1994- John Denver - his Mardie Murie Tribute

John and Mardie

 

Note:  This article appeared in a Windstar Newsletter as John’s tribute to The Quickening Light as he related it to preserving nature and Mardie and Olas
Murie’s commitment to such, while honoring Mardie’s lifelong endeavor to continue Olas’ work as a treasured love story. It all came together for him in his composition of the tribute song, “A Song For All Lovers.”

"So, in this quickening light, with the dawn of each new day, let us look for love.

Let us believe in romance.

Let us treat one another in ways that most honestly reflect how we, in the deepest places within our souls, want to be treated ourselves.

Let us extend those actions to all with whom we come in contact.

Let us extend that to all of those from whom we feel most distant.

Let us no longer struggle.

Let us no longer be the night.

Let us ever become who we most want to be. As we begin to be who we truly are, the world will be a better place."

"While I yearn personally to experience this kind of love between and man and a woman, such a capacity for love offers important lessons of many kinds. It speaks of how we treat one another. The power of love has to do with respect and kindness, generosity and joy. It quickens our capacity to act with love beyond ourselves. It teaches us to believe in our dreams because they will come true, even as we remember never to take them for granted. Such a love grounds us in ways that enable us to take actions to benefit others. I admire the kind of spirit and conviction that begins with such love. It transforms promise into principle, curiosity into commitment. It works in ways that make the world a better place. Such love is all the more special to me in this case because the actions the Murie’s took were focused on protecting some of Earth's most precious wild places. Wild places nourish the heart, inspire the soul, and keep the songs of all life alive." 

1997 - John sings to Mardie at her home

In John’s 1995, Wildlife Concert performance, he prefaced the song, “A Song For All Lovers” as a tribute to Mardie, with these heartfelt words:

“I have a woman friend whose name is Mardie Murie, and she’s 93 years old.  I think she has done more for Alaska than any other single human being. It comes out of not only her love of the experience she had in that great land, and her love for that land, but for the love of the man who was her husband, whose name was Olas Murie.  When Olas passed away many, many years ago, the way that Mardie kept her love and her feeling for him alive in her heart, was committing herself to saving the land that they both loved so very, very much.  I know a lot of things I could tell you about Mardie, but the thing that I want to share with you is that she spoke of Olas always as her Beloved. They loved to dance, the Waltz, especially.  They danced whenever they could, whenever they felt like it regardless of the conditions.  I have this picture of them out on the frozen tundra of Alaska, in each other’s arms, dancing and no music except the sound of the wind rushing across that frozen wasteland.  Or some place in the forest, or some place beneath the full moon.  And so, I wrote this song for Mardie.”        

This archival video is from a Mardie Murie Tribute show, in three parts.

1-   1994 Interview with John Denver at her home.

2-   1998 Receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award.

3-   1997 John Denver singing his tribute song to Mardie at her home. “A Song For All Lovers.”

1992- June 5 - Earth Summit Opening Speech

 

Setting: Seated with the Dali Lama and two others.

 

Link to hear the speech (archival video):

https://youtu.be/vOSwkitM6O8

Transcript of John Denver’s speech:

“Thank you very much. Your Holiness, my sister, my friend. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great privilege and an honor for me to be here as part of this weekends’ activities. (microphone adjustments).. It is a great privilege and an honor to be here as part of this weekend’s activities.

I am one who has been a small voice for the environment for close to twenty-five years now. I believe that many of the problems we face in our world today are because we didn’t know any better. And now that we have learned the results of many of our activities, we’re here to find out if we have the courage to make the changes that are necessary to create a sustainable future for us all and a healthy environment.

I am one who believes that the world has heretofore always been an expression of you or me. And now here this weekend, at this global forum as we address a change of values, I believe that the most specific way we must address that change is to recognize that now it is you AND me. And that together we can come up with what is necessary to solve the problems that we face and to create a healthy environment and a sustainable future; that together as a world community, and we must begin to start thinking and acting like a world community, -- I believe that this is the greatest expression of that which has so far happened in history.

It will be my privilege this weekend to be a master of ceremonies, to help things move along efficiently and with light; to offer a few songs and to be of whatever service I can be to these wonderful, wonderful people who are gathered here and to be a part of taking the message of hope, of opportunity and of possibility for our future, that is created here, out into the world. I thank you very, very much for this great privilege.”

1994 - Heroes Within - Windstar Note

 

I have been thinking about heroes lately.  In some ways it began when I was invited by NASA to help celebrate the 25^th anniversary of the Apollo mission’s landing on the moon.

[ https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo11.html ]

 

I was asked to participate in a ceremony for the opening of the Apollo Wing at the Astronaut Hall of Fame at Cape Kennedy.

[  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Astronaut_Hall_of_Fame ]

Thirteen of the twenty-one Apollo astronauts were there.  I sang three songs, and in thinking about what to sing, it occurred to me that it was important to acknowledge where we have come from in the process of honoring what has been accomplished.  The astronauts came from the planet Earth.  They gave us, as a result of their mission, a view of the Earth we had never before seen.  Their unique perspective showed all of us how beautiful, whole and fragile the Earth is.  We cannot celebrate the accomplishments of the astronauts without acknowledging the home from which they had traveled.  Thinking of this, I chose to sing, “The Flower that Shattered the Stone.”

