Thanksgiving—Turkeys—Apples—Indian Corn

Posted on Leave a Comment

One of the greatest scientific events on Planet Earth was the inception of the biological design of sperm and egg. It should be the source for jubilant thanksgiving, for without them the highest form of life Earth would have been marine or fresh-water green slime.

Excerpt: BOFAW, Chapter 26; “Soul Medicine.”

“While walking in the Mendocino woods, the students came upon a pickup truck with a camper. The back bumper featured a sticker that boldly stated, “Don’t come a-knockin’ if this truck’s a-rockin’.” The boys began to cheer, and the girls said the boys were disgusting. I discovered that the best word that defined the teenage humor gender gap was “disgusting.”

Photo credit: kitchenfloorcrafts.blogspot.com

Once we were discussing the importance of Mendel’s laws of segregation and independent assortment in evolution. I reminded them that a good example was the fact that every corn kernel resulted from a sperm that swam down a silk thread and fertilized an ovum. Gina blurted out, “Mr. Young, ever since you told us that in our sophomore year, I haven’t been able to eat corn; it’s disgusting.”

It can be a fool’s errand to overly anthropomorphize biological organs, but generally the girls were not too pleased when we identified apples as enlarged ovaries.

Photo credit: foodandwine.com

The turkeys that will grace millions of Thanksgiving tables are distant relatives of the ones Pilgrims feasted on. They have been selectively (and probably artificially) bred so that they have huge breasts and are unable to fly.

Photo credit: ststesymboluse.org

I find it fascinating that every turkey, every kernel of corn, every apple and every human being began when a sperm fertilized an egg in a mysterious process that scientists have yet to fully comprehend.

Many people may no longer say grace before their thanksgiving dinner, but the mere existence of sperm and egg should be reason enough for shouts of exaltation and gratefulness.

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

young.lowell@gmail.com

John Muir: Flying Lessons off of Half Dome

Posted on 1 Comment

“Come to the edge, he said.
We are afraid, they said.
Come to the edge, he said.
They came to the edge,
He pushed them and they flew.
Come to the edge, Life said.
They said: We are afraid.
Come to the edge, Life said.
They came. It pushed them…
And they flew.” Christopher Logue

After nearly blinding one eye in an industrial accident, John Muir declared:

“I bade adieu to all my mechanical inventions, determined to devote the rest of my life to the study of the inventions of God.”

This was primarily accomplished in Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. He launched himself on a self-imposed mission to probe the edges of his humanity and spirituality. Muir not only thrived at seeking transcendental experiences, he enjoyed urging others to seek their respective “edges”where he could give them a gentle push.

100 years before hang glider pilots began launching off of Glacier Point, Muir was urging anyone he could to climb any mountain peak and test his/her spirit wings. I know about this because 50 years ago he called me to the top of Half Dome and gave me a gentle push. My maiden flight was exhilarating and inspired me to lead 24 groups of high school biology students to the top of Half Dome to test their spirit wings. Typically, they were thrilled and like Muir, saw visions, marvels and wonders that defied human description.

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

young.lowell@gmail.com

(Muir image: A-Z Quotes)

John Muir—Silence—Grand Canyon

Posted on Leave a Comment

“And where better to grasp in one panoramic sweep the reality of time and change but on the rim of the Grand Canyon, the world’s greatest geological gash?” – “The Thread Of Life,” by Roger Lewin.

GRAND CANYON is also, arguably, the greatest page of biological history and therefore the greatest biological “laboratory” on planet Earth. After reading the adventures of John Muir in the Grand Canyon in our advanced biology class “Sean” commented, “obviously, we ‘have to go there to know there’.” I eagerly agreed, but replied that the financial and logistical limitations of flying 30 high school biology students 1100 miles to Grand Canyon would be insurmountable. However, Muir and Sean planted a seed and through an amazing series of synchronicities, the next year’s Class flew to Grand Canyon on a glorious, 6-day trip with Muir as our guide. Not only that, 14 more successive classes had the extreme privilege of hiking to the bottom of “The Incomparable Canyon” and spending two nights at Phantom Ranch.

