On John Muir and nature

This week I saw a special on PBS, again, on the naturalist and "environmentalist"--before there was such a thing--John Muir. 

Wow.

If you've not seen it before, by all means, do.

What a life.  What a guy.  What revelations.  What observations.

The guy was brilliant, at leat.

A couple of the things I appreciate most of him and his life--what I know of them, anyway--is his appreciation of nature, of course, but also his tying any Creator--God, if you must--to nature and this beautiful world we have.

Again, wow.

I love that he took it--the natural world--as God's "church".

If there's a God, I could most easily and quickly easily see him/her there, in nature, before anything else.

It's too bad we've gotten so far from it all.

So few of us know of the sunrises.  And sunsets.  And truly fresh air.  And smell of skunk or whatever.

We're too plugged in.

And disconnected.

If you can see this special--one of the "American Experience" series--do.  I think you'll enjoy it greatly.

To close, a few John Muir quotes:

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

"The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual."

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe."


Links:  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/1900/peopleevents/pande14.html
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/john_muir.html
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=john+muir+quotes