“Society speaks and all men listen, mountains speak and wise men listen.” ~John Muir
As I walked alone in RMNP this morning, I’m almost sure I heard a voice whispering to me:
Mountains: “Fire is the devil’s only friend.”
Me: I heard that.
Mountains: “And don’t play with candlesticks.”
Me: Ok, trust me, speaking for all of us, we’ve learned our lesson, no more playing with fire, not even for a sacrificial rite.
After an uncomfortable pause, I tried to change the subject and “asked her for some happy news, but she just smiled and turned away.” Although the words between us remained unspoken, the silence was defining; we both knew I was lying.
Try as we might, we have neither listened to the mountains nor achieved any level of wisdom. The bitter truth is that we haven't learned our lesson from the most recent man made wildfires; we are in fact, destined to repeat it.
With climate change creating beetle kill forests, drought and relentless human carelessness, the deck is increasingly stacked against us. Someday, the music of the mountains will be silenced by our imprudent hand, consumed in the flames of our ignorance; it's just a matter of time.
So why does man display such reckless abandon for the precious world we've been given? If you consult the ancients, they will tell you that man has destroyed our world before, and apparently, we're hell bent on doing it again.
Alas, the ancients say, it's in our nature.
Mountains: “Fire is the devil’s only friend.”
Me: I heard that.
Mountains: “And don’t play with candlesticks.”
Me: Ok, trust me, speaking for all of us, we’ve learned our lesson, no more playing with fire, not even for a sacrificial rite.
After an uncomfortable pause, I tried to change the subject and “asked her for some happy news, but she just smiled and turned away.” Although the words between us remained unspoken, the silence was defining; we both knew I was lying.
Try as we might, we have neither listened to the mountains nor achieved any level of wisdom. The bitter truth is that we haven't learned our lesson from the most recent man made wildfires; we are in fact, destined to repeat it.
With climate change creating beetle kill forests, drought and relentless human carelessness, the deck is increasingly stacked against us. Someday, the music of the mountains will be silenced by our imprudent hand, consumed in the flames of our ignorance; it's just a matter of time.
So why does man display such reckless abandon for the precious world we've been given? If you consult the ancients, they will tell you that man has destroyed our world before, and apparently, we're hell bent on doing it again.
Alas, the ancients say, it's in our nature.
[The part of the Mountain was played by Don Mclean.]
