Ralph Waldo Emerson: A Transcendental Spiritual Community

Within a transcendentalist community such as Daba, spirituality is a central part of the culture. Our community's vision is that together but separate, the community will make advancements for the good of all, which can easily be seen alongside our core values, individuality, being one with nature, and diversity and acceptance, in our implementation of spirituality. We strive to allow and encourage all in our community to pursue spirituality how they see fit, when they see fit, and where they see fit. We have taken inspiration from multiple transcendental writers, and in effect have created an extremely transcendental spiritual community. One of the most influential transcendental writers we have taken inspiration from is Ralph Waldo Emerson, especially his work Nature. The opening line states: "To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society" (Emerson 3). Emerson suggests that people remove themselves from society in order to gain solitude, and in turn become more transcendentalist. This is seen in

His writings also exhibit traits shared with our spiritual ideals. He states at one point in his work Walden, "I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life" (Thoreau 382). By this statement, Thoreau means to say that he, and in turn transcendentalists who are following his lead, wishes to experience everything, and in doing so he tries his best to connect to nature and his spiritual side. This connects to the spiritual community of Daba in that people are encouraged to do and experience whatever they want religiously, and many in the community try many different ways of thinking before settling, if they ever settle. The quote also connects to our community's core value of being one with nature, this is less in a spiritual sense, however, as members of the community seek to spend as much time as possible experiencing and discovering