Bend the World Toward Healing

Reading Nature as Scripture with John Muir

I remember the first time I set foot in Muir Woods, a stunning 500-acre natural reserve just north of San Francisco. Soft earth cushioned my steps, and enormous old-growth coast redwoods towered over my head, most of them at least 500 years old. It was impossible to crane my head far back enough to see their highest branches.

There is a kind of sacred hush that overcomes you in a place like that.

It was that sacred hush to which naturalist and conservationist John Muir dedicated his life.

Although he’d always been drawn to nature in his native Scotland and in Wisconsin, where his family emigrated, Muir was a practical young man. He had to make a living.

But when an industrial accident at the age of 28 almost cost him his vision, he resolved to radically restructure his life. Although his physical vision was forever impaired, his contemplative vision was only sharpened.

Muir cut an eccentric figure in post-Civil-War America, setting out for a 1,000-mile trek through the south with a bit of tea and bread, a plant press, and several books to keep him company. He would lean down and talk to plants, listening for their stories. He would ask glaciers where they’d originated before great sheets of ice had pushed them across the earth. He would lean down, place his head between his knees and look at the world upside down, to see it afresh again, to restore its newness.

With his thin frame and long, unkempt beard, Muir resembled a prophet of old. But it was another Scripture of which he sang.

Muir knew most of the Bible by heart, having been forced to memorize it by his strict fundamentalist father. There was nothing in his newfound Scripture of nature, however, that spoke of hell or damnation. Here, by contrast, he found overwhelming majesty, unspeakable beauty, and the gentle consolation of a nurturing ecosystem in which he easily found his own place.

Light years away from the punishing exactitude of reformed Christianity, Muir understood innately that nature was the true sanctuary of God.

The holy Word that Muir read in the majestic sequoia groves and rushing mountain streams conveyed pure joy, the radiant light of a loving Creator. Muir caught so many glimpses of this Divine goodness on a daily basis that he called all of nature “Godful.” 

The trees were his cathedral, the coast his high altar. 

“The whole sky and the rocks and flowers,” he said, “are drenched with God.”

As logging and industry encroached upon priceless natural treasures, Muir sprung into action to save them.

He was the prophet the world needed then—and we need now—precisely because he also understood that it was wildness that would save us.

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home,” he wrote, “that wilderness is a necessity.” 

Muir was instrumental in the establishment of Yosemite as a national park and the preservation of so many other sacred natural spaces. Though he often grew weary of writing, his pen never rested as he stood in defense of wild places.

Strolling through Muir Woods a century later, I stopped to look at the cross-section of a fallen tree, which must have been a giant. Trying to count the rings was fruitless; there were hundreds of them. As I stood in wonder at how very small my life was compared to the life of this tree, I was transported by a feeling I think Muir knew well: an overwhelming sense of connection with all living things.

Looking back on that moment, I recall the inscription Muir wrote in his journal: 

“John Muir,

Earth-planet,

Universe.” 

This was his home address. 

It is yours, too, and mine.

Even as the world seems to darken, Creation offers us an anchor: the mountains endure, the rivers keep singing, and the great trees never stop stretching toward the sun. 

In their persistence, they invite us to find courage—not by ignoring the darkness, but by rooting ourselves in beauty and truth too ancient and too vast to be undone.

To return to the Earth, said John Muir, is how we resist despair.

To remember our kinship with all life is our first step in resisting cruelty.

And when we do these things, he says, we help bend the world toward healing. 

It is in this spirit that we invite you to a new mini-retreat with beloved Celtic teacher John Philip Newell. Weaving together the wisdom and guidance from John Muir, Newell will reveal how the Godfulness of the world can become a pathway of healing.

May the spirit of John Muir help us tip the balance of the world closer to love, humility, and true belonging for all.

Bend the World Toward Healing

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Cameron Bellm is a Seattle-based spiritual writer, speaker, and retreat guide. After completing her PhD in Russian literature, she traded the academic life for the contemplative life, combining her love for language with a deeply-rooted spirituality. Her work can be found at the intersection of mysticism and activism, linking ancient spiritual practice with modern social engagement. Cameron's work has been featured in America Magazine, National Catholic Reporter, Jesuit Media Lab, and more. Her first book, The Sacrament of Paying Attention: How Writers, Artists, and Mystics can Lead Us into Sacred Human Communion, will be published in 2026. When her nose isn't in a book and her feet aren't softly padding through a library, you can find her marveling at the ferns, salmonberries, and spruce trees along a Seattle trail.