John Muir was his own biggest critic. When he muttered, “These dead bony words rattle in one’s teeth… I can’t get a reasonably likeable picture off my hands…” he was lamenting the fact that spiritual events and awareness cannot be translated into spoken or written words.

He was probably referring to Yosemite, however if he were referring to Grand Canyon his task would have become exponentially more difficult.

Therefore it should not be surprising that perhaps his most cogent assessment of Grand Canyon involved silence rather than words.

Excerpt: “John Muir—Steep Trails,” edited by Wade Naney.

“I have observed scenery-hunters of all sorts getting first views of yosemities, glaciers, White Mountain ranges, etc. Mixed with the enthusiasm, which such scenery naturally excites, there is often weak gushing, and many splutter aloud like little waterfalls. Here, for a few moments at least, there is silence, and all are in dead earnest, as if awed and hushed by a earthquake.”

Muir was aware that as magnificent as Yosemite Valley was it was typically emotionally manageable. Visitors were prone to engage in exultant chatter, each eager to share what she/he was experiencing. This kind of behavior is practically non-existent on the rim of the Grand Canyon. As visitors approach the rim, idle chatter wanes until nearly all standing on the brink of the massive chasm, stand in stunned silence. When they turn to leave, many probably agree with the poet who penned;

“The only thing God left out of the Grand Canyon was the words to describe it.”

Unlike Dorothy facing the curtain hiding The Great Oz, there is no curtain blocking the view and visitors are invited to be swallowed up in the Great Mystery.

One year, one of the better writers in The Class, missed the essay due-date and tearfully suggested that I should give her a failing grade. She mentioned that she had made numerous attempts, but the experience was too overwhelming to process. I assured her that I was not interested in failing her and that she should press on.

Four days later she arrived before school looking exhausted, but with a radiant smile. She described bolting out of bed at 1:00 AM and writing for six uninterrupted hours.

Her first draft was beautifully organized, nearly letter-perfect and needed only a few minor changes. When she presented her paper she described walking on The Canyon floor and feeling intensely claustrophobic as if the walls were pressing in on her. When she passed an Anasazi ruin she felt a deep sense of foreboding and that she did not belong there.

Intriguingly, her Canyon experience proved to be sharply antithetical to her earlier Half Dome experience. It’s little wonder that she was perplexed. Muir would have loved the dichotomy and Carl Sandburg presaged her confusion. While watching a sunset over Grand Canyon, he mused:

‘There goes God with an army of banners;
who is God and why; who am I and why?
He told himself, This may be
something else than what I
see when I look—how do I know?
For each man sees himself
in the Grand Canyon,
each one makes his own Canyon
before he comes, each one brings
and carries away his own Canyon—
Who knows? And how do I know?
 

“Sean” was correct. We had to “go there to know there,” however, in the case of Grand Canyon, going there does not necessarily mean knowing there. When tourists read the informational plaque that states that the Vishnu Schist rock formation at the bottom is 1.8 thousand-million years old, most brains flash; “Warning! Data-entry-overload! Try again.”

Many of the students agreed with Muir; the most logical response to The Canyon is silence.

When they were composing their post-Canyon-essays, it was common for them to use “Jonah-esque” metaphors involving being ingested by some mysterious being, power, or process and then being egested on the third day as transformed beings.

As for me, I felt like Melville’s “Ishmael” and was supremely blessed to have been a witness for 15 years and see Grand Canyon through the eyes of over 400 very bright, curious and impressionable students. Certainly, none of this would likely have occurred without John Muir and my student/teacher “Sean.” I owe them both a huge spiritual debt of gratitude.

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

young.lowell@gmail.com

 

John Muir—Professor Butler—Kything

Posted on Leave a Comment

The word “kything” became more widely known in 1973 when Madeleine L’Engle published, A Wind in the Door. Evidently she was looking for a term that described soul-to-soul communion and found the word, “kythe” in an 1856 Scottish Dictionary. I was elated by the glorious synchronicity that, although I don’t recall John Muir ever using the word “kythe,” he experienced an intense mystical event that evinced the etymology of the Gaelic-born word.

