Autumn Jungle - October 2, 2009

"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." John Muir

Autumn Jungle
5" x 7" Watercolor

John Muir (1838-1914) was a Scottish-born naturalist, author, and early advocate of the preservation of wilderness. His essays and books were fresh with the spell of wilderness, particularly of the Sierra Nevada in California. Muir popularized the idea of nature as healer. Yosemite and Sequoia National Park, the Sierra Club and the modern environmental movement, are direct results of his gentle insight.

With the influence of a rigid, biblically-minded father, Muir, by age 11, could recite most of the bible by heart. Words and turn-of-phrase did him well, and while he escaped orthodox beliefs with little apology, he wrote well and often of a universal view of the power of deity through attention to nature.