. . . on behalf of the Environmental Movement on this, the twenty-ninth Earthday birthday, I invoke one of the Grandfathers of the Movement, . . . botanist, protector of wildness, good friend of the earth, the legendary John Muir.    Happy Birthday John! . . . 161 years old yesterday . . .
 
 

John,  you were a friend of the flowers, a botanist . . . tell us something about your time on Earth, among the flowers.
 

It was one of those perfectly pure, rich, ripe days of California sun gold, where distant views seem as close as near ones. . . I came here before the dust and smoke of civilization had dimmed the sky and before the wild bloom had vanished from the plain.  Descending the Pacheco Pass, I waded out into the marvellous bloom of the San Joaquin, when it was in its prime. . . In this flower-bed five hundred miles long, I used to camp by just lying down wherever night overtook me, as if I had sunk beneath the waters of a lake, the radiant heads of compositae touching each other, ray to ray, shone above me like the thickest star clusters of the sky, and in the morning I sometimes found plants that were new, looking me in the face, so that my botanical studies would begin before I was up.

The ravines there are the most perfect, the most heavenly plant conservatories I ever saw.  Thousands of happy flowers are there, but ferns and mosses are the favoured ones.  No human language will ever describe them.   I’ve been on many a hill and walked o’er moors and mosses many o, but the best of all rambles . . . I travelled two miles in eight hours, and such scenery, such sweating, scrambling, climbing, and happy hunting and happy finding of dear plant beings I never before enjoyed.  The last ravine encountered was the most beautiful and deepest and longest and narrowest.  The rocks overhang and bear a perfect selection of trees which hold themselves towards one another from side to side with inimitable grace, forming a flower-veil of indescribable beauty.  The light is measured and mellowed.  For every flower, springs too, and pools, are there in their places to moisten them.  The walls are fringed and painted most divinely with the bright green polypodium and asplenium and mosses and liverworts with grey lichens, and here and there a clump of flowers and little bushes.  The floor was barred and banded and sheltered by bossy, shining moss-clad logs . . . .  Over all, and above all, and in all, the glorious ferns, tall, perfect, godlike, and here and there amid their fronds a long cylindrical spike of the grand fringed purple orchis.    We cannot remove such places to our homes, but they cut themselves keenly into our memories and remain pictured in us forever.

Do behold the King in his glory, King Sequoia! Behold! Behold! seems all I can say.  Some time ago I left all for Sequoia and have been and am at his feet; fasting and praying for light, for is he not the greatest light in the woods, in the world?  Where are such columns of sunshine, tangible, accessible, terrestrialised? Well may I fast, not from bread, but from business, book-making, duty-going, and other trifles, and great is my reward already for the manly, treely sacrifice.  What giant truths since coming to Sequioia gigantea, what magnificent clusters of Sequoiac becauses.  From here I cannot recite you one, for you are down a thousand fathoms deep in dark political quagg, not a burr-length less.  But I’m in the woods, woods, woods, and they are in me-ee-ee.  The King tree and I have sworn eternal love - sworn it without swearing, and I’ve taken the sacrament with Douglas squirrel, drunk Sequoia wine, Sequoia blood, (and with its rosy purple drops I wrote you this woody gospel . . .)

I never before new the virtue of Sequoia juice.  Seen with sunbeams in it, its colour is the most royal of all royal purples.  No wonder the Indians instinctively drink it for they know not what.  I wish I were so drunk and Sequoical that I could preach the green brown woods to all the juiceless world, descending from this divine wilderness like a John the Baptist, eating Douglas squirrels and wild honey or wild anything, crying, Repent, for the Kingdom of Sequoia is at hand!

There is balm in these leafy Gileads - pungent burrs and living King-juice for all defrauded civilization; for sick grangers and politicians; no need of Salt rivers.  Sick or successful, come suck Sequoia and be saved.