Excerpt: My First Summer In The Sierra, John Muir.

“August 2—Sketching all day on the North Dome until four or five o’clock in the afternoon, when I was busily employed thinking only of the glorious Yosemite landscape, trying to draw every tree and every line and feature of the rocks, I was suddenly, and without warning, possessed with the notion of my friend, Professor J.D. Butler, of the State University of Wisconsin, was below me in the valley, and I jumped up full of the idea of meeting him, with almost startling excitement as if he had touched me to make me look up.

August 3—Had a wonderful day. Found Professor Butler as the compass needle finds the pole. So last evening’s telepathy, transcendental revelation, or whatever else it may be called was true; for strange to say, he had just entered the valley by way of the Coulterville Trail and was coming up the valley past El Capitan when his presence struck me. Had he then looked toward the North Dome with a good glass when it came into sight, he might have seen me jump up from my work and run toward him. This seems the one well-defined marvel of my life of the kind called supernatural…”

I had never heard the term “kything” before 1988 when my soul-mate-wife gifted me with a copy of, Kything: The Art of Spiritual Presence, co-authored by Louis Savary and Patricia Berne.

The book grabbed my full attention, as the authors explored various methods of spiritual communication, however, I found it intriguing when they stated what “kything” is not. They asserted that kything is not mental telepathy, not an imaginary conversation, not channeling and surprisingly, not necessarily a religious experience.

They described it as the “Art of Spiritual Awareness,” whereby two souls can commune in perfect harmony without words. The idea may be based on the concept of “Oneness.” Apparently, applying the concept puts a person “in kythe” with that which he/she is concentrating on. Kything is portrayed as a way to be present with others without regard to space or time. The practice is waning in Scotland and is practically unknown in the US.

The book became a milestone epiphany for me. The concept was provocative and exciting. Even though the Bible is quite clear about the prognosis of life after death, most Christians are understandably often a bit unclear on the mystery. But the ancient Scotts seemed to be convinced that soul communion was quite natural among the living as well as the deceased. Savary and Berne provided a splendid challenge for me.

In the early years of Biodesign, we had experienced many mystical Jungian synchronicities at Yosemite, but I did not imagine that I was “kything” with the holy ghost of John Muir. However, if what they were claiming were true, it seemed as if that was a real possibility.

Over the years after discovering the book, I made a conscious effort to invoke the soul of Muir on our Yosemite trips. I did not have a “Professor Butler” epiphany, but there were countless events that Muir would have called, “supernatural.”

garyhartblog.com

One year, just before we left on our Yosemite trip, I got a little heady and foolishly boasted to the class that we would see a rainbow. I rued my arrogance for five days until on the last day when a glorious rainbow arched above us. We stood in awe-struck silence. After a few minutes, one of the boys edged over and whispered, “OK, how’d you know?”

I humbly shook my head in denial and said, “I didn’t, and I won’t make that mistake again.”

One class was sitting in the dark in a magical circle on top of Half Dome. We enjoyed a 360-degree view under a brilliant canopy of stars. The students were sharing journal reflections, prose, hopes and dreams in perfect sincerity. Suddenly, the whole Class seemed to be raised to a higher level of spiritual awareness. They conjured up Black Elk’s message:

“Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner…”

Photo: NASA

The next day one of the chaperones approached me with a solemn countenance and said, “I have never seen anything like that.” I agreed without suggesting that it could have been an extraordinary example of group kything.

Whether Muir’s spirit was present cannot be proved, however, the need for proof of an act of kything seems utterly oxymoronic.

Muir was too modest and shy to even imagine that his soul could remain hovering about Yosemite for eternity, but the possibility has become very real to the thousands of people who have “kythed” his spirit there. If asked to explain the soulful events they generally agree that there are no words to describe them; a perfect corroboration of “kything.”

