For Earth Day

Another reading from John Muir:

No Sierra landscape that I have seen holds anything truly dead or dull, or any trace of what in manufactories is called rubbish or waste; everything is perfectly clean and pure and full of divine lessons. This quick, inevitable interest attaching to everything seems marvelous until the hand of God becomes visible; then it seems reasonable that what interests Him may well interest us. When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. One fancies a heart like our own must be beating in every crystal and cell, and we feel like stopping to speak to the plants and animals as friendly fellow-mountaineers. Nature as a poet, an enthusiastic workingman, becomes more and more visible the farther and higher we go; for the mountains are fountains--beginning places, however related to sources beyond mortal ken.

From My First Summer in the Sierra, chapter 6

Also, Ansel Adams died 25 years ago today. I think this makes him an honorary Earth Day saint.

Happy Earth Day! And happy feast of Ansel Adams.