author of Meditations of John Muir: Nature's Temple
www.naturetemple.net
"None of Nature's landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild; and much, we can say comfortingly, must always be in great part wild, particularly the sea and the sky, the floods of light from the stars, and the warm, unspoilable heart of the earth, infinitely beautiful, though only dimly visible to the eye of imagination."
~John Muir, Our National Parks (1901)
Some ten years ago, my bestfriend-like-a-brother Todd and I hefted our backpacks and headed down the magnificent Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne in Yosemite National Park. We are such beauty addicts that our first day didn't get us very far. Every bend in the trail offered a jaw-dropping view of a fall, a pool, a marmot, a chipmunk, a hawk, a cloud sculpture or a majestic tree. Time and again we stopped to simply wonder in the beauty we were entering more deeply with every grateful step. With only so much the senses can handle, the overwhelming day gave us one last gift. We found a shaded, sandy spot alongside the ice-clear river and rolled out our sleeping bags to glory in the canyon cathedral (if I sound a little like Muir you'll have to forgive me, I've been teaching a class on this hero of the wilderness).
The evening descended quicker than we had stumbled down the trail. Soon we had our pack stoves flaming under a hideous freeze-dried box of something unsavory. We told stories, quietly listened to the stream, shared a dram of scotch, and nestled into the nests of our downy bags. We thought our beauty-guide had also retired for the evening, but we were about to experience a few more high mountain surprises.
As we drifted off to cloudy mansions of dreams a bright light called us from our weariness. Peeking out from our cocoons we strained our blurry eyes at something shining over the boulders. This was too strange to stay tight-bundled in the warmth so we slipped on boots, got up and stepped to the edge of the tumbling river. There we gazed up the canyon to a startling sight. A series of fairy-white cascades fell from above illumined perfectly by a stunning bright and full moon catching every glistening drop of the falls. A better front row seat could not have been found for this show. We instantly became wide-eyed lunatics in love with the main character dancing on the wild stage above us. I don't remember if we raised another dram in bacchanalian celebration but I know we were brim-full of joy to be as close as humanly possible to the divinity of earth, and sky.
The falls, the moon, and the bear we had to chase through the forest later that night (another story), gave my brother and I a deeper sense we were completely immersed in the classroom and sanctuary where the mountain man, John Muir, had spent many a moonlit night. Throughout his own wandering, sauntering life in Beauty, Muir found endless joy in the goodness and greatness of the free gifts of the temple of earth. He was too busy enjoying it all and leading people into the wild places to write, but he wrote nonetheless. His writing has become for us a sermon and sacred text for the natural spirituality of Nature. Muir's writings were instrumental in calling us to the open, free and "glorious" wilderness.
The prophetic Scottish-American Muir put his shoulder up against many a cold and intransigent glacier of ignorance that would destroy his, and our, precious sanctuaries. Yet even in the 19th Century Muir recognized the warming of the earth and the melting of glaciers. He saw the inevitable grinding and etching of the truth in the public sphere that would, up against his own strong shoulders, form a wider, wilder appreciation for the essential goodness of Nature's "brave, beauty-working." He squarely faced the icy walls of politicians and robber barons who saw only profit in the wilderness, standing, with his pen and his person, to defend that which has no voice but falls and earthquakes, eagles and wolves, storms and wind soughing in the trees. Muir stood as a bright mountain--a torchbearer of the range of light--before those who sought to move the mountains, alter the streams and kill the wildlife. What stands before us now is, on many levels, a higher calling to evoke and invoke the spirit of Muir's commitment to speak and act in defense of the wildest places on earth, and above the earth. If ever we needed John of the Mountains, we need him now; we require his forest of natural faith, right now, right here, to do right for all in our integral orbit of relation to the universe in which we are not merely observers but participants.
