An early sign of the gift, powerful and definitive, came when I reached the Sierra Nevada on my dissertation quest. Over the preceding days of driving a thousand plus miles, I had endured bouts of high anxiety. What on earth had I done by leaving a good job and taking off on a romantic journey that might only expose my incompetence as writer, Nature explorer, and scholar, and having no notion what I would do when (if) I successfully finished?
A Life Considered, page 65
photo by Pablo Fierro
National Indie Excellence Award Finalist 2020
We recognize awakening when we experience it, wonder at the moment’s appearance and passing, and appreciate its teaching.
Reverence for Existence, page 58
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.
~John Muir
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Presence
We walked again this morning but less ambitiously than yesterday: a mile or so out, a long sit on a well-placed lava chunk, and then back. Twig seems as much drawn to tranquil being-there as I; she shows no signs of impatience however long we sit. The longer we stayed the more immersed I felt in the surroundings. Quiet, still, a solitary bird singing to himself. It’s easy to think of plants as Nature’s mystics, so complacent, present-centered (here, now), nowhere to go, untroubled. Satisfied with what they have even when not every need is met, no complaints. If the elements declare it’s time for them to die, I don’t picture them happy about...
It is the twenty-seventh of October now, and early in the morning. The moon is over the southwest mountains. It has definitely moved out of fullness, more noticeable than last night. I have never before asked when and where the moon changes phases. But now I know: always, everywhere, slowly.
Reverence for Existence, page 147
“Going to the woods is going home, for I suppose we came from the woods originally.”
But in some of nature’s forests, the adventurous traveler seems a feeble, unwelcome creature; wild beasts and the weather trying to kill him, the rank, tangled vegetation, armed with spears and stinging needles, barring his way and making life a hard struggle.
~ John Muir