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

young.lowell@gmail.com

John Muir: Mystic Of The Sierra Nevada

Posted on Leave a Comment

According to Edwin Way Teal (editor: The Wilderness World of John Muir) Muir was a scientist, a poet, a mystic, a philosopher and a humorist. The mystic in him wrote: “No sane man in the hands of Nature can doubt the doubleness of his life. Soul and body receive separate nourishment and separate exercise, and speedily reach a stage of development wherein each is easily apart from the other.” John Of The Mountains.

Whether Muir was aware of 13-th century German philosopher/theologian Meister Eckhart or not, they had much in common. Like Muir, Eckhart was criticized for his visionary thinking. His teachings had a huge impact on contemporary theologian Matthew Fox, who envisioned the modern movement known as “Creation Spirituality,” a concept that formed the basis of Muir’s “theology.”

Muir’s struggles with finding words to describe the Sierra Nevada Mountains resonate with Eckhart’s description of words:

“It is the nature of a word to reveal what is hidden. The word that is hidden still sparkles in the darkness and whispers in the silence. It entices us to pursue it and to yearn and sigh after it. For it wishes to reveal to us something about God.”

The human struggle to unravel the mysticism of Nature has challenged scientists, sages, poets and prophets for thousands of years. Muir’s contemporary and fellow transcendentalist R-W Emerson wrote:

“The whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind.”

While traveling through California’s redwood forest, John Steinbeck wrote:

“No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It’s not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know; they are ambassadors from another time.” ~John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley In Search of America, 1962.

About the same time Muir was exploring the Sierra Nevada (with 2 trips to Alaska) fellow mystic/naturalist, John Wesley Powell became the first known human to successfully navigate the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. After a 3-month perilous journey he emerged to write:

“The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself. The resources of the graphic art are taxed beyond their powers in attempting to portray its features. Language and illustration combined must fail.”

And in a “Neo-science” era, when scientists were swapping God for Darwin, anthropologist Loren Eiseley challenged the movement by claiming the Mystery still exists. He correctly pointed out that scientists dismissed the “Creation Story” as an unprovable myth, only to replace it with the “Big Bang Theory” which is equally unprovable. Not only that, in order to accept the Big Bang Theory they have to reject the long-standing law of conservation of matter/energy. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. If matter cannot be created, the Big Bang Theory is a myth. If it can be created, it must have been created out of nothing, which is scientifically impossible. This is classic circular logic and intellectually flawed.

There is a legendary story that on his deathbed, Albert Einstein smiled and mused, “But I still wonder how nothing can become something.”

Eiseley ends his masterpiece book, “The Immense Journey” with a profound summation:

“Rather, I would say that if “dead matter” has reared up this curious landscape of fiddling crickets, song sparrows, and wondering men, it must be plain even to the most devoted materialist that the matter of what he speaks contains amazing, if not dreadful powers, and may not impossibly be as Hardy has suggested, “but one mask of many worn by the Great Face behind.’”

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

young.lowell@gmail.com

Ode to Biodesign ‘79:

Posted on Leave a Comment

The first Class to fully embrace holistic biology: Body—Mind—Spirit.

When Melody Petersen Floyd and Terri Raymond Penington invited Christie and me to the upcoming 40-year-class reunion, my grumpy response was, I am retired and attending reunions was not in my job description. Thankfully, Christie disagreed and said, “I think we should go.” Of course! She intuitively knew that I owed a huge spiritual debt to the former Biodesign students, a debt that was noted in a passage from Biodesign Out For A Walk, chap. 4, “A Class Is Born,”

This class (’79) was able to negotiate many minefields and learned to prepare, concentrate, and communicate. In doing so, they not only created an incredible learning environment, but they built a foundation that would support nearly 20 more years of Biodesign.

In the spring of 1978, I don’t think the upcoming students were aware of the personal and professional battles I was going through. They were deeply troubling and I was seriously considering giving up my dream of establishing a class that encouraged students to explore Nature as an inner guide to their unique sense of spirituality.

The litany of errors (many of them mine) that caused 1/3 of the previous class to drop out at the end of the first semester left me lost and confused. The factors are detailed in chapter 3, titled “Firestorm,” but the title adequately described the class.

