FPUScholarWorks John Muir and pilgrimage through sacred land. Author(s): Kunz, Michael. Source: Pacific Journal, vol. 11 (2016), pp. 13-30.. Published by: Fresno Pacific University. Stable URL: http://hdl.handle.net/11418/722 FPUScholarWorks is an online repository for creative and scholarly works and other resources created by members of the Fresno Pacific University community. FPUScholarWorks makes these resources freely available on the web and assures their preservation for the future. John Muir and Pilgrimage through Sacred Land MICHAEL KUNZ The small city of Santiago de Compostela lies in the wet, green, hilly and re- mote northwest corner of Spain. It lacks the climate and culture of other major Spanish tourist destinations, but it has a unique history. Along with Jerusalem and Rome, Santiago was one of the great medieval pilgrimage destinations. By tradition, Santiago’s sanctity resided in the remains of the apostle James, the brother of John, which are reputedly buried in Santiago’s great Gothic cathe- dral. A network of routes funneled west across Europe to converge on Santiago during the Middle Ages, where penitent pilgrims could receive indulgences. Pilgrims today who walk a minimum of 100 kilometers (or bicycle 200) still receive a traditional document from the local Roman Catholic diocese. In 2015, the church issued 262,000 such certificates. Every single year for the past thirty years (excepting holy years, which spike even higher), the number of pilgrims arriving at Santiago has increased.1 Traditional spiritual practices have an al- lure for many moderns seeking a deeper experience of life or direction toward a deeper sense of purpose. The two essential elements of pilgrimage – the journey and the sacred – make it a powerful metaphor for the life of faith. Like all compelling symbols, it can be motivation for great good; it can also be justification for great harm. Where we locate the sacred aspect of pilgrimage is significant. Pilgrimage that is a journey toward a sacred destination evokes one set of attitudes; pilgrimage as a journey through sacred space entails a different set. These two approaches to the life of faith have implications for our ethical actions, our relationship to nature, and the relevance of religious faith in the modern world. A century ago, John Muir, the great peripatetic prophet of the American conservation move- ment, used the language of pilgrimage and sacred spaces to great effect in his efforts to awaken a nation to the value of nature. Muir’s nature writings dem- onstrate an enduring popularity and relevance and his language of pilgrimage is deserving of reflection. 13 Pacific Journal Muir’s Vision of Nature as Sacred Space John Muir was raised by a strict and religious father who forced his memori- zation of most of the bible.2 Though his father’s particular religious emphases held little attraction for the adult Muir, his upbringing had significant effects on his perspectives on God’s immanence in nature, his sense of missionary zeal, and his religious rhetoric.3 Muir’s journeys through nature were the foundation of his environmental advocacy.He began his perigrinations early. While the Civil War raged, Muir the college student left his home in Wisconsin and forayed extensively into the Canadian forest wilderness above LakeSuperior. His next great journey was a perilous thousand-mile walk through the post-Civil War South to arrive at the Gulf of Mexico. After recovering from near-fatal malarial illness, he eventually set sail for California, where he promptly walked south and east to the Sierra Nevada. In the following spring of 1869, Muir entered the Sierra Nevada em- ployed as a shepherd, following the greening of vegetation upslope as seasons progressed. Muir described mountain travel as pilgrimage through sacred space. Late in life, when participating in Sierra Club outings, he would arrive at camp last out of all the company. A friend quoted Muir’s explanation: People ought to saunter in the mountains - not hike! Do you know the origin of that word ‘saunter?’ It’s a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, “A la sainte terre,’ ‘To the Holy Land.’ And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not ‘hike’ through them.4 Muir’s impact stemmed from his unique vision of the world through which he sauntered. Though influenced by Romanticism and Transcendentalism to find God in the beauty of nature, his vision was also that of an accomplished naturalist who knew the world through intimate and lengthy experience.5 Upon encountering one of the rarest and most beautiful of orchids, the Calypso bo- realis, during his Canadian journey, he extolled: “I never before saw a plant so 14 John Muir and Pilgrimage through Sacred Land full of life; so perfectly spiritual, it seemed pure enough for the throne of its Creator.”6 His decision to repent of the sedentary life was prompted by an accident that jeopardized his physical vision. Muir had been a skilled inventor and mechanic who earned a comfortable living improving the efficiency of factory produc- tion in Indiana. A factory injury blinded him in one eye and sympathetic blind- ness led to loss of sight in the other. Both eyes were eventually restored, but not before weeks of sightless recuperation led him to reconsider his deepest calling in life. He reflected, “I could gladly have died on the spot, because I did not feel that I could have the heart to look at any flower again.”7 His close lifelong confidant, Jeanne Carr, encouraged him to exercise his unique vision: “I have often wondered what God was training you for. He gave you the eye within the eye, to see all natural objects the realized ideas of His mind” and, when vision in one eye was in question, “you will see more with one visual organ than most persons could with half a dozen.”8 Upon recovery, he abandoned the settled life and commenced his journey to the gulf, and finally to California. At each location during his shepherding summer in the Sierra, Muir’s per- ception of nature was one imbued with the presence of the sacred. Upon en- countering a pool by a cascade near his sheep camp he writes: [I]t seemed the most romantic spot I had yet found, --the one big stone with its mossy level top and smooth sides standing square and firm and solitary, like an altar, the fall in front of it bathing it lightly with the finest of the spray, just enough to keep its moss cover fresh; the clear green pool beneath, with its foam-bells and its half circle of lilies leaning forward like a band of admirers, and flowering dogwood and alder trees leaning over all in sun-sifted arches. How soothingly, restfully cool it is beneath that leafy, translucent ceiling, and how delightful the water music--the deep bass tones of the fall, the clashing, ringing spray, and infinite variety of small low tones of the current gliding past the side of the boulder-island, and glinting against a thousand smaller stones down the ferny channel!...The place seemed holy, where one might hope to see God. 9 A repeated theme in his recounting of his first Sierran summer is the contrast of his own vision of nature with those of others he met along the way. Muir’s flock shared one common route to Yosemite Valley. He encountered tourists bound for the already-famous destination and noted their lack of reverent ap- 15 Pacific Journal preciation for the beauties already surrounding them on the journey: “Some- how most of these travelers seem to care but little for the glorious objects about them, though enough to spend time and money and endure long rides to see the famous valley.” Yet he harbors hope for them: “And when they are fairly within the mighty walls of the temple and hear the psalms of the falls, they will forget themselves and become devout. Blessed, indeed, should be every pilgrim in these holy mountains!”10 The exemplar of blindness to the sacredness of their surroundings is Muir’s coworker Billy the shepherd. I have been trying to get him to walk to the brink of Yosemite for a view, offering to watch the sheep for a day, while he should enjoy what tour- ists come from all over the world to see. But though within a mile of the famous valley, he will not go to it even out of mere curiosity. “What,” says he, “is Yosemite but a canon – a lot of rocks – a hole in the ground – a place dangerous about falling into – a d--d good place to keep away from.” “But think of the waterfalls, Billy – just think of that big stream we crossed the other day, falling half a mile through the air – think of that, and the sound it makes. You can hear it now like the roar of the sea.” Thus I pressed Yosemite upon him like a missionary offering the gospel, but he would have none of it. “I should be afraid to look over so high a wall,” he said. “It would make my head swim. There is nothing worth seeing anyway, only rocks, and I see plenty of them here. Tour- ists that spend their money to see rocks and falls are fools, that’s all. You can’t humbug me.