We are perhaps the most divine of all creatures because we have evolved from them, causing us to contain all of THEIR divinities within us!

 

John Muir understood that if human beings are indeed "higher" than other forms of life, it is not because we are somehow superior to them. Rather, we are "higher" because we have evolved from so many different forms of life, and therefore contain them all within our very constitution. In fact, Muir posits that we are the most richly Divine of all creatures not because we exist above or beyond them, but because the divinity of every creature inhabits us, making us SUPREMELY divine as a result. It is for this reason that he could exclaim:

"The more extensively terrestrial a being becomes, the higher it ranks among its fellows, and the most terrestrial being is the one that contains all the others, that has, indeed, flowed through all the others and borne away parts of them, building them into itself. Such a being is man, who has flowed down through other forms of being and absorbed and assimilated portions of them into himself, thus becoming a microcosm most richly Divine because most richly terrestrial, just as a river becomes rich by flowing on and on through varied climes and rocks, through many mountains and vales, constantly appropriating portions to itself, rising higher in the scale of rivers as it grows rich in the absorption of the soils and smaller streams . . ."

Photo: Waterfall on the Hoh River Trail, Olympic National Park, WA; July 25, 2013

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