The Peace of Wild Things

Nature is healing.

POD and I had a long talk one night about how we are trying to balance our career, planning for the future but still missing the long journeys that have shaped our lives.

Yesterday (Sunday), someone could hear the frustration in my voice.  I had to be in town to be avail for any issues that may arise at work.

someone told me to take a walk at Walden Ponds here in Boulder.

A place where I could walk, think and recenter myself.

Then the tragedy in Boston happened. Perhaps growing up so close to this city, this tragedy seemed to hit me more.

I thought of the place where I went yesterday.

A place of solace. A place that seemed to fit the word’s of Wendell Berry.

How, even in tragedy, nature can bring healing.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry