaps, more subversively, do we advocate for the integration of spirit and matter in an effort to elevate matter into a more spiritual existence?

Neither of these approaches yields satisfactory results, yet they are regrettably common, along with the destruction they cause. However, an alternative path exists: the route of relationship and kinship.

This path does not aim to erase the boundary but rather to respect and engage with it. The boundary transforms into something to which I am bound in relation. The challenge then becomes not one of unification and seeking wholeness within myself, but of opening up and nurturing the relationship between boundaries.

Viewed this way, I am already related to the tremendous, Titanic force that manifested in the emergency room last week. And while he may not be kind, his body is that strange matter to which I am bound. Bound in relationship and kinship. I, too, am possessed by the Titan of my brother’s being and tremble at its potency. Who are we?