A WILDLIFE ATTITUDE
Rex Burress
Although politicians can put doubt on a person's birthplace and distort facts to achieve a political purpose, there is no doubt that John Muir lived and left a lasting legacy.
You need but read the Muir writings to get an idea of his compassionate, joyful attitude toward nature. We are convinced by his truthful details in his writings that he roamed California and other parts of the world to gather a perspective of nature. He cared to learn and entice others to look at nature's loveliness with understanding.
One of John Muir's first written pieces was “The Humming-bird of the California Waterfalls,” a sensitive story, published in Scribners Monthly in 1878 about the Water Ouzel, now called American Dipper (Cinclus mexicanus). The articulate article is an example of keen observation, shown in the poetic prose about “the singularly, joyous, and loveable little fellow...the mountain stream's courageous humming-bird of blooming waters,” as naturalist Muir said. His expression revealed an attitude of delight that reflected his goodwill view of all wildlife.
The joyous attitude was also shown in his encounter with the rare Calypso borealis orchid he found in a trackless Canadian swamp, “where no one who enters comes out alive.” “Hush! We won't mention their names, for so rare were they, so delicate, so fragile, and so altogether lovely, that even to mention their names might frighten them away.” Muir would sit down by a flower for an hour or a day, “to learn what it had to say.”
In one of Muir's seven trips to Alaska to study glaciers, Stephen Fox wrote: “Muir ran from cluster to cluster of glacial flowers, falling on his knees, babbling in unknown tongues, prattling a curious mixture of scientific lingo and baby talk, worshiping his little pink and blue goddesses.”
Amid the springtime sights and sounds of birds and flowers in Yosemite he once remarked, “Everything busy, as if hearing God's command to increase and multiply and replenish the earth.” In Muir's interpretation, he gave equal rights to wildlife even though the biblical injunction seemed to indicate mankind as having dominion over all creatures. In his version, all natural organisms were to reproduce for their own purposes, and for the good of the overall environment. “Everything in the universe is hitched together,” he said.
Other scientific people, like Aldo Leopold who wrote the “Sand County Almanac,” or Theodore Roosevelt, John Burroughs, and a host of others, have embellished the wildlife attitude too, but not with the fervor and dedication of John Muir. The Wildlife Attitude is a cause to heighten the wonder and beauty of nature, and to promote a sense of conservation care toward our natural world.
In reference to the “Wildlife Attitude” and the recognition of John Muir's birthday on April 21, 1838, a “John Muir Birthday and Earth Day Celebration” will be held at the John Muir National Historic Site, April 23rd 2016.
“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.”
--John Muir