It also occurred to me that as we acknowledge the twenty-one astronauts of the Apollo program, it is important to recognize the over 400,000 technicians, engineers and scientists who made their accomplishments possible – and the secretaries, record-keepers, and maintenance people who all had roles.  Our government, our nation, each of us as citizens joined together as one – all of those who stood beside and behind were part of this effort, without which the moon would have not been reached.  We, in those moments in time, shared a commitment as people – a commitment to a vision of what might be, not just what is.  The next song I sang was “Eagles and Horses (I’m Flying Again).”

Every astronaut has flown for every one of us.  Then I wrote the song, “Flying for Me,” after the Challenger misfortune, it included, “She was flying for me,” in reference to Christa McAuliffe.  She was.  They all were.  They were flying for everyone.  So, this song seemed appropriate at a celebration of extraordinary accomplishment.  

Extraordinary accomplishment- that seems to be part of what we hold in our hearts and recognize when we say someone is a hero.  We recognize something special we admire, something we aspire to be ourselves.  The accomplishment has come at great effort and inspires us to be more than we thought we could be.

I like to think each of us has a hero inside.  We also have a demon within.  It is what we each do with the gifts we have that possibly can make us a hero.  It is the choices we make.  A moment of weakness, anger or jealousy may awaken the demon within.

When it comes to making choices, for all of us, it is the values we gather around us that determine whether our hero within will emerge.  It is the way we choose to live in every moment.  It is what we do, or can’t do.  These choices in the end will define our character, our humanity, and whether or not we will have made some contribution to the life around us.

Talent and success don’t make a hero.  Celebrity is different from heroism.  For me, being able to write music and sing all of the world does not make me a hero – much as I aspire to be one.  I constantly remind myself that at any moment, for each of us, there is the possibility of falling away from responsible choices.  I have enormous compassion for those who fall – as I have fallen so many times.  

I have compassion for all of us, and for the places throughout the world where it is now evident how profoundly humanity has left the path of responsible action.  There are instances everywhere of people being less than human.

How can we hope to rise above the worst we are capable of and allow the hero within to emerge?  Perhaps it is the recognition of our ability to make this choice that gives us the opportunity to rise above our weaknesses and transcend our demons.  It has something to do with character and conscious choice.  Perhaps character makes a hero.  Perhaps conscious choice is essential to the process.  Perhaps spirit is the source and grace is the way.  Let us celebrate those with the wisdom and courage to choose between the demons and the heroes within. 

 

1992- To Learn as an Island - Windstar Note

 

 

In 1621, John Donne began the 17th Meditation from his Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent... If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less.” Donne continued to make a case for the inter-relatedness of us all - the way we are all connected, life to life.

Biosphere II

I often think about our connections to one another and how our Earth home is connected to larger galaxies and the universe. I want to travel into space - to experience the connected-ness of all life from the awe-inspiring perspective of looking back at Earth. There is a group of people who remind me, in some ways, of space explorers. They are the crew of the Biosphere II project near Oracle, Arizona.

Last September, eight volunteers entered the Biosphere - a massive and carefully designed technical structure in the Arizona desert. At a cost of about $100 million, the Biosphere has been created to model and study ecosystems under controlled conditions. The volunteers - scientists and citizens with a variety of expertise - were selected to spend two years inside the confines of this simulated environment. When they entered, they took nearly 4,000 species of plants and animals with them and established a series of diverse habitats. These artificially constructed habitats are designed to be counterparts to similar natural habitats on earth. The crew also has a food-raising and gardening area. The Biosphere food growing activity is similar to Windstar’s Biodome, created by John Katzenberger with Buckminster Fuller.

John in the Windstar Biodome circa 1984.

After a difficult start with unusually cool and cloudy weather near Oracle, infestations of aphids and mites devastated parts of the Biosphere garden. The loss of sunlight affected the plants’ capacities to process carbon dioxide. Food crops were lost and the crew suffered weight loss. Fortunately, sunlight has since restored the garden’s vigor. Things seem to be back on track. This particular problem with food production created a situation in miniature that some believe the Earth is facing or will experience on a larger scale with projected increases of greenhouse gases.

The main aim of the Biosphere II project is to create a self-contained system than can sustain life. Some people have criticized the commercial aspects of the project. Others question the value of the scientific studies. For me, those dimensions in no way diminish the sincerity of the people who are inside that space. Their commitment is real and deserves support. The results of this project will have vast implications. We may benefit here on Earth from the experiences and observations the crew is documenting concerning its interactions in modeled ecosystems.

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Over the years, we at Windstar have made a conscious choice to applaud those people who work to make a difference by living lives that contribute to the creation of a sustainable future. Some of these people have been scientists, steeped in the rigor of their discipline. Others have addressed the planetary promise through music and dance and self-understanding. Now, more than ever, we should recognize that there is not one path toward creating a world that knows and cherishes itself and can be sustained in peace and health.

Let us return to Donne and paraphrase: “No human is an island, entire of itself: If any be washed away by the sea, the world is the less.”

There is so much work to do. We must proceed with expedience. On this journey, we are all connected. There are many ways to make a contribution.

Whatever we scientifically learn from the Biosphere II project, I think in the long run we will also benefit from a greater empathy for the humans who made it possible. In fact, if you visit the Biosphere and communicate with the crew at all, you do so through a telephone outside the plastic shield. I have been there and found the experience poignant and powerful. I learned firsthand of the challenges they are facing. I thank them for their courage and honor the connections they are making for us all.

-John Denver

Windstar Vision July-August 1992

Read about the current status of the Biosphere here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosp...