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# 2016-11-18 - John Muir, Saint of the American Wilderness
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John Muir was the archetypal free spirit. Following his own call of
the wild, he wandered throughout the Appalachians and the Sierra to
Alaska, Siberia, South America, and Africa. Both a dreamer and an
activist, he was a devoted father, successful farmer, ingenious
inventor, gifted writer, passionate lobbyist, and co-founder of the
Sierra Club. His eloquent words changed the way Americans saw their
mountains, forests, seashores, and deserts. [1]
At least one major religious denomination has actually posited a form
of "sainthood" on John Muir. [2]
Fasting was an intrinsic part of Muir's explorations, so much so that
he resented the necessity of eating. ...
> Can scarce command attention to my best studies, as if one
> couldn't take a few days' saunter in the Godful woods without
> maintaining a base on a wheat-field and grist-mill. Like caged
> parrots we want a cracker. [3]
> Weather does not happen. It is the visible manifestation of
> the Spirit moving itself in the void. It gathers itself together
> under the heavens; rains, snows, yearns mightily in wind, smiles;
> and the Weather Bureau, situated advantageously for that very
> business, taps the record on his instruments and going out on the
> streets denies his God, not having gathered the sense of what he
> has seen. Hardly anybody takes account of the fact that John Muir,
> who knows more of mountain storms than any other, is a devout man.
> [4]
"Amuse yourselves," said Captain Lane at lunch. "Here we stay till
two o'clock tomorrow morning. This gale, blowing from the sea, makes
safe steering through the Canyon impossible, unless we take the
morning's calm."
I saw Muir's eyes light up with a peculiar meaning as he glanced
quickly at me across the table. He knew the leading strings I was in;
how those well-meaning D.D.S. and their motherly wives thought they
had a special mission to suppress all my self-destructive
proclivities toward dangerous adventure, and especially to protect me
from "that wild Muir" and his hare-brained schemes of mountain
climbing.
"Where is it?" I asked, as we met behind the pilot house a moment
later.
He pointed to a little group of jagged peaks rising right up from
where we stood-a pulpit in the center of a vast rotunda of
magnificent mountains. "One of the finest viewpoints in the world,"
he said. ...
Muir led, of course, picking with sure instinct the easiest way.
Three hours of steady work brought us suddenly beyond the
timber-line, and the real joy of the day began. Nowhere else have I
seen anything approaching the luxuriance and variety of delicate
blossoms shown by these high, mountain pastures of the North. "You
scarce could see the grass for flowers." Everything that was
marvelous in form, fair in color, or sweet in fragrance seemed to be
represented there, from daisies and campanulas to Muir's favorite,
the cassiope, with its exquisite little pink-white bells shaped like
lilies-of-the-valley and its subtle perfume. Muir at once went wild
when we reached this fairyland. From cluster to cluster of flowers he
ran, falling on his knees, babbling in unknown tongues, prattling a
curious mixture of scientific lingo and baby talk, worshiping his
little blue-and-pink goddesses.
"Ah! my blue-eyed darlin', little did I think to see you here. How
did you stray away from Shasta?"
"Well, well! Who'd 'a' thought that you'd have left that niche in the
Merced mountains to come here!"
"And who might you be, now, with your wonder look? Is it possible
that you can be (two Latin polysyllables)? You're lost, my dear; you
belong in Tennessee."
"Ah! I thought I'd find you, my homely little sweetheart," and so on
unceasingly.
So absorbed was he in this amatory botany that he seemed to forget my
existence. While I, as glad as he, tagged along, running up and down
with him, asking now and then a question, learning something of plant
life, but far more of that spiritual insight into Nature's lore which
is granted only to those who love and woo her in her great outdoor
palaces. But how I anathematized my short-sighted foolishness for
having as a student at old Wooster shirked botany for the "more
important" studies of language and metaphysics. For here was a man
whose natural science had a thorough technical basis, while the
super-structure was built of "lively stones," and was itself a living
temple of love!