I wish I were wilder, and so, bless Sequoia, I will be.  There is at least a punky spark in my heart and it may blaze in the autumn gold, fanned by the King.  Some of my grandfathers must have been born on a muirland for there is heather in me, and tinctures of bog juices, that send me to Cassiope, and oozing through all my veins impel me unhaltingly through endless glacier meadows, seemingly the deeper and danker the better.

There goes the Squirrel Douglas, the master spirit of the tree-top.  It has just occurred to me how his belly is buffy brown and his back silver grey.  Ever since the first Adam of his race saw trees and burrs, his belly has been rubbing upon buff bark, and his back has been combed with silver needles.  Would that some of you, wise - terribly wise - social scientists, might discover some method of living as true to nature as the buff people of the woods, running as free as the winds and waters among the burrs and filbert thickets of these leafy, mothery woods.

Yes Laura . . .?

You were well known among prominent botanists of your time, John, and counted them among your friends and fellow travelers.

Yes, . . . the Professor, Asa Gray I was with on Shasta is the writer of the school botanies, the most distinguished botanist in America, and Sir Joseph Hooker is the leading botanist of England.  We had a fine rare time together in the Shasta forest, discussing the botanical characters of the grandest coniferous trees in the world, camping out, and enjoying ourselves in pure freedom.  Gray is an old friend that I led around Yosemite years ago, and with whom I have corresponded for a long time.  Sir Joseph is a great traveller, but perfectly free from all chilling airs of superiority.  He told many a story and kept the camp in fine lively humour.

And never shall I forget the charming evenings spent with Torrey in Yosemite, and with Gray, after the rambles were over and they told stories of their lives, Torrey fondly telling all about Gray, Gray about Torrey.  Men more amiable apart from their intellectural power I never knew, so perfectly clean and pure they were - pure as lilies, yet tough and unyielding in mental fibre as live-oaks. . . .
 

To both your questions the answer is, NO.  I dislike this personal rubbish, and I have always sheltered myself as best I could in the thickest shade I could find . . .

More than 120 years ago Professor Runkle was in Yosemite, and I took him into the adjacent wilderness and, of course, night and day preached to him the gospel of glaciers.  When he went away he urged me to go with him, saying that the Institute of Technology in Boston was the right place for me, that I could have the choice of several professorships there, and every facility for fitting myself for the duties required, and so on . . . .

Then came Emerson and more preaching.  He said, ‘Don’t tarry too long in the woods.  Listen for the word of your guardian angel.  You are needed by the young men in our colleges.  Solitude is a sublime mistress, but an intolerable wife.’

Then came Gray and more fine rambles and sermons.  He said, ‘When you get ready, come to Harvard.  You have good and able and enthusiastic friends there and we will gladly push you ahead, etc., etc.  So much for Ha -a-a-rvard.  But you must surely know that I never for a moment thought of leaving God’s big show for a mere profship, call who may.
 

Ahhhh,  Stickeen . . .
I have known many dogs, and many a story I could tell of their wisdom and devotion; but to none do I owe so much as to Stickeen.  Our storm-battle for life in Alaska brought him to light, and through him as through a window I have ever since been looking with deeper sympathy into all my fellow mortals.

Nature, it seems, was at the bottom of the affair, and she gains her ends with dogs as well as with men, making us do as she likes, shoving and pulling us along her ways, however rough, all but killing us at times in getting her lessons driven hard home.

Of the many perils encountered in my years of wandering on mountains and glaciers none seemed so plain and stern and merciless as the one I faced with Stickeen.  And it was presented when we were wet to the skin and hungry, the sky dark with quick driving snow, and the night near.  But we were forced to face it.  It was a tremendous necessity.

I had intended making a cup of coffee that day, and getting something like a breakfast before starting, but when I heard the storm and looked out I made haste to join it; for many of Nature’s finest lessons are to be found in her storms, and if careful to keep in right relations with them, we may go safely abroad with them, rejoicing in the grandeur and beauty of their works and ways.  So, omitting breakfast, I put a piece of bread in my pocket and hurried away.

