One year, the daughter of St. Helena superintendent of schools enrolled in the Biodesign Class. Her dad was an avid hiker and she asked The Class if she could invite him along as a chaperone on the Yosemite trip. Relationships between students and school authorities are not always copacetic so I was curious as to … [Read more…]
On a warm spring day after school hours, I was in the classroom grading exams. The door was open to allow for better air circulation. I heard the familiar whine of an electric-powered wheelchair approaching from the hallway. A pang of panic surged through my body. I instantly knew who it was and what he … [Read more…]
Nature has the ability to be imbued with spiritual power and significance. Forests, lakes, and mountains often invoke a feeling of the divine or inspire a sense of awe. They are a resource that people may use to connect to the sacred and to generate spiritual feelings. Ever since the publication of Darwin’s, “On The Origin … [Read more…]
This letter is a rebuttal to the Sierra Club’s odious attempt to besmirch the legacy and writing of John Muir, their legendary founder. It is my contention that, like every human on Earth, Muir was imperfect yet he achieved the status of two world-renown spiritual paragons. St. Francis of Assisi Indulged by his parents, Francis … [Read more…]
Excerpt: “The Soul Of The World,†by Phil Cousineau/Eric Lawton “If my soul could get away from this so-called prison, be granted all the attributes generally bestowed on spirits, my first ramble on spirit-wings would not be among the volcanoes of the moon. Nor should I follow the sunbeams to their sources in the sun. … [Read more…]
“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 … [Read more…]
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 … [Read more…]
“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. … [Read more…]
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 … [Read more…]
Happy 181st Birthday John Muir: April 21, 1838 After whimsically describing John Muir as, “St. John of the Mountains,†I have come to suspect the designation may have been more Jungian and less whimsy. If so, his elevation to sainthood may not be an unrealistic overreach. In many ways he lived like an ascetic monk, … [Read more…]