Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,

Of late, I've been looking for something to engage my mind. I read posts from friends on Facebook; many which are good progressive screeds, but I grow weary of that. I see what's on television, in the movies, playing on the radio, or written in popular books and I am uninterested.

My thoughts turned to reading the great books. Maybe, I can work my way through the American writers. I try to find a thread to pull.

Massive Open Online Courses catch my interest. I've kicked around a few in the past and made it a little way through some of them, but get distracted. Perhaps, I can set aside an hour each night to explore MOOCs.

In my search, I stumbled across The Saylor Foundation and start looking at their offerings.

ENGL405: The American Renaissance catches my eye and I start reading The Romantic Period, 1820-1860: Essayists and Poets By Kathryn VanSpanckeren.

There are many great diversions along the way. It is not surprising that I get distracted and rarely finish a MOOC.

VanSpanckeren quotes Emerson's essay, The Poet

For all men live by truth, and stand in need of expression. In love, in art, in avarice, in politics, in labor, in games, we study to utter our painful secret. The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.

I spend a little time reading, or perhaps re-reading some of that essay.

A little later on VanSpanckeren references The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne which I download to my cellphone and start reading.

A number of Transcendentalists were … were involved in experimental utopian communities such as nearby Brook Farm (described in Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance) and Fruitlands.

I read a little bit of The Blithedale Romance and then spend some time exploring online articles about Brook Farm.

Ah yes, to find a Brook Farm I could join.

Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

Perhaps an online Brook Farm or Bloomsbury Circle. Miranda talks about wanting to start a salon, an artist colony, or something of the sort. Perhaps when I am "old and gray and full of sleep and nodding by the fire" I can find a corner in my daughter's salon.

But he grew old-
This knight so bold-
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

Yet perhaps, this Brook Farm, Bloomsbury Circle, Eldorado can by created online; a venue for the techno-transcendentalists.

Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied-
"If you seek for Eldorado!"