“Every excursion that I have made in all my rambling life has been fruitful and delightful, from the smallest indefinite saunter an hour or two in length to the noblest summer’s flight…All the wild world is beautiful, and it matters but little where we go.” –Muir journal entry June 1890
“One day’s exposure to mountains is better than cartloads of books.” –Journal entry late 1872
Recently a couple of outdoor-loving buddies have told me about opportunities they have to contribute to the education of kids about the natural world. My friend George is a child psychologist in Boston, who’s meeting with New England Aquarium folks to chat about how he might contribute to their excellent already-established youth programs. My friend Richard is the caretaker of a swatch of shortgrass prairie in Oklahoma, with a lodge nearing completion on site. What might they contribute, and how? Did I have any ideas for them?
My guiding principle in these questions has recently become to ask myself: “What would John Muir do?” This determination is a result of several decades of outdoor adventuring in conjunction with a close reading of Muir’s reflections on his own (much more impressive) “saunters”. Never have I encountered a person with a clearer vision of reality and a better understanding of what it means to be fully human than John Muir.
Muir was clear on two things, particularly. First, we are children of the universe, particularly our own planet earth, and to know ourselves we have to know our foundations. This means getting out of cities and away from smartphone screens on regular and frequent sojourns in the natural world that is our home. “Every excursion that I have made in all my rambling life has been fruitful and delightful, from the smallest indefinite saunter an hour or two in length to the noblest summer’s flight…All the wild world is beautiful, and it matters but little where we go.”
Second: we get to know our foundation not through reading books about it, but by experiencing the natural world, what he called “the wild world.” Read More