3.05.2009

John Muir on Bees

Recently, we recommended an essay called "Locusts and Wild Honey" by our local hero, John Burroughs (1837-1921).

Today, we recommend writings by Burroughs' contemporary, John Muir (1838-1914). In particular, a chapter entitled "The Bee-Pastures" from a book called The Mountains of California.

Richly depicting a long since vanished California, with its "continuous bed of honey-bloom" so thick a walkers' foot "would press about a hundred flowers at every step," the essay is a balm on a cold winter day like today, when honeybees and their flowers seem like distant, thrumming dreams.

A favorite passage to whet your appetite:

"The great yellow days circled by uncounted, while I drifted toward the north, observing the countless forms of life thronging about me, lying down almost anywhere on the approach of night. And what glorious botanic beds I had! Oftentimes on awaking I would find several new species leaning over me and looking me full in the face, so that my studies would begin before rising."John Muir
John Burroughs

3 comments:

KC said...

lovely!
separated at birth?

Gerry Gomez Pearlberg said...

Kind of looks that way, don't it?

amarilla said...

I had never heard of JB until last week. What a discovery. I'm so glad to come across your recommendations and any more you might have because I have little time and no idea where to start.

I think I will love Burroughs, like him I am a strident devotee of Emerson but not so keen on Thoreau, who strikes me as an elitist. I'm also interested to learn that he was also a defender of Whitman.