Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings." Thus spoke John Muir, the prophet of the wilderness, whose soul was nourished by the high places of the earth. His words call mankind to rise from the dust of cities, from the weight of toil, and to seek the eternal lessons written in stone and sky. For the mountains speak, though without a tongue, and their tidings are peace, strength, and renewal to those who will ascend.

The ancients too sought wisdom in the heights. Moses received the Law upon Sinai; the Greeks built temples upon lofty hills, believing that the gods dwelt where the air was pure. To climb was not only to rise in body but to rise in spirit, to draw near to the divine. The mountains stand as eternal teachers, unmoved by time, whispering to man that his soul also must strive upward, beyond the fleeting and the low.

Consider Muir himself, who wandered the Sierra Nevada with nothing but his pen and his heart open to wonder. In solitude, he found not loneliness but communion. The tidings he carried back were not only for himself but for the world: that nature is sacred, that to protect the mountains and forests is to protect the soul of mankind. His voice helped forge the great national parks, sanctuaries where future generations might also hear the tidings of the wild.

History recalls too the climbers of Everest, who dared the peril of ice and storm not for conquest alone, but for the exaltation of the human spirit. Their ascent was more than physical—it was symbolic of mankind’s eternal striving to rise higher, to see farther, to reach beyond what is common. Even in tragedy, their courage proclaimed the message of the mountains: that life is fullest when lived in pursuit of the heights.

So let these words endure: do not remain always in the valleys of ease, but climb when the path grows steep. For in the stillness of the peaks, where earth meets sky, the heart receives its tidings. There the burdens of the world fall away, and man remembers that he is both dust and spirit, called not only to dwell below but to ascend toward the eternal. The mountains wait, ancient and unyielding, to bless the soul that dares to rise.