NASA, Apollo 8Last year (2008) NASA launched the LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) that "will map the lunar surface in extraordinary detail and help future human missions to the moon locate safe landing sites and vital resources on the moon" (NASA website). Does this sound at all familiar? Over the centuries humans have explored our planet out of great curiosity. We might only think of the Corps of Discovery sent out by Jefferson, to recall a parallel charting and mapping of the West, which was, in conception, perhaps initially a trek into the unknown to add to our knowledge, yet paved and prepared the way for the eventual elimination of the first inhabitants as well as seizing once wild lands for the national interests of America. This is of course not only an American pattern of conquest (though we are the only ones to ever place a flag, our flag, on the moon). The adventures of explorers have regularly been funded by rich and powerful governments and business interests, so it was indeed only "a small step for a man" before the wonder and curiosity was overshadowed, even co-opted, yes and bought out, by a greed-and-grab for land--land to conquer and settle--to expand empires and exploit the rich resources of those "new worlds." With the moon, the farthest "wilderness" we have put our foot on, powerful interests may well have similar goals to:
- "Conquer" the New World
- Claim and settle the land for expansion
- Utilize the resources
- Establish a military base and presence (to protect the land, the resources and the new settlers, pioneers, "owners")
from first Chinese probe, November 2007Exactly 100 years ago, in 1908, on his birthday, John Muir wrote to someone he had camped with in Yosemite five years earlier: President Teddy Roosevelt. Muir was very anxious to express his fear that the great and beautiful valley of Hetch Hetchy--down stream from Yosemite--would be dammed as a reservoir for San Francisco. Muir wrote the president to save the valley "from all sorts of commercialism and marks of man" for "there is not another so grand and wonderful and useful a block of Nature's mountain handiwork."
I hasten to add that, for Muir, the "usefulness" of Nature consisted primarily in its "wonders and blessings" for all people. He well recognized the need for human use of natural materials from water to wood to food sources. However, for Muir, his activism was on behalf of the preservation of wild places and wildlife who inhabit the unspoiled areas of the world. Indeed, the great naturalist saw open spaces as holy places--sanctuaries and temples--where people could learn, pray as well as play.
In his 1908 letter to Roosevelt, Muir quotes capitalist James D. Phelan as an example of "proud confidence" and "good, sound. . .ignorance." Phelan says, "There are a thousand places in the Sierra equally as beautiful as Hetch-Hetchy: it is inaccessible nine months of the year, and is an unlivable place the other three months because of mosquitoes." I won't belabor the point. It is surely one small step for a person or nation to take, just one hundred years after Muir's failed attempt to save that one precious valley, to "dam the valleys of the moon"--that is, to seize what may be a great resource of energy and industry (or strategic position) and drown us all in the flood of "progress." After all, the argument could well be made that the moon is no more beautiful that other objects in the night sky; that it is pretty inaccessible and unlivable. It may not have mosquitoes, but it's not a very inviting place (like the "Badlands," the deserts, Antarctica or the bottom of the ocean).
What kind of letter might old John Muir write today, faced with the potential exploitation of the vast wilderness of our nearest neighbor in the heavens? Would he call us to act to preserve and protect this treasure, before the pre-emptive strike of one or more nations to grab it and control it for questionable (that is, obvious) purposes? If even the moon is a "useful resource" that can be controlled by one segment of the planet's inhabitants, what could be the ramifications of not acting before the tides, migrations, gravitational balance and even the beauty of the night sky are threatened--as they become commodities for incorporated colonies ?
We are faced with something inconceivable to Muir, to Thoreau, Emerson, Burroughs, Leopold or Carson. But they did not shrink from a good challenge; not when the wilds were at risk! We face either the creation of the ultimate national park or the desecration of a worldwide treasure, a planetary temple. This should make any true lover of Nature tremble, with fear, anger and courage.
I think Muir would write, and he would act. And in his spirit, we must, as a worldwide community, act to Save the Moon! As crazy and silly as that sounds: Save the Moon! Therefore, I call on all rational and forward-thinking persons around the world to call, write, email and meet with their leaders to Preserve the Moon as an International (Planetary) Park. The Lunar Wilderness deserves to be protected NOW, before this or any other nation intrudes on the moonscape again. For now, Nature Temple will be pleased to host replies to this call, inviting comments, support, suggestions and actions as we feel the exhilaration of John Muir in the moonlight of his beloved mountains:
"I ran home in the moonlight with firm strides. . .Down through the junipers; down through the firs; now in jet shadows, now in white light. . . past the glorious fall of Nevada, the groves of Illilouette; through the pines of the valley; beneath the bright crystal sky blazing with stars. All of this mountain wealth in one day!--one of the rich ripe days that enlarge one's life; so much of the sun upon one side of it, so much of the moon and stars on the other"
(Steep Trails, 1918).
