John Muir

I grew up in Wisconsin playing in the woods in all seasons and reading about John Muir, as well as about Aldo Leopold and Sigurd Olson, nature writers in Wisconsin and Minnesota. I lived near Muir’s home, we both went to the University of Wisconsin, and one side of my family is Scottish, so there are those connections. Then he headed west and found himself entranced and delighted by Yosemite’s grandeur.

When I moved to California, I wanted to experience the place that Muir raves about in his books, the place that nurtured his soul, so I went to Yosemite.  I was, and still am, amazed that such a place can exist – a valley with granite walls that go straight up for almost a mile, waterfalls that flow into the valley from every direction, mountain peaks that stretch to 13,000 feet, and giant sequoias that are 300 feet tall and 3000 years old. I continue to use Muir’s words to guide me around the valley and draw closer to nature.  He also liked to hike by himself, and by doing so I find solitude that nourishes me.

John Muir was instrumental in saving Yosemite from development and founded the Sierra Club in the late 1800s.  He realized the importance of taking care of not just the valley but also the watershed, for if the source of water in the mountains was diverted for irrigation, then the valley and its creatures would die. 

Like Muir, when I’m in Yosemite I feel surrounded by something much greater than my individual life.  I feel awe and wonder, as if I’m touching something eternal.  I feel a spiritual presence. When I stand on the top of Clouds Rest at 10,000 feet and look down at the forests, canyons and rivers that have looked this way for thousands of years, I am profoundly moved.  Nothing else affects me this way.  Nothing else inspires me like the wilderness. Nothing else gives me such hope.  

Tree Branches

Earth Day

Spring is late this year.  It actually was about to start early, then a snow storm came in, followed by a warm day, then a cold front with days of rain.  Now it seems that spring might finally stay longer, although lows in the 30s are expected later this week.  Tiny buds that I can’t see on trees in the distance are giving the woods behind my house a light green sheen as if some light is always shining on them.

I noticed a beautiful bare tree last week.  Without any leaves, everything was exposed from the trunk and main branches to the smaller branches as they tapered out thinner and thinner until they reached the twigs.  It was so symmetrical that I gazed at it in admiration.

And I had the thought that we are like trees and the branches are aspects of our lives – our relationships, projects, work, and all of our interests over the years.  As some of our interests end, those branches die and fall off.  As people we knew in high school move away, those branches never grow any further.  When we take on new interests and relationships, new branches grow.  What we were provides the support for our ventures now.

A few days ago I went into the woods and found a tree that did not survive the winter.  The bark on my old friend was beginning to come off in places.  I’ve enjoyed the beauty of this tree as I sat under it when it was full and glorious with its summer green, and I’ve watched it sway back and forth as it endured the strong driving wind and rain of thunderstorms.  Soon its branches will break under their own weight, and the tree will eventually fall.  Then it will become a home for insects and bugs, and attract a new set of birds. This is part of the life cycle, too.

(In honor of his birthday, California declared yesterday to be John Muir Day.)

At a Wandering Pace - John Muir

I remembered a John Muir quote incorrectly. I thought he said that nothing could be seen at 40 miles an hour because everything becomes a bewildering, swirling blur.

When people arrive in Yosemite today, after having spent four or more hours in the car driving 60-70 miles an hour across the Central Valley, up through the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, and into the valley, they do stagger out of their car dazed. At those speeds, the landscape has been a blur. Trees flash by the windows as we focus on staying on the road. We would be able to see much more if we slowed down to 40, but Muir doesn’t think this is enough.

And he’s right. In Peoria, as the sparseness of winter trees fill out with summer leaves, they begin to hide the contours to the hills. The little valleys and creeks that crease the rolling hills that I could see in winter are hidden behind trees. When I drive by a woods going even 25 miles an hour, all I see are the trees that stand alongside the road.

Yesterday I ran across this quote again. It doesn’t say 40 miles an hour. I had mistakenly thought that Muir was berating people who arrived in the valley by stagecoach, zipping over the new dirt roads, or taking the train to El Portal at the breakneck speed of 40 instead of taking their time by riding horses over trails. Muir took things even slower by taking several weeks to walk the 200 miles from Oakland. (Wendell Berry wrote an insightful essay on adjusting to the pace of the nature, “An Entrance to the Woods.”)

What the quote really said was 40 miles A DAY.

Harkening back to my time as a Boy Scout, I know that a good hiking pace is 4 miles an hour over relatively flat or gently rolling terrain. Ten hours at this pace would make a full day. You can see a great deal more of nature going 4 miles an hour rather than 60.

