John Muir – The Last Oasis is a short film directed by Michael Coleman a Martinez, California native inspired by the writings of naturalist, author and early advocate of wilderness preservation John Muir.

Many of the locations featured in the film are authentic to Muir’s life including his home in Martinez, California, northeast of Oakland and Muir Woods National Monument just north of San Francisco, California. Muir’s original writings and books were captured from the archives at University of Pacific Library in Stockton, CA which features the world’s largest collection of Muir documents.

John Muir played many roles in his life, all of which helped him succeed in his role as an advocate for nature. Muir fought to protect the wild places he loved, places we can still visit today. Muir’s writings convinced the u.s. government to protect Yosemite, Sequoia, Grand Canyon and Mt. Rainier as national parks.

Muir urged people to experience nature so they would be inspired to defend it and save it. Support and defend our wild lands and wildlife for future generations: visit your national parks and support environmental organizations.

JOHN MUIR – THE LAST OASIS
It took more than three thousand years to make some of the trees in these Western woods — trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra. Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries … God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but he cannot save them from fools — only Uncle Sam can do that.

Beside the grand history of the glaciers, the mountain streams sing the history of every avalanche or earthquake and of snow, all easily recognized by the human ear, and every word evoked by the falling leaf and drinking deer, beside a thousand other facts so small and spoken by the stream in so low a voice the human ear cannot hear them.

When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.

No synonym for God is so perfect as Beauty. Whether as seen carving the lines of the mountains with glaciers, or gathering matter into stars, or planning the movements of water, or gardening – still all is Beauty!
Everybody needs beauty…places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul alike.
As long as I live, I’ll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I’ll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I’ll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can.

Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean. None of Nature’s landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild.

Come to the woods, for here is rest.

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