Saturday morning, the week finally loosening its grip, and a quiet voice inside asking for air. Maybe you feel it too. A gentle pull toward a park, a shoreline, a line of trees at the end of the street.
In the fall of 1873, a young Scottish wanderer felt that same pull in Yosemite Valley. He had just come home from five weeks in the high country, weary and happy, and he closed a letter to his sister Sarah with a line the whole world now knows.
The mountains are calling & I must go & I will work on while I can, studying incessantly.
John Muir, letter to Sarah Muir Galloway, September 3, 1873, via University of the Pacific
That wanderer was John Muir. The first half of his sentence lives on mugs and trail signs. I love the second half even more. He went to the mountains to learn, to work and to wonder, and he came back with words that still open the door for tired hearts.
This is part of Timeless Authors, our series on the writers who change ordinary days. Last time Benjamin Franklin handed us one good question for the morning. Today John Muir holds the door open and invites us to step outside.
The Teaching of John Muir
John Muir taught that the natural world is a living home, and that time in wild places restores the whole person, body, mind and spirit. He saw every creature, stone and stream as part of one great web, and he spent his life inviting people outdoors so they would fall in love with that web and protect it.
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.
John Muir, Our National Parks (1901), chapter 2
Read that slowly. Every verb is a gift arriving. Peace flows in. Freshness blows in. Cares fall away like leaves. Muir asks only one thing of us, the climb, the walk, the first step out the door. The mountains take care of the rest.
In Their Own Words, Favorite and Lesser Known Quotes
Muir wrote in English, so every quote below is his own wording, checked against the original book or letter.
Wild Places Feel Like Coming Home
Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity
John Muir, Our National Parks (1901), chapter 1
I love that word, home. Muir saw the forest as a place we return to, a place that already knows us. Every walk under trees is a small homecoming.
Everything Is Beautifully Connected
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.
John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (1911), entry for July 27
He wrote this on a long summer day near Lake Tenaya, watching rock, water and sky speak to each other. The bird belongs to the tree, the tree belongs to the rain, and you belong to all of it. What a comforting thought to carry through a lonely week.
Another glorious day, the air as delicious to the lungs as nectar to the tongue.
John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (1911)
Muir greeted morning after morning with this kind of delight. Borrow his opening words tomorrow. Another glorious day. Watch how the day rises to meet them.
Time Slows Down Among the Trees
Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars.
John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (1911), chapter 2
Outside, time loosens its grip. The trees grow at their own pace and the stars keep their own appointments. One unhurried hour among them resets the clock we carry inside.
Beauty Feeds the Soul Like Bread Feeds the Body
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.
John Muir, The Yosemite (1912), via the Sierra Club
Beauty belongs on the list of daily needs, right beside groceries and sleep. Muir wrote these words while working to protect a valley he loved, and they still invite us to treat beauty as nourishment.
Play Is Part of Being Alive
Surely all God’s people, however serious or savage, great or small, like to play.
John Muir, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (1913), via the Sierra Club
Muir saw play everywhere, in squirrels and storms and the dance of water over stone. Give yourself the same gift this weekend. Wander with an open schedule and follow whatever catches your eye.
Who Was John Muir?
John Muir was born on April 21, 1838, in Dunbar, Scotland. In 1849 his family emigrated to a farm near Portage, Wisconsin, and he later studied at the University of Wisconsin in Madison from 1860 until 1863, according to Britannica.
He had a gift for invention and worked in factories until 1867, when an accident at a carriage parts shop in Indianapolis left him temporarily blind. When his sight returned, he resolved to turn his eyes to the fields and woods, as the Sierra Club biography tells it. He walked about a thousand miles from Indianapolis to the Gulf of Mexico, sailed on to Cuba and Panama, and landed in San Francisco in March 1868.
Yosemite became his home and his classroom. He herded sheep through the high country in the summer of 1869, studied its glaciers and forests, and wrote articles that helped build public support for Yosemite National Park, created in 1890. In 1892 he and his supporters founded the Sierra Club, and he served as its president for the rest of his life.
He married Louie Wanda Strentzel in 1880 and raised two daughters on the family fruit ranch in Martinez, California. His books include The Mountains of California (1894), Our National Parks (1901), My First Summer in the Sierra (1911) and The Yosemite (1912). He died in Los Angeles on December 24, 1914, at age 76.
