Hitched To Everything Else
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.
Muir wrote this line in July of 1869, while camped in the high country above Yosemite, tending a flock of sheep and filling his journal with notes on granite, wildflowers, and glacial ice. He had spent weeks tracing how a single lily or waterfall depended on the mountains, weather, and rivers around it, until the pattern struck him as a law of the whole natural world. The line captures his discovery that no rock, plant, or creature stands apart from the rest of creation. It still speaks today, when it is easy to mistake a quiet morning alone for real independence from everyone else.
Reflection
Muir believed no single thing could be separated from the whole of nature. What task on my calendar today connects me to other people?