Get Out! Revisited (Maintaining a state of mind)

When visiting Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic National Park a few weeks ago, I bought at the visitors center a copy of Meditations of John Muir: Nature’s Temple, compiled by Chris Highland. (13th printing since 2001.)

While gazing into the snow-capped mountain ridge, I opened my new book randomly. What I landed on made me think of our younger daughter who adopted a rescue dog awhile back. Returning to the store I bought a postcard to send her. In it I included the first sentences of Muir’s reflection called “A Leaf in a Whirlwind.”

“[Stickeen] gained the foot of the cliff, while I was on my knees leaning over to give him a lift should he succeed in getting within reach of my arm. Here he halted in dead silence, and it was here I feared he might fail, for dogs are poor climbers…. Then suddenly up he came in a spring rush, hooking his paws into the steps and notches so quickly that I could not see how it was done, and whizzed past my head, safe at last!”

Since returning home, I’ve kept the Muir book on my bedside table (maintain a state of mind). A few nights ago I read “All the Air is Music.” At the end of each reflection is a quote offered by Chris Highland. For this one it’s: “We have fallen into the place where everything is music. ∼Rumi”

“The water ouzel, in his rocky home amid foaming waters. How romantic and beautiful is the life of this brave little singer on the wild mountain streams, building his round bossy nest of moss by the side of a rapid or fall, where it is sprinkled and kept fresh and green by the spray! No wonder he sings well, since all the air about him is music; every breath he draws in part of a song, and he gets his first music lessons before he is born; for the eggs vibrate in time with the tones of the waterfalls.  Bird and stream are inseparable, songful and wild, gentle and strong–the bird ever in danger in the midst of the stream’s mad whirlpools, yet seemingly immortal. And so I might go on, writing words, words words; but to what purpose? Go see him and love him, and through him as through a window look into Nature’s warm heart.”

♥