John Muir, poetico-trampo hippie poet

LISTEN. I'll bet he'd enjoy Artemis.

Went out for a brisk dogwalk through the neighborhood this morning, listening to Kim Stanley Robinson's latest book The High Sierra: A Love Story. It includes a nice chapter-length appreciation of the Sierra Club founder and "'self-styled poetico=trampo-geologist-bot. and ornith-natural, etc.!-!-!' A hippie poet, in other words; a psychogeologist."

Muir wrote, "Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot defend themselves or run away.… Through all the eventful centuries since Christ's time, and long before that, God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand storms; but he cannot save them from sawmills and fools; this is left to the American people." 

Muir died thinking his political project had failed. But in fact the fight for the biosphere had just begun, and he is remembered as a founding inspiration for it. Some quality in him, not just his gift for writing, but some kind of charisma, kept him in the culture's memory, as an ideal for those who followed. Now his childhood home in Scotland is a museum devoted to him. The site of his family's Wisconsin farm is a national historic landmark. His adult home in Martinez is a national monument. In Indianapolis, on the street where his factory was located, there is a sign commemorating his eye injury. There's even a sign at the ruins of his rake handle factory, put up by the Canadian Friends of John Muir. He remains the most famous environmentalist in world history. 

Charisma is mysterious. Perhaps it's created by a passion for some cause outside the person expressing it. Muir was a passionate scientist, which in our time sounds somewhat oxymoronic, but that's wrong, as he serves to show; one can work passionately and scientifically on a project at the same time, and scientists very often do this. For Muir, the project was the Sierra. Athlete philosopher—psychogeologist—wilderness advocate—passionate scientist—these were all manifestations of his Sierra love. 

I'll end this quick ramble through Muir's life with a photo of one of the trailhead signs that the US Forest Service places at every trailhead on the high Sierra's east flank, an area now administered by the Inyo National Forest, and called the John Muir Wilderness. Copies of this sign are posted at every trailhead, and they all include the well-known quotation from Muir that you see. The US Forest Service is not a notably philosophical agency, I think it's safe to say, and I'm pretty sure most USFS workers would agree. But someone in the agency caught the Muir spirit, it seems, when it came to designing these signs. Now every hike on the Sierra's east side begins with this little existentialist blessing from our government, a reminder to pay attention and be thankful. And this is what Muir's story can do more generally. 

They even chose the right photo of him, which people seldom do, tending to go for the old-man-with-a-beard profiles. This one captures him best. I always touch it with my finger at the start of every backpacking trip, for good luck. And I've been lucky!

 Touch the photo and take off!*

The sign's inscription next to the Muir thumbnail says “I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”

There's a trailhead sign at Percy Warner Park in Nashville with a Muir quote, too: “In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.”

There must also, at some other trailhead somewhere be a sign that says “And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”

 And

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”

And

“The world's big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.”

Which it will, sooner or later. But meanwhile, as Muir's soulmate HDT says, there's more day to dawn. The sun's still a morning star, and there are other suns. And moons. We're about to revisit the closest one, finally.  

Nice place to visit, but pretty barren next to Yosemite and the high Sierra. The launch of the journey's pretty spectacular though. The spirit of exploration may begin in the forest but it doesn't end there. I'm glad we're going back. And beyond. *Take off!