That a man should welcome storms for their exhilerating music and motion, and go forth to see God making landscapes, is reasonable enough; but what fascination could there be in such tremendous weather for a dog?  I did my best to turn him back,  “Now don’t, Stickeen! What has got into your queer noddle now?  You must be daft.  This wild day has nothing for you . . . nothing but weather.”

After I had stopped again and again, shouting good warning advice, I saw that he was not to be shaken off; as well might the earth try to shake off the moon.  The pitiful little wanderer just stood there in the wind, drenched and blinking. . . so at last I told him to come on if he must, and gave him a piece of the bread I had in my pocket; then we struggled on together, and thus began the most memorable of all my wild days.

Exploration of the glacier was my main object, and as the storm came down the glacier from the north, Stickeen and I were beneath the main current of the blast, while favourably located to see and hear it.  What a psalm the storm was singing, and how fresh the smell of the washed earth and leaves and how sweet the still small voices of the storm!

As far as the eye could reach, the level or nearly level, glacier stretched away indefinitely beneath the grey sky, a seemingly boundless prairie of ice.   Watching the weather, I sauntered about on the crystal sea.  For a mile or two out I found the ice remarkably safe.  The marginal crevasses were mostly narrow, while the few wider ones were easily avoided by passing around them, and the clouds began to open here and there.

Thus encouraged, I at last pushed out for the other side; for Nature can make us do anything she likes.  Toward the west side we came to a closely crevassed section in which we had to make long, narrow tacks and doublings, tracing the edges of tremendous transverse and longitudinal crevasses, many of which were from twenty to thirty feet wide, and perhaps a thousand feet deep - beautiful and awful.

We gained the west shore in about three hours; the width of the glacier here being about seven miles.  Then I pushed northward.  The walking was easy along the margin of the forest.  In an hour or so, after passing a massive headland, we came suddenly on a branch of the glacier, which, in the form of a magnificent ice-cascade two miles wide, was pouring over the rim of the main basin in a westerly direction, its surface broken into wave-shaped blades and shattered blocks, suggesting the wildest updashing, heaving, plunging motion of a great river cataract.

I would have gladly explored the canyon further, but the day was already far spent, and the threatening sky called for haste on the return trip to get off the ice before dark.  I decided therefore to go no farther and, after taking a general view of the wonderful region, turned back.  We made good speed out on the main glacier until we had left the west shore about two miles behind us.  Here we got into a difficult network of crevasses, the gathering clouds began to drop misty fringes, and soon the dreaded snow came flying thick and fast.  I now began to feel anxious about finding a way in the blurring storm.

At length our way was barred by a very wide and straight crevasse, which I traced rapidly northward a mile or so without finding a crossing or hope of one; then down the glacier about as far, to where it united with another uncrossable crevasse.  In all this distance of perhaps two miles there was only one place where I could possibly jump it, but the width of this jump was the utmost I dared attempt, while the danger of slipping on the farther side was so great that I was loath to try it.  Furthermore, the side I was on was about a foot higher than the other, and even with this advantage the crevasse seemed dangerously wide. . .

I stared at this one mighty keenly, estimating its width and the shape of the edge on the farther side, until I thought that I could jump it if necessary. . . Now a cautious mountaineer seldom takes a step on unknown ground which seems at all dangerous that he cannot retrace in case he should be stopped by unseen obstacles ahead.  This is the rule of mountaineers who live long, and, though in haste, I compelled myself to sit down and calmly deliberate before I broke it.

At length, because of the dangers already behind me, I determined to venture against those that might be ahead . . . jumped and landed well, but with so little to spare that I more than ever dreaded being compelled to take that jump back from the lower side.  Stickeen followed, making nothing of it, and we ran eagerly forward, hoping we were leaving all our troubles behind.  But within the distance of a few hundred yards we were stopped by the widest crevasse yet encountered, I found it joined the crevasse we had just crossed at both ends, and throughout its course maintained a width of about 40 to 50 feet. . . Thus to my dismay I discovered we were on a narrow island of ice surrounded by impassably wide and deep crevasses. . .