With all his boyish enthusiasm, Muir was a most painstaking student;
and any unsolved question lay upon his mind like a personal grievance
until it was settled to his full understanding. One plant after
another, with its sand-covered roots, went into his pockets, his
handkerchief, and the "full" of his shirt until he was bulbing and
sprouting all over, and could carry no more. He was taking them to
the boat to analyze and compare at leisure. Then he began to
requisition my receptacles. I stood it while he stuffed my pockets,
but rebelled when he tried to poke the prickly, scratchy things
inside my shirt. I had not yet attained that sublime indifference to
physical discomfort ... that Muir had found. ...
"Man!" he said, "I was forgetting. We'll have to hurry now or we'll
miss it, we'll miss it."
"Miss what?" I asked.
"The jewel of the day," he answered; "the sight of the sunset from
the top."
Then Muir began to SLIDE up that mountain. I had been with mountain
climbers before, but never one like him. A deer-lope over the
smoother slopes, a sure instinct for the easiest way into a rocky
fortress, so instant and unerring attack, a serpent-glide up the
steep; eye, hand and foot all connected dynamically; with no
appearance of weight to his body-as though he had Stockton's negative
gravity machine strapped on his back. ... It was only for exerting
myself to the limits of my strength that I was able to keep near him.
... and the wall of rock towered threateningly above us, leaning
out in places, a thousand feet or so above the glacier. ... A quick
glance to the right and left, and Muir, who had steered his course
wisely across the glacier, attacked the cliff, simply saying, "We
must climb cautiously here."
Now came the most wonderful display of his mountain-craft. Had I been
alone at the feet of these crags I should have said, "It can't be
done," and have turned back down the mountain. But Muir was my
"control," as the spiritists say, and I never thought of doing
anything else but following him. He thought he could climb up there
and that settled it. He would do what he thought he could. And such
climbing! There was never an instant when both feet and hands were
not in play, and often elbows, knees, thighs, upper arms, and even
chin must grip and hold. Clambering up a steep slope, crawling under
an overhanging rock, spreading out like a flying squirrel and edging
along an inch-wide projection while fingers clasped knobs above the
head, bending about sharp angles, pulling up smooth rock-faces by
sheer strength of arm and chinning over the edge, leaping fissures,
sliding flat around a dangerous rock-breast, testing crumbly spurs
before risking his weight, always going up, up, no hesitation, no
pause-that was Muir! My task was the lighter one; he did the
head-work, I had but to imitate. ... As far as possible I did as he
did, took his handholds, and stepped in his steps.
But I was handicapped in a way that Muir was ignorant of, and I would
not tell him for fear of his veto upon my climbing. My legs were all
right-hard and sinewy; my body light and supple, my wind good, my
nerves steady (heights did not make me dizzy); but my arms-there lay
the trouble. Ten years before I had been fond of breaking colts-till
the colts broke me. On successive summers in West Virginia, two colts
had fallen with me and dislocated first my left shoulder, then my
right. Since then both arms had been out of joint more than once. My
left was especially weak. It would not sustain my weight, and I had
to favor it constantly. Now and again, as I pulled myself up some
difficult reach I could feel the head of the humerous move from its
socket. ...
Then he started running along the ledge like a mountain goat, working
to get around the vertical cliff above us to find an ascent on the
other side. He was soon out of sight, although I followed as fast as
I could. I heard him shout something, but could not make out his
words. I know now that he was warning me of a dangerous place. Then
I came to a sharp-cut fissure which lay across my path... It sloped
very steeply for some twelve feet below, opening on the face of the
precipice above the glacier, and was filled to within about four feet
of the surface with flat, slatey gravel. It was only four or five
feet across, and I could easily have leaped it had I not been so
tired. But a rock the size of my head projected from the slippery
stream of gravel. In my haste to overtake Muir I did not stop to make
sure this stone was part of the cliff, but stepped with springing
force upon it to cross the fissure. Instantly the stone melted away
beneath my feet, and I shot with it down towards the precipice. With
my peril sharp upon me I cried out as I whirled on my face, and
struck out both hands to grasp the rock on either side.
Falling forward hard, my hands struck the walls of the chasm, my arms
were twisted behind me, and instantly both shoulders were dislocated.
