Michael Pruess
									Writing Assignment #2
									English C77
									Section 105

Goldenrods in December, or The Transience of Summertime Beauty

	"The mountain winds, like the dew and rain, sunshine and snow, are measured and bestowed with love on the forests to develop their strength and beauty" (Muir, p. 1). Thus begins John Muir's rapturous account, "A Wind-storm in the Forest." That the winds are similar to rain and snow is not hard to swallow—they are all, after all, the agents of nature. What stands out here is that they do not simply occur: they are "bestowed." In Muir's mind, these agents are agents not of mere nature but of Nature, an entity to be venerated, one that has both designs and the power to realize them. Muir's essay is zealous, propagandistic; through it, he is trying to impart his spiritual connection to nature. He spends most of the essay sketching nature's sublimity before drawing a hollow conclusion regarding the immortality of forestial beauty.
	Muir fires off his essay by showing us the autonomy and venerability of Nature. He says, "the winds go to every tree, [...] caressing them tenderly, bending them in lusty exercise, stimulating their growth, [...] with ineffable beauty and harmony as the sure result" (Muir, pp. 1-2). Here he makes wind—the simple phenomenon of air flowing from high pressure zones to low pressure zones, compelled by that difference in pressure itself—seem like some sort of entity, an autonomous being that tends to the forest and watches out for its well-being. The end result according to Muir—clearly, an accomplished writer—is beauty that is ineffable, that is, words can not describe it. Oh, and while the wind is doing all that caressing and bending and stimulating and beautifying, it's also "blessing the forest" (Muir, p. 2). Thus begins not only the personification of the wind as an agent of Nature, but also its depiction as a holy force. Muir plays this up in the next paragraph, wherein he notes that after one has watched a storm come and go, and beheld the beauty of the forest in its wake, "faith in Nature's forestry is established" (p. 2). Ordinarily, I would take "faith" here to mean trust. There is nothing suspicious about someone having confidence in a system  (in this case, nature, with constituent parts forest and wind) when he sees it working (in this case, the wind-storm running its course and leaving the forest intact). However, given the recent use of the term "blessing" and the reverence with which Muir treated the forest's post-storm beauty, it becomes obvious that "faith" here is a spiritual term.
	It is important to note the metaphors Muir uses in describing the forest itself. Throughout the essay, he refers to trees as "giants." Across many mythologies, size is a symbol of godhood. The deities of Greco-Roman mythology, while they could change their shapes, were typically much larger than the ordinary human. A good population of the Norse gods were giants, or had giant's blood in them—again, making them larger than the ordinary human. The Judeo-Christian god, as envisioned by Baruch Spinoza, was omnipresent, effectively making him the size of the universe. The treatment of the forest trees as "giants"  is an attempt to convey their spiritual significance.
	More noticeable than metaphors of size, though, are those of music. These serve to glorify Nature in a number of ways. First, Muir says of pine trees that they are "ever in tune, singing and writing wind-music all their long century lives" (p. 3). The concept of them being permanently tuned screams "perfection," the highest form of praise and a term often reserved for deities. The image conjured by "writing ... music" is one of genius composers such as those mentioned in Barry Lopez's "A Reflection on White Geese"—Beethoven, Brahms, and so on. The image of genius plays on the earlier depictions of the wind as meticulous, careful entity. One descriptor Muir uses for the music, "passionate" (p. 5), reflects the passion he himself feels as he admires the forest. Despite his passion, though, he remains an observer long enough to draw another spiritual connection:
	
	"Even when the grand anthem had swelled to its highest pitch, I could distinctly hear the varying tones of individual trees,—Spruce, and Fir, and Pine, and leafless Oak." (Muir, p. 5)
The word "anthem" carries two important meanings. The first, the same meaning we use when we refer to our national anthem, is that of an uplifting tune that one identifies with. This underpins Muir's "passionate" connection to the forest and nature. The second is that of a choral composition based on a biblical passage, another nod to the spirituality of that same connection.
	Beyond metaphor, simple diction helps develop Muir's stance of awe and veneration. I will quote various descriptors from several pages of his essay; they should speak for themselves. "Superb"—"noble"— "exhilaration"—"extremely beautiful"—"passionate" (p. 6); "glorious"—"exuberance"—"profound" (what's more profound than an issue of spirituality?)—"enthusiastic" (p. 7); "sublime" several times (p. 9). Despite choosing to not describe nature's beauty with the cop-out of "ineffable" on the second page of his essay, he turns around and does a lot of description. The words he employs certainly do develop an image of something beautiful, of something with spiritual significance to him. They lead neatly to his conclusion in the wake of the wind-storm: the beauty of the forest is eternal. "... never before did these noble woods appear so fresh, so joyous, so immortal" (Muir, p. 10). 
	This is quite a conclusion, and Muir's heart isn't in it.
	Going back to the topic of metaphor briefly, Muir compares pines bending in the wind to goldenrods on multiple occasions:
	
	"[The pines] are mighty waving goldenrods" (Muir, p. 3)
	"Colossal spires 200 feet in height waved like supple goldenrods" (Muir, p. 5)
Goldenrods bloom in California between August and October. The wind-storm in question takes place in December 1874; Muir hasn't seen a goldenrod in at least two months. I would posit that the goldenrod metaphors are a sign of Muir subconsciously lamenting the transience of nature. He is glad to see the trees wave in the wind, but he would be happier in a field of goldenrods—an impossibility, due specifically to the fact that nature's beauty is not immortal. Muir, much like most men toying with religion and spirituality, seems to be consoling himself.
	John Muir does an admirable job of describing the wind and its effects on the forest in the most awed of tones. His passion is tangible as one reads the essay; it comes across beautifully through his diction and use of metaphor. Along with this passion comes a distinct spiritual bent, though closer examination reveals the possibility that his veneration of nature is couched in a desire to find summertime beauty—the beauty of goldenrods—in the midst of a raging California winter.