Well, you’ll just have to read my book to hear the end of it, Laura, . . . but let me tell you about Stickeen, when we finally made it across that crevasse:  Never before or since have I seen anything like so passionate a revulsion from the depths of despair to exultant, triumphant, uncontrollable joy.  He flashed and darted hither and thither as if fairly demented, screaming and shouting, swirling round and round in giddy loops and circles like a leaf in a whirlwind, lying down, and rolling over and over, sidewise and heels over head, and pouring forth a tumultuous flood of hysterical cries and sobs and gasping mutterings.  When I ran up to him to shake him, fearing he might die of joy he flashed off two or three hundred yards, his feet in a mist of motion; then turning suddenly, came back in a wild rush and launched himself at my face, almost knocking me down, all the time screeching and screaming and shouting as if saying,  “Saved! saved! saved!”  Then away again, dropping suddenly at times with his feet in the air, trembling and fairly sobbing.  Nobody could have helped crying with him.

Ah yes.  Mt. Ritter,  the majestic mass of Mt. Ritter, with a glacier swooping down its face nearly to my feet, then curving westward and pouring its frozen flood into a dark blue lake, whose shores were bound with precipices of crystalline snow . . .  Contending with myself, “the season is too far spent”, I said, and,  “even should I be successful, I might be storm bound on the mountain; and in the cloud-darkness, with the cliffs and crevasses covered with snow, how could I escape?  No; I must wait till next summer.” I would only approach the mountain now, and inspect it, creep about its flanks, learn what I could of its history, holding myself ready to flee on the approach of the first storm cloud . . .
But we little know, until tried, how much of the uncontrollable there is in us, urging across glaciers and torrents, and up dangerous heights, let the judgment forbid as it may.

I succeeded in gaining the foot of the cliff on the eastern extremity of the glacier, and there discovered the mouth of a narrow avalanche gully, through which I began to climb, intending to follow it as far as possible, and at least obtain some fine wild views for my pains.  The metamorphic slates of which the mountain is built are cut by cleavage planes in such a way that they weather off in angular blocks, giving rise to irregular steps that greatly facilitate climbing on the sheer places.

I thus made my way into a wilderness of crumbling spires and battlements, built together in bewildering combinations . . . the situation was becoming gradually more perilous; but having passed several dangerous spots, I dared not think of descending; for, so steep was the entire ascent, one would inevitably fall to the glacier in case a single mis-step were made.

At length, after attaining an elevation of 12,800 feet, I found myself at the foot of a sheer drop in the bed of the avalanche channel I was tracing, which seemed absolutely to bar further progress.  It was only about 40 or 50 feet high, and somewhat roughened by fissures and projections; but these seemed so slight and insecure, as footholds, that I tried hard to avoid the precipice altogether, by scaling the wall of the channel on either side.  But, though less steep, the walls were smoother, and repeated effort showed that I must either go right ahead or turn back.

The tried dangers beneath seemed even greater than that of the cliff in front; therefore after scanning its face again and again, I began to scale it, picking my holds with intense caution.  After gaining a point about half-way to the top, I was suddenly brought to a dead stop, with arms outspread, clinging close to the face of the rock, unable to move hand or foot either up or down.  My doom appeared fixed.  I must fall.  There would be a moment of bewilderment, and then a lifeless rumble down the one general precipice to the glacier below.

When this final danger flashed upon me, I became nerve-shaken for the first time since setting foot on the mountains, and my mind seemed to fill with a stifling smoke. . .   But this terrible eclipse lasted only a moment, when life blazed forth again with preternatural clearness.  I seemed suddenly to become possessed of a new sense.  The other self, bygone experiences, instinct, or Guardian Angel - call it what you will - came forward and assumed control.  Then my trembling muscles became firm again, every rift and flaw in the rock was seen as through a microscope, and my limbs moved with a positiveness and precision with which I seemed to have nothing at all to do.  Had I been borne aloft upon wings, my deliverance could not have been more complete.