We were collectively pioneering uncharted territory for a public high school and I had no curriculum guide or backup administrative support. I might have terminated the Class, but the Class of ’79 had already enrolled and it was too late to cancel.

Evidently the word had spread that we were doing something revolutionary by adding a “spiritual” element and I should not have been surprised that 19 girls and 6 boys signed up for the ’79 Class.

I was not gender-biased, but I could foresee that legitimate gender-based differences could create some unique logistical challenges. It was widely known that climbing world-famous Half Dome was a primary goal of the Yosemite trip and the ascent proved to be highly challenging, even to better-balanced classes.

The weight any animal can carry is related to its size. A 6-lb. toy poodle might manage a 1-lb. pack while professional muleskinners calculate a mule’s carrying capacity at about 20% of its weight, or about 200 lbs. Although humans are not built like mules, the 20% rule comes pretty close. A 200 lb. human, can usually manage a 40-lb pack, while a 100-lb human can usually manage a 20-lb pack. However, this is where gender enters the equation. Girls typically weigh less than guys and they often lack the muscle mass of males, especially in the upper body area. This could become a crucial factor especially while climbing Half Dome’s cables.

In the fall of 1978, as we approached the Yosemite trip, I became more concerned about the weight differential. I highly recommended that the boys not exceed 40-lb packs and the girls not exceed 30 lbs. This posed a potential problem because the girls needed the same essentials (sleeping bag, ground mat, water bottles, and part of a tent) as the guys. While most of the boys would probably be fine with 40 lbs., 30 lbs. could overstress some of the girls. I tried to downplay the issue and said that we will go as far as we can and make camp at Little Yosemite Valley or on the Half Dome shoulder if necessary.

They started from the Valley Floor and during eight hours they powered up 10 miles, with nearly a 5,000-foot gain. By being prepared, concentrating and with soulful communication, they worked together and achieved what, for many groups would have been impossible. In past classes, the stronger boys (and some girls) willingly offered to carry a sleeping bag, tent section or rain-fly. Generally, this Class did not have that option.

For most, if not all, the climb up Half Dome was the dire-most physical, mental and spiritual challenge of their life. It demanded extreme exertion and tapping into latent energy reserves before they shared an exhausted, yet triumphal celebration on the top.

Against amazing odds, they became the third Class to earn the right to sleep on top of Half Dome. Their post-trip essays were over-the-moon and the Class set a new bar of excellence for future Classes.

They couldn’t have known it, but they would become responsible for enabling 51 more field trips including 15 trips to the incomparable Grand Canyon. Grand Canyon became Christie’s favorite trip and without her logistical expertise, they would most likely not have been possible.

The only injury occurred in the McDonald’s Restaurant restroom in Oakdale, Ca. I failed to allow enough “potty stops” for so many girls and all 19 of them tried to cram into 2 stalls. One door accidentally got slammed on one of the girl’s ring finger and resulted in a painful break. We quickly called her doctor who advised that we ice the finger and get her home where he could set it properly.

I saw her several years later and she flashed a pretty diamond at me and said, “Look Mr.Young, my finger was straight enough to slip a wedding ring on!” I laughed and said a quiet Amen; not only for her finger, but the multitude blessings we had received.

Chapter 4 in BOFAW ended with:

“The year proved to a banner year with the only major trauma coming at the very end. I had fallen in love with the whole class, and when it was time for them to graduate, I was heartbroken. I decided that it would have been much less painful dissecting pigs.”

“So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near—
‘Ah,’ said the fox, ‘I shall cry.’
‘It is your own fault,’ said the little prince. ‘I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you…’” The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint Exupery.

Of course, there are no words to describe the huge impact the class of ’79 had on my life, marriage, family and career. In a huge irony, without them, Biodesign Out For A Walk would likely never have been written with their story, along with stories of other amazing students. Suddenly, I had a burning desire to meet and thank them for their precious gift of life.

