JDHealingTimeOnEarth: 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.”