Above this memorable spot, the face of the mountain is still more savagely hacked and torn.  It is a maze of yawning chasms and gullies, in the angles of which rise beetling crags and piles of detached boulders that seem to have been gotten ready to be launched below.  But the strange influx of strength I had received seemed inexhaustible.  I found a way without effort, and soon stood upon the topmost crag in the blessed light.

It is astonishing how high and far we can climb in mountains that we love.  The life of a mountaineer is favourable to the development of soul-life as well as limb-life, each receiving abundance of exercise and abundance of food.  We little suspect the great capacity that our flesh has for knowledge.  Oftentimes in climbing canyon-walls I have come to polished slopes near the heads of precipices that seemed to be too steep to be ventured upon.  After scrutinizing them, and carefully noting every dint and scratch that might give hope of a foothold, I have decided that they were unsafe.  Yet my limbs, possessing a separate sense, would be of a different opinion, after they also had examined the descent, and confidently have set out to cross the condemned slopes against the remonstrances of my other will.  My legs sometimes transport me to camp in the darkness, over cliffs and through bogs and forests that are inaccessible to city legs during the day, even when piloted by the mind which owns them.

These temple-destroyers!  devotees of ravaging commercialism!  seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar!  Dam Hetch Hetchy!!?  [Mine Rough and Ready!!?  Log Pelican Butte!!!?]  As well dam for water tanks the people’s cathedrals and churches, for no holier temples have ever been consecrated by the heart of man!

The outcries we hear against forest reservations come mostly from thieves who are wealthy and steal timber by wholesale.  They have so long been allowed to steal and destroy in peace that any impediment to forest robbery is denounced as a cruel and irreligious interference with “vested rights” likely to endanger the repose of all ungodly welfare.  Gold, gold, gold!  How strong a voice that metal has! . . . Even in Congress, a sizable chunk of gold, carefully concealed will outtalk and outfight all the nation on a subject like forestry . . .in which the money interests of only a few are conspicuously involved.  Under these cirucumstances the bawling, blethering oratorical stuff drowns the voice of God himself . . .   The people will not always be deceived by selfish opposition, whether from lumber and mining corporations or from sheepmen and prospectors, however cunningly brought forward underneath fables of gold.

Any fool can destroy trees.  They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyed - chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones.  Few that fell trees plant them; nor would planting avail much towards getting back anything like the noble primeval forests.  During a lifetime only saplings can be grown, in the place of the old trees - tens of centuries old - that have been destroyed.   It took more than three thousand years to make some of the trees in these Western woods - trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forest of the Sierra [and the Siskiyou!].

It must be told again and again, and be burningly borne in mind, that just now, while protective measures are being deliberated languidly, destruction is speeding on faster and further every day.  The axe and saw are insanely busy, chips are flying thick as snowflakes, and every summer thousands of acres of priceless forests, with their underbrush, soil, springs, climate, scenery, and religion, are vanishing away in clouds of smoke . . .

But, thousands of tired nerve-shaken, over civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home;  that wildness is a necessity and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.

Well, I must go . . . Farewell to you, and to all the beings about us.  I shall have a glorious walk back up the mountain in the light of this April afternoon, . . .over the open brows greyed with Selaginella and through the thick black shadow caves in the ponderosa, [up through the magnificent Englemann spruce grove on Mt Ashland into the snowy beyond] all stuck full of snowy lances of sunlight.  [Thank you Laura for invoking me today . . . I’ll see you in dawn of the Third Millenium.]
 
 

We’ll do our best to carry those words of wisdom with us, and to carry on your work for the Environmental Movement and for the Earth.

Thank you, John Muir.