Three years ago this very day, on another laptop computer in another phase of life, I uploaded the first tentative pages of this website. I’ve been asked many times since then how it all came about - and why I chose the name ‘Mute Planet’ as a masthead. Anniversaries or birthdays (call them what you will) tend to invite reflection - and today seemed as good a time as any to address those two questions, and tell a kind of origin story.

Mute Planet was founded, with the help and inspiration of a close fellow traveller, back in April of 2010. In the beginning, it was conceived as a kind of online portfolio - a résumé of sorts - to showcase a few of my photographs and articles for prospective future editors. I was just starting into my travel writing then (though not my travelling, by any measure). And as for the Masthead, this arose from my wish to portray a world view through the two “silent” media in which I felt must comfortable: still photographs and text. “Silent media,” in other words. Mute Planet is not a site for podcasts or brash proselytizing or chaotic MTV-style travel videography. I saw it then and see it still more as a quiet corner where I can share my sense of wonder at the world’s marvels, or as poet William Blake described in his Auguries of Innocence - “to see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower.”

I put it this way on MP’s Facebook page:  “Mute Planet is a website dedicated to travel, science, writing and photography. Through silent media, it explores and celebrates the wonder of this amazing world we share.”

Through the encouragement of my muse and an enthusiastic reception from readers, Mute Planet quickly gained a life of its own. Within months it bloomed into a regular online magazine of sorts, with thousands of readers and an active Facebook following (some 35,000 members at present) and visitors from more than 148 countries around the world.

Over time, Mute Planet’s mandate has gradually shifted from travel stories and photographs alone, to include science and literature (other twin passions), along with regular snippets of wisdom and stirring news stories. I’d like to think that each of these elements still contains the same personal touch and vision with which the whole project began - and that overall it remains imbued with that same sense of wonder. Three years on, the site continues to reach new readers from nearly every country on earth, still under the guidance of its founder - though sadly without the one who served so long as his muse and inspiration.

May the journey continue...

MM / April 25, 2013