Finding the Pure Self in Nature

•   By Dawn King  •  My husband, Al,  has been reading “My First Summer in the Sierra,” which a friend so kindly gave Al. We have the book’s author, a young John Muir, to thank for the Yosemite area of the U.S. becoming a national park. It truly is an inspiring natural wonder. And when we read Muir’s beautiful detailed descriptions of Nature in the Sierras, we have to think he was a most inspired and illumined naturalist. Here are some excerpts from John Muir’s journal:

Aug. 25: Cool as usual in the morning, quickly changing…Of all Nature’s flowery carpeted mountain halls none can be finer than this glacier meadow. …The birds are still here, showing no sign of leaving for winter quarters…For my part I should like to stay here all winter or all my life or even all eternity.

Aug. 26: Frost this morning; all the meadow grass and some of the pine needles sparkling with irised crystals—flowers of light. …Probably more free sunshine falls on this majestic range than on any other in the world I’ve ever seen or heard of. And how glorious the morning sunbeams are pouring through the crystals on the grass and pine needles, and how ineffably spiritually fine is the morning glow on the mountain tops and the alpenglow of evening. …May the Sierra be named, not the Snowy Range, but the Range of Light.

Aug. 27: Crystals grow in marvelous beauty and perfection of form these still nights, every one built as carefully as the grandest holiest temple, as if planned to endure forever.

Aug. 30: How lavish is Nature building, pulling down, creating, destroying, chasing every material particle from form to form, ever changing, ever beautiful. Mr. D. arrived this morning. Felt not a trace of loneliness while he was gone. On the contrary I never enjoyed grander company. The whole wilderness seems to be alive and familiar, full of humanity. The very stones seem talkative, sympathetic, brotherly. No wonder when we consider that we all have the same Father and Mother.

Norman Paulsen, Sunburst’s founder, advises: Allow your heart to commune with God in nature. Find a pristine environment that makes your heart swell with joy and love. Embrace the solitude. The pure Self within you will come forward through your senses to commune with you in Nature.