OCR Text |
Show 227. Translating into Muir's gospel, the message of the sun is the message of the son, the vine is the complex web of life in the wilderness, and the trees, like men, are really only branches of that vine. Once again Muir argued through his metaphor that the wilderness was a Savior. It did its father's business on earth and man could only be redeemed if he lived in its spirit. This required that a man literally climb the trees. If woods were the saviors of towns, then pines and spruces were the "best interpreters of the winds." So Muir climbed a Douglas spruce to get the full experience of the storm. Perhaps he was following Thoreau's example. In "Walking" Thoreau had noticed that the thoughts of men, like the forests of New England, were laid waste. "We hug the earth - how rarely we mount!" he said, as he climbed a white pine at whose top he was repaid with far vistas, "new mountains in the horizon." He also discovered the "minute blossoms of the forest" which were too high and too subtle for most men to notice. Muir's winds, like Thoreau's blossoms, were "above men's heads and unobserved by them." Said Muir, "Most people like to look at mountain rivers, and bear them in mind; but few care to look at the winds, though far more beautiful and sublime." Climbing a tree in the midst of a gale was also a test of faith, a necessary risk which led one to the "Aeolian music of its topmost needles." (Shades of Heraclitus!) Mind you, the climber chose his tree carefully.- for under the circumstances that was a serious matter. But from the lithe bushy top |