So we went to the reunion and reconnected with about a dozen ex-Biodesigners. It was strange and in a wonderfully mysterious way, after spirit-filled hugs, words somehow seemed inadequate. After all, they enabled me to achieve my dream of providing an educational environment that celebrated Holistic Biology:

Body—Mind—Spirit; perhaps our souls were co-mingling and words had become superfluous.

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

young.lowell@gmail.com

John Muir—Shakespeare—Mysteries of the Sierra Nevada Mountains

Posted on Leave a Comment
Photo credit: creationsdawn-WordPress.com

“No amount of word-making will ever make a single soul to know these mountains. As well seek to warm the naked and frost-bitten by lectures on caloric and pictures of flame. One day’s exposure to mountains is better than cartloads of books.” JM

In three simple, expository lines Muir opened a window to his soul. He revealed that he was closest to God when he was in the mountains, and predating Zora Hurston,
(Their Eyes Were Watching God) indicated that you have to go there to know there.

It is likely that two of the many reasons that John Muir has attracted so many millions of Nature lovers are his ultra-exuberance for life and his holistic vision. Adding Shakespeare’s adage:

“This above all: to thine own self be true,

and it must follow, as the night the day,

thou canst not then be false to any man,”

Muir was honor-bound to reveal his frustration that the confining limits of even the finest version of the Homo sapiens’ vernacular precluded him from adequately describing the marvels, miracles and mysteries of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He made it very clear that all of his five senses were taxed vastly beyond the descriptive power of any words.

Hearing:

Following a large earthquake in Yosemite Valley he wrote: “It seemed to me that if all of the thunder I ever heard were condensed into one roar it would not equal this rock roar at the birth of a mountain talus. Think, then of the roar that arose to heaven when all of the thousands of ancient canyon taluses throughout the length and breadth of the range were simultaneously given birth.”

Smell:

I don’t recall this description, but he was surely aware of the nearly overwhelmingly sweet smell of the Jeffrey Pine forests on a hot autumn afternoon. Or the delight of inviting fellow walkers to poke their noses into a Jeffrey or Ponderosa Pine and hear them respond: “It smells like butterscotch!” or “It smells like vanilla!”

Taste:

One of his great pleasures was to dip his head into an icy-cold alpine stream and taste water that he described as more glorious than champagne. Gourmet food had no appeal to him and he embraced the precept; “Man does not live by bread alone.”

Touch:

Muir’s world was an ongoing, enhanced tactile event. He felt wonder where others felt rocks. While camping in Yosemite, he felt rapture by walking in “creation’s dawn”…where, “the morning stars still sing together and the world, not yet half made, becomes more beautiful every day.” But one of his great joys was to make a bed of freshly cut boughs of cedar, fir, hemlock or spruce, snuggle down under a single wool blanket and fall into a deep sleep with the feeling of; the peace of the mountains that transcends all human comprehension.

Sight:

After Muir was nearly blinded in one eye due to an industrial accident he was directed to stay in a darkened room for one month. After the one-month-confinement he went for a walk in an Indiana woods and described beauty so intense that it created a deep visceral pain. The pain mysteriously subsided when he closed his eyes. The walk turned out to be perhaps the greatest epiphany of his life and he reckoned he would begin a 1,000-mile-walk and “say goodbye to mechanical inventions and study the inventions of God.” That singular event probably prepared him to see visions, marvels and wonders that others were not aware of. While in Yosemite, he often slept under a canopy of billions and billions of intensely brilliant stars. Each day he tried to single out one of the 8 million humanly visible colors that reflected, refracted and illuminated his beloved “Range Of Light.” While living (and preparing his journals for publication) in San Francisco, Muir was exposed daily to the social malaise of people living in the “lowlands.” He was keenly aware that his spiritual experiences could not be translated into words, which compelled him to dedicate his life to offering his thoughts as a form of literary enticement to encourage his readers to: “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”

(Photo credit: creationsdawn-WordPress.com)

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

young.lowell@gmail.com

Spirit-Walking: A Walk In The Woods and So Much More

Posted on Leave a Comment
Photo credit: M.D. Vaden

“Any fool can destroy trees.” John Muir

One of the Muir’s pressing reasons for creating “The Sierra Club” was to try to slow the destruction of California’s redwood forest. He was called an ignorant fool for suggesting that all of the redwood trees could be chopped down. Currently only 5% of the original forest remains and most of that is protected in national, state and regional parks.

