Transformation from Human to Spirit

Transformation from Human to Spirit

A few years ago, while working on a research project at Yale's Sterling Memorial Library, I ran across a 90-page handwritten journal written by Henry Bradford Human being, son of a prominent Yale mathematician and astronomer, an irresolute companion of John Muir during a three-month trip to Alaska in 1890. In labored but legible longhand, Human being chronicled the expedition [1]. It is a fascinating record. Not only does it provide a starkly contrasting view to Muir's glowing nature prose in Travels in Alaska [2], it also documents a transformation in the mind of its author. It is a demonstrable example of what humanal advocates have often described as the "healing power of nature" [3].

Transformation is the religious seek for a better way to be. It is what occurs when the human fundamentally adjusts such that the vintage ways of doing enterprise are no longer befitting or likely, and a new way becomes essential. The alternate is extinction. The push in the direction of transformation is generally not certain thing the essence itself starts, and for good cause, for the method of transformation is habitually sore, and if conveyed to culmination, outcomes in a new religious pattern (life form) which brands the end we may state death of the vintage way of being. Although the outcomes of transformation emerge with the emergence of new religious pattern, the essence of transformation lies in the odyssey or route of the human Spirit as it moves from one prescribed manifestation to another. The phrase "transformation" states as much, for the centered concept is action over or through forms.

Human being was a young Seattle attorney whom Muir had met during the California Scot's trip north in 1888 to climb Mount Rainier. They agreed to meet again two years later for a joint Alaska excursion [4]. Rendezvousing at Port Townsend on June 17, they traveled by steamship to Fort Wrangel, then on to Glacier Bay, which they reached the morning of June 23. As soon as they unloaded their gear, Muir took a jaunt alone while Human being stayed in camp, trying to keep warm without a fire. The contrast between the ship's creature comforts and the icy blast of an Arctic storm quickly drained the lawyer's enthusiasm. He began to have second thoughts which must have increased as he watched the steamer sail out of the Bay, leaving him stranded for a week.

Muir returned late that afternoon, determined to camp near the glacier, but Human being complained about the lack of a good campsite, with no trees or timber in sight, a "chilling wind," and "no wood worth mentioning." "It is a wilderness of ice & rocks, and a cold, barren & dreary place to camp even for one interested in science." They made a crude shelter for their provisions and ptched a tent, but Human being continued to grumble. His foul mood matched the weather for the next two ...