Happy Birthday, John Muir

In 1838 on this day, John Muir was born.  Maybe this doesn't mean much to you, but most of us who grew up in California know very well the importance of John Muir.  He was an advocate for the creation of national parks, and really helped America realize the intrinsic value of wilderness areas, such as Yosemite and Sequoia National Park.   On a personal note, John Muir's numerous essays, books, letters, etc. found me late into my college years, and opened up this world of creative energy mixed with love for the natural world that I had never found anywhere else.  There is such a beauty in Muir's words-- a spirituality, a love, a creativity that is completely grounded in the natural world, and the connectivity of all things.  I consider Muir's writings almost every time I sit down to work on an illustration; I always think "Ok, what and where is the natural recurring pattern within this life form that connects it to its environment?"  Every form in nature has some sort of pattern of growth, and color, lines, crevices, spirals, venation patterns-- all of these are secret clues into how each individual form is connected to the rest of the natural world.  As a scientific illustrator and artist, if I can uncover, illuminate, and show the natural beauty of any one of these patterns within a plant, animal, etc, then I consider my job done.
Anyway, to celebrate Muir's birthday today, I thought I would leave you with my five favorite Muir quotes.  Enjoy!

1)  Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul.  


2) When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.


3) Most people are on the world, not in it-- having no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them-- undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate.  


4) God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods.  But he cannot save them from fools.  


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