Gary Wayne Clark: Words, Music & Money
  • Home
    • About GWC
  • Books
    • Dead Balance
    • The Devolution Chronicles >
      • Passage to Niburu
      • Rise of the Chimera
    • High Country Haiku >
      • Winter
      • Summer
    • Emonesia iBook for iPad
  • Music
    • Nevermore
    • Half a Man
    • Worlds Without End
    • River of Lost Souls
    • In My Dream
    • Logan's Lament
    • Rise of the Chimera
    • Passage to Niburu
    • Emonesia iBook for iPad
    • Emonesia
    • Spot Me
    • Odin
    • Remembering Glen
  • Videos
  • Images
    • High Country Haiku
    • Low Country Haiku
    • The Devolution Chronicles
  • Works
  • Business
    • Investments
    • MultiMedia
    • Creative Destruction
    • Choose Your Own Reality™
  • Causes
    • Earamas Foundation >
      • Hearing is Healing
      • Music as Medicine
    • Kiva
    • Wolf Sanctuary
    • Hopi Nation
    • Archaeology
    • Crossroads
  • Blog
  • Links
    • Earamas™ Band
  • SciFi Concepts
  • Contact
  • Great Doodle

John Muir’s Wilderness

7/17/2012

0 Comments

 
John Muir is an American hero, my hero. In the late 1800’s, he sought a path to enlightenment, traveling alone, covering most of the American wilderness on foot and without a gun, without a sleeping bag, with only a sackful of stale bread and some tea.

“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”

Yes, John Muir went out walking, looking for the inner beauty that can only found in nature, and he found it.

“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.”

“One day's exposure to mountains is better than cartloads of books. See how willingly Nature poses herself upon photographers' plates. No earthly chemicals are so sensitive as those of the human soul.”

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”

Fortunately for us, the genius of John Muir’s legacy lives on today. In 1903, he convinced President Theodore Roosevelt of the importance of a national conservation program, saving the Grand Canyon and launching the movement that would create many of America’s National Parks.

"The path to personal enlightenment lies all around us, but in the complexity of modern times, the road less traveled by remains obscured. Listening for the resonance of the elusive harmonic tenor of the universe, the divine rhythm of nature can be as difficult to discern as trying to distinguish the forest among the trees. Our chaotic world has become a blur; the speed at which we live our lives is spiraling out of control. Maybe we just need to slow down to ascertain a fresh perspective." 

There is a Zen Proverb that encapsulates this concept: 'Before enlightenment; chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood and carry water.' 
After studying Muir’s life, I have concluded that he secretly lived out this simple Bhuddist creed as well.

“During his years in the Yosemite Muir used to view with sadness the distinguished visitors who were so ‘time poor’ that they could spend only one day among the glories of the mountains. He chose to be ‘time-rich’ first of all.”

“I might have become a millionaire,” he once said, “but I chose to become a tramp. I have not yet in all my wanderings found a single person so free as myself.”

The truth was that John Muir was also a successful businessman who chose his solitary life purposefully. Money, for him, was not the ends, but only the means. He chose to live his life in the wilderness, to live deliberately, live in the now… each day, each hour, each moment. 

“When he [John Muir] cleared over $100,000 in his fruit shipping business in California, he told a long-time friend that he had all the wealth he would ever want. How did he know? On the Harriman expedition to Alaska in 1899, someone mentioned the great wealth of the sponsor, the railroad magnet E. H. Harriman. Muir replied, “Why I am richer than Harriman. I have all the money I want, and he hasn’t.”

In the wilderness, John Muir found his balance in this world. He walked among nature for all his days, and through his writings and conservation achievements, he left a world that was better because he had lived here.

 “A man in his books,” he once wrote, “may be said to walk the earth long after he had gone.”

Above 8,000 feet, high in the Rocky Mountains, I am constantly seeking to walk in the footsteps of the man that defined the meaning of a true vision quest, to live a 'time-rich' life. 

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

In the unbridled beauty of the wilderness, John Muir, philosopher, environmentalist and nature lover, truly found his own personal path to the enlightenment. I trust that you will find your path as well.


Excerpts from “The Wilderness World of John Muir” by Edwin Way Teale, and “High Country Haiku – Summer” by Gary Wayne Clark.
Picture
Photography © 2012 Gary Wayne Clark. All rights reserved.
0 Comments

    What's on my mind...
    Gary Wayne Clark; Novelist, Poet, Grammy® Recording Academy Artist & Venture Capitalist for Creative Destruction.
    ¶, ♬ & $   

    Archives

    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012

    Blog and Photography 
    © 2012 - 15 
    Gary Wayne Clark. 
    All rights reserved.
    Picture

      Join the Dead List

    Submit
    Add to Google
    Picture
    Tweets by @earamas
    Picture
    Picture

    Categories

    All
    3d Printing
    Alternate Reality
    Ansel
    Apps
    April Fools
    Autumn
    Bears
    Bierstadt
    Bigfoot
    Biz
    California
    Carolina
    Charity
    Colife
    Creative Destruction
    Crickets
    Dark Matter
    Dead Balance
    Death
    Deep Thoughts
    Devolution
    Discount
    Discretion
    Due Sorellas
    Earamas
    Ebooks
    Einstein
    Elk
    Emonesia
    Flood Of 2013
    Gary Wayne Clark
    Glen Spreen
    Grammys
    Haiku
    Holidays
    Hopi
    Irony
    John Muir
    Jokes
    Joust
    Kiddo
    Lexis
    Lonely
    Mom
    Mountains
    Multiple Dimensions
    Murder Mystery Fantasy
    Music
    Mystery
    Neli
    New Life
    Niburu
    Old West
    Paperback
    Paranormal
    Passage To Niburu
    Philosophy
    Print
    Project Neli
    Publishing
    Raz
    Really?
    Research
    Rise Of The Chimera
    Sale
    Seasons
    Songwriter
    South
    Special Offer
    Spring
    Summer
    Sunrise
    Sunsets
    The Devolution Chronicles
    Thoreau
    Unjust Accusations
    Vision Quest
    Wildfire
    Wildlife
    Winter
    Work

© 2012-23 Gary Wayne Clark. All Rights Reserved.
Web Design by Gary Wayne Clark Photography © 2012-2023 Gary Wayne Clark and Shutterstock.com.