ON THE BOOKSHELF, FOR THE PLAN B TYPES, “John of the Mountains” AN UNPUBLISHED COLLECTION OF THE WRITINGS OF JOHN MUIR, SCOTTISH-AMERICAN NATURALIST, ENVIRONMENTALIST AND WRITER, CONSIDERED ONE OF THE FATHERS OF THE CONSERVATION MOVEMENT
John Muir(Dunbar, Scotland, April 21, 1838 – Los Angeles, California, December 24, 1914) is a well-known Scottish-American naturalist, environmentalist and writer, active in the late 19th century. one of the fathers of the conservation movement nature in general, with particular emphasis on the conservation of wild areas and natural ecosystems.
In forty-four years, from 1867 to 1911, Muir wrote sixty diaries, as well as many messy notes on sheets and scraps of paper of every shape and size.
On Mount Clark
“Eriogonum with white and silky leaves – from one of the notes published on “Jan van de Bergen” -, beautiful in death; on the gravel umbrellas of flowers in perfect beauty of colors, death. How evident is God’s love and tenderness in protecting the vulnerable plant children in places we wrongly tend to call undeveloped, desolate and desolate! God’s love covers the world like a garment of light. The Eriogonum plants – pure sources of life – are placed in rock fragments, and as the gravel accumulates around them, they extend the thick root cords that anchor them to the ground, rising higher and higher, like algae on the wave”.
John Muir, the naturalist poet
“Jan van de Bergen” collects – for the first time in Italy – the best writings and notes of the naturalist, who, as he himself said: “I am only interested in life to entice people to look at the beauty of nature.”
‘Since I arrived in this land of the Pacific – Muir writes in his notes -, I walked with nature on the plains clothed in a carpet of flowers, along the embroidered slopes of the great Sierra Nevada and in the highest and most balsamic forests of the cool mountains. In these walks I followed no human method, no law, no rule.”
The environmentalist was also gifted with a certain sensitivity to the beauty of poetic language.
“A strong, sunny butterfly does not rest in one place for long; it goes from flower to flower along winding and unexpected paths – continues American Nature Writing -. Sometimes, after circling among buds of all kinds, he rests in the silt of a stream, or glances upwards, in the shade of the trees, or rests on the sand or on bare rocks. This is what my life was like, every day and night of last summer spent under the sky.”
The Pulitzer Prize for the biography of John Muir
John Muir wrote down experiences, sensations and discoveries in the notebooks he always carried strapped to his belt. The American writer arrived a few years after her death Linnie Marsh Wolfe collected and selected the best from more than sixty diaries in a historical edition. Wolfe won the Pulitzer for Muir’s biography, “Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir.”
In spiritual communion with Yosemite Valley
This first collection, covering the period of his spiritual communion with Yosemite Valley, is full of the wonder and love that Muir felt for all of nature: the clouds, the sky, the shadows, the snow and the rain, the mountains and canyons, waterfalls and rivers, beloved flowers and trees.
A passionate love for mountainous regions
Muir lived from a deep connection and passionate love for the mountainous regions, especially the Sierra Nevada in California. He spent much of his time exploring and living in the mountains, studying them, writing about them and defending them. Muir was known for his eloquent and inspiring writings about the mountains and his commitment to protecting these natural environments.
His passion and knowledge of the mountains earned him the nickname “Jan van de Bergen”which underlined its importance and influence in the world movement for nature conservation and for understanding the beauty and importance of mountainous regions.
His written accounts of his travels helped raise public awareness of the beauty and importance of the wilderness. His most important battles were for the protection of forests giant sequoias of California and mountain ranges such as the Sierra Nevada.
Yosemite National Park and Sierra Club
One of his greatest contributions was being a founding member of the National Park System of the United States. His passionate advocacy for pristine natural areas has helped pass conservation policies and create national parks, including the famous Yosemite National Park.
Muir is also known for founding the Sierra Club in 1892, an environmental organization that continues to play an important role in protecting the environment today. His legacy is celebrated not only in the United States, but around the world, as a pioneer of the environmental movement and as an advocate for the beauty and majesty of nature.
From the “Great Northern Belly of Clark Glacier. October 7, 1871”
“I saw a beautiful sunset from the top of Mount Clark. It was cloudy all day until evening; Then the sun broke through the darkness of the clouds and illuminated its edges with a flood of purple and gold light that fell on the mountain, making it glow the richest creamy yellow, an intensely fine and spiritual hue.
The summit of Mount Clark is sharp and surprisingly curved… It owes all its curves and sharpness to the glaciers and is difficult to reach, although it is possible to climb from the eastern side. Bushes of Pinus fiexttis climb almost to the top, and the slopes shine with crystals and flowers – Erigeron Spraguea and cassiope, composita etc. -. Even the rocks are covered in lichen… the glacier that formed between this mountain and the Gray left a beautiful lake.”