CHRISTMAS EVE WHEN JOHN MUIR DIED, LUNGS FLOODED AS HIS BELOVED HETCH HETCHY VALLEY, YOSEMITE'S TWIN, IN THE NATIONAL PARK, DROWNED BY AN ACT OF CONGRESS TO SUPPORT WATER AND POWER FOR SAN FRANCISCO

We slow down to remember not only Muir's anguish for the Hetch Hetchy Valley which he tried to save, as much as he wrote about it, but the love of light, love of earth that animated him and made him leap with joy, shouting "The Glory!", and Muir's life as a poet giving us an immortal joy for the experience of living on earth. That's what we celebrate on Christmas Eve--for more on his Christmas carols, you can go to barbaramossberg.com, and hear (hear! hear!) about Muir's stratetic use of Christmas carols to save the earth.

You're slowing down with The PoetrySlowDown, founded and hosted by ProfessorBarbara Mossberg (Dr. B), and Producer Zappa Johns, Live, from the desert where Muir spent his last conscious moments, on the purple prose trail of how and why words--used poetically--can matter urgently and gloriously, in law and life. The news we need, the news we heed, the news "without which men die miserably every day" (Dr. William Carlos Williams).