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Show 103. language, thus reinforcing the idea that each moment represented one central and powerful human possibility. If there is such a thing as a "wilderness experience," these narratives attempt to say what that might be. It is the most powerful kind of religious conversion, and is not to be seen as anything less than complete rebirth. Awakening, Muir became a religious man. In the Sierra, he was entering a sacred space. Just as Moses was instructed by the Lord to "put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is_ holy ground," (Exodus 3.5) so too Muir found himself barefoot on the polished rocks near Tenaya Lake. The mountains around Tuolumne Meadows became for him a sacred place, very close to the Center of the World or "navel of the earth." There, the harsh dividing line between earth and heaven was broken. On the mountains themselves, he learned to transcend. Not any mountain might do, as we shall see. Certain mountains, like Shasta, Ritter, or Cathedral Peak, had a particular attraction for him. They were isolated temples, and seemed to have singular sacred significance, just as Fairweather, Rainier, and Hood would later claim his reverence, whether he climbed them or not. Each mountain was not just significant in itself but in the relationship it bore to the land surrounding it. Each could possibly be a center of the world. In the Sierra, however, he chose Ritter, chose to describe his awakening on Ritter as the archetypal experience. As a scholar, I would like to be able to use the closest and most immediate responses by Muir to his awakening. But |