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

Sssshhhh....Don't tell my hubby but I have a huge crush on another guy.


He's a hottie in that Grizzley Adams/ZZtop-kinda way


The niece CaseyCakes introduced us to free NetFlix. Our family loves documentaries about history, biographies, & anything by National Geographic. We are all big-time armchair travelers.  Netflix has these in abundance for free. If it's for free - it's for me. While watching a documentary on Yosemite Park I was introduced to John Muir (1838 - 1914)


I have heard his name before but never really paid any attention to who he was. As they read quotes from John's writings - his journaling really, as he wandered through the wilderness of Yosemite, I really felt a kindred spirit with this guy. I've always been drawn to people who walk  off the beaten path. My hobby is studying early church history - my favorites being the early desert fathers/mothers. Jon Muir had eyes to see more than majestic  scenery. His eyes saw the Creator in all of creation from the smallest wild flower to the tallest Sequoias.
He described himself as a "poetico-trampo-geologist-botanist and ornithologist-naturalist etc. etc." 


John Muir's family were Scottish immigrants who settled in Wisconsin when he was 11. His father was legalistically religious and forced his son to memorize almost the entire Bible. John spent his childhood either looking for bird's nests or fighting on the playground. He was a restless spirit. 


While at college in Canada he spent much of his time wandering the swamps around Lake Huron studying plants and trees. He made his way down to Indiana where he worked as an industrial engineer. It was there that in the style of Forrest Gump he took off on a 1,000 mile walk south to Florida. 
He had no specific route except to go by "the wildest, leafiest, and least trodden way I can find. "He made it to Florida where in Cedar Key he contracted Malaria and had to stop.  Upon recovering he decided to sail to California and ended up in the port of San Francisco. It was from there he ended up at Yosemite to explore the wilderness for the next 30 years.
One of his sketches




Quotes from John Muir -


"Keep close to Nature's heart...and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean. "




"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 away from you like the leaves of Autumn."

"This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls. "



If I ever get asked that question "If you could have dinner with any famous person living or dead who would it be?"  No hesitation, dinner for 2 - me & John Muir.

Comments

  1. I may just have to intrude on your dinner with John Muir because I also have a crush on him. Living in California, I am very familiar with John Muir. Wouldn't that be an interesting dinner with great conversation!! I love your post and his wonderful quotes. Thank you!

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  2. Love this post. And he has such great quotes. What an amazing pioneer he was!

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  3. I love the quote and how fitting it shows a spiders web. I may have to use this quote in my life, it is rather fitting. Thank you so much for sharing. Well you already know I love nature, who else can have a deer mirror. I am so glad that you liked it. I had way too much fun making it.

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  4. The spider web quote may have inspired the "butterfly effect". When a butterfly flaps its wings...

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  5. Oh, you and me both!!! I ADORE John Muir...a super crush because he stands for so many things I believe in and speaks of them so freely and so well. Last October I spent a couple days in Muir Woods and visited John's home (inherited from his father-in-law). We picnicked in his family orchard. It was divine.

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  6. Living in Australia I have not heard of him, but I am impressed by his wisdom.

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  7. I absolutely love John Muir's words....often, I read him to quiet my soul or simply to reflect on a simpler time!! Needed that this morning!!
    and thanks, girlfriend, for the sweetness about my party! It was a whirlwind and crazy stuff happened but it was a success in my boy's heart and that's all that really matters. And you're right....dress shopping!! ack!! Somebody come take these 20 lbs away!!!!

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  8. Fascinating history of John Muir. I learned a lot from your blog today. Thanks for posting about this unusual man. And thanks for your most inspiring post on Cindy's blog, concerning Derek Prince, etc. Really blessed me.

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