Yet even at this pace, if you keep to it hour after hour, you have no time to explore what is around you, what catches your eye. You can’t investigate the open patch of sunlight 100 yards into the forest, or check out the sound of running water to see if it’s a creek, a waterfall, or a pool that would be ideal for cooling your sweaty feet. If you are trying to get somewhere, even at 4 miles an hour, you are moving too fast to experience the landscape you are moving through.

So where does this leave us?

When you find yourself outdoors in a beautiful place, take your time. Savor what is there. Do not hurry on to get to some place else. Stay in the moment until it is over, then go on to the next. This is also important for the other events in our lives, like the deeper conversations we have with others.

Life is not a linear experience, a matter of getting from here to there. It’s a collection of special moments that we linger in, explore, and thereby come to cherish.

Not all who wander are lost. -- Tolkien

Seeing Nature

Early one morning, I followed the Merced River in Yosemite from Happy Isles to the big medial moraine, turned right, and headed up Tenaya Canyon. At the far end of Mirror Meadow I sat on a log by Tenaya Creek. My intention was to sit by the silent river, focus on the triangular boulder reflecting off the still water, let thoughts come and go, and wait for the sun to peak over the top of Half Dome, a mile above my head. When the light was right, I’d take black and white photos of Half Dome rising above me backlit by the sun.

When I first began taking black and whites, I quickly learned that colors do not translate to black and white film. Black and white picks up contrasts. I had to train my eyes to see the natural world differently in order to notice would show up in black and white.

Any time I go into nature from the city, I also have to refocus my eyes so that I see nature on its own terms rather than in comparison to a city landscape.

Ansel Adams was convinced that a black and white photo was different than a color photo of the same scene, a difference that went beyond the colors. Perhaps he felt that it was too easy to be misled by the colors in a photograph when composing a scene. Black and white photos capture the details, the essence of what is there, the grain, the shades of the land, the texture of reality rather than the surface flash.

Story versus images. Psychologists tell us that if a scene is green, we become peaceful. If it is red, we get excited. Colors do affect us emotionally. Have you ever noticed the difference in a friend’s face when the same photo is in black and white instead of color? It’s as if a protective covering has been removed and we can see the struggles that person has gone through.

If there is more emotion to color pictures, is there more philosophy to black and whites? Or more drama? And if writing and reading are essentially black and white affairs (black ink, white paper), do avid readers see black and white photography differently than non-readers?

John Muir’s birthday is tomorrow. He will be 173. PBS is running a good overview of his life under the American Masters heading.

Wandering Home - John Muir

I walk beneath the giant sequoias that John Muir loved, pick up three dark-green cones, and brush the snow off. Freshly cut down by Douglass squirrels, the sequoia seeds are tightly bound with the promise of new life to come.

At the end of this glorious winter day, even the sun is reluctant to set, its colors fading slowly from glowing orange to pink then the cosmic, cobalt blue. Constellations of stars string branches overhead with twinkling strands of lights. Muir said, “I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”

Everywhere I go in Yosemite feels like home, no matter where I sleep at night. I’ve eaten meals in many places and sat for hours at scenic spots all around the valley. The beauty of this place continues to surprise and draw me deeper in. There is so little time to be part of this wonder.

Fools Along the Road

John Muir’s birthday is today. He was a fool for believing that the wilderness is our greatest national treasure and that we should do all we can to protect it. Long live fools! Long live the wild places!

Vision

Progress happens when people take blind steps into the unknown. They notice that something is missing and set out to fill in the gap. They turn their lives over to figuring out how to make their vision happen, moving by trial and error through possibilities, and putting up with people unable to see what they do, or who are trying to protect their special interests.

John Muir saw sheep destroying the flowering wilderness meadows of the Sierra Nevada, worked to save them, and help create the National Park system in the process. Rachel Carson discovered the devastating effects of pesticides and alerted people to the problem. Aldo Leopold tried out different strategies for reclaiming barren land in Wisconsin and kick-started the ecology movement. Sigurd Olson worked to save the wilderness, especially the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota. Wendell Berry figured out how one could do sustainable farming, feeding people while doing minimal damage to the land. John Burroughs wanted people to see nature that exists around them, even in the city.

Stepping into the unknown involves taking risks because we don’t know where we’ll end up. Yet trying something new uncovers paths into the unknown areas of our abilities. The witness of the land prophets and elders who have gone before us tell us that this is the only way that change happens.