“…a good and practical sort of immortality.”

As long as I live, I’ll hear the birds, and the winds, and the waterfalls sing. I’ll interpret the rocks and learn the language of flood, and storm, and avalanche. I’ll make the acquaintance of the wild gardens and the glaciers, and get as near to the heart of this world as I could. And so I did. I sauntered about from rock to rock, from grove to grove, from stream to stream, and whenever I met a new plant, I would sit down beside it for a minute or a day to make its acquaintance, hear what it had to tell. I asked the boulders where they had been, whither they were going and, when night found me, there I camped. I took no more heed to save time or to make haste than did the trees or the stars. This is true freedom, a good and practical sort of immortality.

–John Muir