Excerpt; Biodesign Out For A Walk. Chap. 23, Simple Gifts: Peter.

“Peter, [an English priest for 30 years], described his solitary walk among the giant coast redwood trees as one of the most sacred walks in his life.”

John Steinbeck penned:

“No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It’s not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know; they are ambassadors from another time.” ~John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley In Search of America, 1962

As for the importance of walking in Nature, Henry Thoreau wrote:

“I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of walking, that is, of taking walks; who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering; which word is beautifully derived “from idle people who roved about the country, in the middle ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going à la sainte terre”— to the holy land, till the children exclaimed, “There goes a sainte-terrer”, a saunterer — a holy-lander. They who never go to the holy land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds, but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean.”

One of the most intriguing and transforming aspects of walking in wilderness areas is the sense that the land is speaking a spirit language. Whether in the desert, on top of a mountain, along a mountain stream, beside a lake, on a sandy beach each type of scenery can stir the spirit within. Emerson, Muir and Thoreau understood clearly that their own personal identity was the product of all their Nature walks. Aristotle developed the Peripatetic Method of teaching, which involved walking with his students as they learned new concepts.

Many of the greatest moments I shared with students occurred while walking one-on-one along Yosemite, Grand Canyon or Mendocino trails.

There is a branch of Zen Buddhism that claims that important lessons of life can only be learned by walking barefoot. Native Americans often found “paleface shoes” too rigid and confining. They preferred either bare feet or wearing lightweight deerskin moccasins.

There is a Zen koan that states “one cannot enter the same river twice.” Perhaps the same can be said about entering a virgin redwood forest; one cannot enter and reemerge unchanged.

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

young.lowell@gmail.com

John Muir—Loren Eiseley—Annie Dillard Playfulness—Bio-spirituality

Posted on Leave a Comment

One of the primary reasons that John Muir, Loren Eiseley and Annie Dillard were celebrated as major mentors in the Biodesign Class was their respective genius in describing playfulness as a quintessential component in the biology of Planet Earth.

Dillard described dolphins frolicking in the water around the Galapagos Islands. I suspect that she would ascribe the same term to the 1000s of dolphins that demonstrate their propensity of playing by body-surfing on the bow-waves of ocean-going ships.

In an early morning, chance-born event, Loren Eiseley put an old chicken bone in his teeth and tumbled in the grass with a fox cub. He later described the experience as: “The gravest, most meaningful act I shall ever accomplish, but as Thoreau once remarked of some peculiar errand of his own, there is no use reporting it to the Royal Society.”

Muir’s splendid description of an event that he and his wonder-dog
“Stickeen” shared on an Alaska glacier, revealed the dog’s huge capacity for play. The account is widely considered one of the greatest man/dog adventures ever told. I read the story annually and every time I expect “Stickeen” to leap off of the page, onto my lap and begin licking my face.

Thoreau’s mention of the Royal Society refers to the inability of hard-wired (left-brain-dominant) scientists to identify or explain the reason for playfulness. There is simply no scientific model that will work; no pragmatic or utilitarian facts exist. Darwin’s theory is useless. Millions of plants and animals have survived for billions of years without playfulness, so what value is it? Or perhaps more importantly, where did playfulness come from?

If scientists have utterly failed in this regard, many theologians and religious leaders haven’t fared much (if any) better. In fact, many may have made matters worse.

Buddha described the human condition as “inherently miserable.” For over 2000 years of Christianity, there have been overt and subtle ways of observing the pathetic aphorism, “smite thyself thy wretched worm.” John Muir’s father epitomized this twisted logic by daily whippings of his son to beat him into memorizing the Holy Bible. It is no small miracle that Yosemite and the mountains healed Muir’s emotional wounds. “The galling harness of civilization drops off, and the wounds heal ere we are aware,” JM. It is an even greater miracle/irony that Muir emerged with such a playful soul.