With my paralyzed arms flopping helplessly above my head, I slid
swiftly down the narrow chasm. Instinctively I flattened down on the
sliding gravel, digging my chin and toes into it to check my descent;
but not until my feet hung out over the edge of the cliff did I feel
that I had stopped. Even then I dared not breathe or stir, so
precarious was my hold on that treacherous shale. Every moment I
seemed to be slipping inch by inch to the point when all would give
way and I would go whirling down to the glacier. ...
I had no hope of escape at all. The gravel was rattling past me and
piling up against my head. The jar of a little rock, and all would be
over. The situation was too desperate for actual fear. Dull wonder as
to how long I would be in the air, and the hope that death would be
instant-that was all. Then came the wish that Muir would come before
I fell, and take a message to my wife.
Suddenly, I heard his voice right above me. "My God!" he cried. Then
he added, "Grab that rock, man, just by your right hand."
I gurgled from my throat, not daring to inflate my lungs, "My arms
are out."
There was a pause. Then his voice rang again, cheery, confident,
unexcited, "Hold fast; I'm going to get you out of this. I can't get
to you on this side; the rock is sheer. I'll have to leave you now
and cross the rift high up and come down to you on the other side by
which we came. Keep cool."
Then I heard him going away, whistling "The Blue Bells of Scotland,"
singing snatches of Scotch songs, calling to me, his voice now
receding, as the rocks intervened, then sounding louder as he came
out on the face of the cliff. But in me hope surged at full tide. I
entertained no more thoughts of last messages. I did not see how he
could possibly do it, but he was John Muir, and I had seen his
wonderful rock-work. So I determined not to fall and made myself as
flat and heavy as possible, not daring to twitch a muscle or wink an
eyelid, for I still felt myself slipping, slipping down the greasy
slate. And now a new peril threatened. A chill ran through me of cold
and nervousness, and I slid an inch. I suppressed the growing shivers
with all my will. I would keep perfectly still till it was torture,
and I could not ease it.
It seemed like hours, but it was really only about ten minutes before
he got back to me. By that time I hung so far over the edge of the
precipice that it seemed impossible that I could last another second.
Now, I heard Muir's voice, low and steady, close to me, and it
seemed a little below.
"Hold steady," he said, "I'll have to swing you out over the cliff."
Then I felt a careful hand on my back, fumbling with the waistband of
my pants, my vest and shirt, gathering all in a firm grip. I could
see only with one eye and that looked upon but a foot or two of
gravel on the other side.
"Now!" he said, and I slid out of the cleft with a rattling shower of
stones and gravel. My head swung down, my impotent arms dangling, and
I stared straight at the glacier, a thousand feet below. Then my feet
came against the cliff.
"Work downwards with your feet."
I obeyed. He drew me close to him by crooking his arm and as my head
came up past his level he caught me by my collar with his teeth! My
feet struck the little two-inch shelf on which he was standing, and I
could see Muir, flattened against the face of the rock and facing it,
his right hand stretched up and clasping a little spur, his left
holding me with an iron grip, his head bent sideways, as my weight
drew it. I felt as alert and cool as he.
"I've got to let go of you," he hissed through his clenched teeth. "I
need both hands here. Climb upward with your feet."
How he did it, I know not. The miracle grows as I ponder it. The wall
was almost perpendicular and smooth. My weight on his jaws dragged
him outwards. And yet, holding me by his teeth as a panther her cub
and clinging like a squirrel to a tree, he climbed with me straight
up ten or twelve feet, with only help of my iron-shod feet scrambling
on the rock. It was utterly impossible, yet he did it! [5]
Footnotes:
[1]
(HTM) John Muir: Nature's Visionary by Gretel Ehrlich
[2]
(HTM) Saint John Muir by Harold Wood
[3]
(HTM) John Muir's Menu by J. Parker Huber
[4]
(DIR) The Land of Little Rain by Mary Hunter Austin, 1868-1934
[5]
(HTM) Alaska Days with John Muir by Samuel Hall Young, 1847-1927
tags: outdoor,spirit
# Tags
(DIR) outdoor
(DIR) spirit