What Wildness Really Means
The popular picture of Muir is a lone adventurer escaping people for the peaks. The deeper truth is warmer. Muir went outside to come closer, closer to God, closer to the web of life and closer to the people he hoped to bring along. He wrote whole books to invite city readers into the forest, and he built a club so others could share the trails.
Wildness, for Muir, is a quality of aliveness. It lives in a mountain range, and it also lives in a city park, a creek, a single old oak. The invitation is simple. Notice it, feel how much it gives, and care for it in return.
Why This Teaching Fits Today
Many of us spend most daylight hours under ceilings and screens. Muir’s prescription now has some lovely numbers behind it.
In 2019, researchers led by Mathew White at the University of Exeter studied 19,806 adults in England. People who spent at least 120 minutes a week in nature were significantly more likely to report good health and high wellbeing, and the benefits peaked at around 200 to 300 minutes a week, according to their study in Scientific Reports.
The gentlest part? The two hours counted whether people took one long walk or several short ones. A Saturday morning stroll and a few lunchtime laps around the park add up beautifully. Muir would call that a glorious start.
Your Morning Practice, the Muir Good Tidings Walk
- Greet the day. Open a window or step onto the porch and say Muir’s words out loud. Another glorious day.
- Choose your green place. A park, a riverbank, a tree lined street, a beach. Anywhere within a short walk counts.
- Walk slowly for thirty minutes. Let the earbuds rest in your pocket and let your senses lead. Notice light, wind, birdsong and the smell of the air.
- Find one connection. Pick one thing, a leaf, a stone, a bird, and trace what it is hitched to. Rain, soil, sunlight, you.
- Carry one tiding home. Before you step back inside, name one gift the walk gave you and write it down.
Make it stick with an if then plan. If I pour my Saturday coffee, then I will walk to my green place before I open my phone.
Essential Reading
- My First Summer in the Sierra, his joyful journal of the summer of 1869, free on Project Gutenberg
- Our National Parks, his warm invitation to the wild places of the West, free on Project Gutenberg
- The Yosemite, his portrait of the valley he called home, on the Sierra Club’s John Muir Exhibit
- Quotations from John Muir, the Sierra Club’s carefully sourced collection of his words
Quick Answers About John Muir
Who was John Muir?
John Muir (1838 to 1914) was a Scottish born American naturalist, writer and conservationist. His writing helped build support for Yosemite National Park, he founded the Sierra Club with his supporters in 1892, and he wrote classics like My First Summer in the Sierra.
Did John Muir really say the mountains are calling and I must go?
Yes. He wrote it in a letter to his sister Sarah Muir Galloway on September 3, 1873. The full sentence continues with the words and I will work on while I can, studying incessantly.
What is John Muir’s famous quote about everything being connected?
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. It comes from his journal entry for July 27 in My First Summer in the Sierra (1911).
How much time in nature helps wellbeing?
A 2019 study of 19,806 adults in England, published in Scientific Reports, linked at least 120 minutes a week in nature with good health and high wellbeing, whether people took one long visit or several short ones.
Where can I read John Muir for free?
Project Gutenberg offers free editions of My First Summer in the Sierra and Our National Parks, and the Sierra Club’s John Muir Exhibit hosts many of his books, letters and a page of verified quotations.
Answer the Call This Weekend
So come back to that Saturday pull, the quiet voice asking for air. Muir would smile at it. He heard the same voice in Yosemite and spent a lifetime answering.
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.
John Muir, Our National Parks (1901), chapter 2
Where will you go for your good tidings today?
Start early. Start outside. Start today.
Complement this with Henry David Thoreau on Mornings and Simple Living, Lao Tzu on Stillness and Water and Walt Whitman on Wonder and the Open Road.
Want a calm, intentional start every day? Hold Until Sunrise is our little app for mornings that matter.
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With love, Paolo
Sources
- University of the Pacific, Letter from John Muir to Sarah Muir Galloway, September 3, 1873
- John Muir, Our National Parks (1901), Project Gutenberg
- John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (1911), Project Gutenberg
- John Muir, The Yosemite (1912), Sierra Club John Muir Exhibit
- Sierra Club, Quotations from John Muir
- Sierra Club, John Muir, A Brief Biography
- Britannica, John Muir
- White and colleagues, Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing, Scientific Reports (2019)
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Carry this into tomorrow morning
The practice in this post lives in an app we built, Hold Until Sunrise. Your alarm becomes a moment of stillness. You hold your phone, rest with one affirmation, and let the sunrise welcome you into the day. Begin tomorrow gently and on your own terms. Find it on the App Store here.