I am certainly not a Bible scholar, but in nearly 900 pages of the Old Testament there is a paucity of references to playfulness.

Zechariah 8:5. “The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.”

Jeremiah 30:19. “And thanksgiving and [the] sound of merrymakers will come out from them, and I will make them numerous, and they will not be few.”

Jeremiah 30: 4. “I will build you up again, and you, Virgin Israel, will be rebuilt. Again you will take up your timbrels and go out to dance with the joyful” (playful).

Psalms 104: 25-26. “There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number—living things both large and small. There the ships go to and fro, and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.”

I am somewhat more familiar with the New Testament, however, Google does not show any teachings of Jesus or St. Paul that could be considered playful. The only example might involve Christ’s first miracle at Cana. Did he turn water into wine because he was concerned about the wedding guests losing some of their jocularity (playfulness)? Or is this what he meant when he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”?

And then C.S. Lewis appeared. In his wonderful series; The Chronicles of Narnia, written for children from 5 to 95; he wrote in: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe:

“’Oh, children, said the Lion, ‘I feel my strength coming back to me. Oh, children, catch me if you can!” He stood for a second, his eyes very bright, his limbs quivering, lashing himself with his tail. Then he made a leap high over their heads and landed on the other side of the Table. Laughing, though she didn’t know why, Lucy scrambled over it to reach him. Aslan leaped again. A mad chase began.”

Although Lewis does not invoke the word playfulness, he brilliantly infers that it is an essential part of the Creation Story.

He seems to suggest that if God truly made man in His image, playfulness must be a part of the equation. And just maybe, that is the crux of our dilemma? Many African cultures seem to understand this concept by exclaiming (when they experience extraordinarily tragic or joyful events); “God is playing with us!”

However, I doubt that less than one in a million people (regardless of race, religion or creed) would include playfulness in God’s job description. If so, citing C.S. Lewis, it would be a very sad commentary on the human experience.

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

young.lowell@gmail.com

Darwin vs. Wallace—Music—Southern Cross

Posted on Leave a Comment

One of the greatest Biodesign discoveries was that Darwin contemporary, Lord Alfred Wallace, described music as a quintessential component in human spiritual growth and development. Each day Biodesign students were greeted at the bio-lab door with music from quadraphonic speakers. The music could have been Classical, Jazz, Pop, Rock, Folk, Opera, Reggae or Gospel, etc. I had access to 1000s of selections and a variety of genres, melodies and lyrics were used to pique student interest in the correlation of music and Nature; e.g. Verdi’s, “Four Seasons,” Grofe’s, “Grand Canyon Suite,” John Denver’s, “Country Roads.” Sometimes the music was so poignant or appropriate that we had to modify the lesson in order to discuss what the composers and performers were communicating. In some cases the lyrics, apart from the melody, were dry and not inspiring. Conversely, there were times when instrumental versions of a song lacked vibrancy and meaning. Truly great songs often result when great melodies are combined with great lyrics to launch the song into the soul-stirring level.

The song, “Southern Cross,” is one of those songs. Whenever it was played, students would stop talking and were entranced by the magical union of the melody and lyrics. The song actually began as, “Seven League Boots,” composed by Rick and Michael Curtis. They entrusted it to Stephen Stills who rewrote and renamed it and it became a hit for Crosby—Stills—Nash.

Whether the actual “Southern Cross” conjures up a Christian epiphany or is simply a utilitarian navigational “asterism” (not a constellation) there are countless stories of jaded sea-salts who were humbled by their first view of the mysterious phenomena. It represents a focal point that inspires and guides travelers in the southern hemisphere.

The song might have joined a long list of also-ran lamentations of unrequited love, but the lyrics, rich harmony and soaring crescendos create a triumphant celebration of the healing powers of Mother Nature. It was a perfect fit for the Biodesign goal of seeking Truth, Beauty and Goodness. Alfred Wallace would be proud.

Lowell H. Young
Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk

young.lowell@gmail.com