When It's Time to Reset

I was caught up in doing. Getting this done, getting that done.

Lists. Checkmarks. Still so much to do.

I needed a reset.

Why do I forget how much I need to be out in the natural world?

It is how my soul breathes, it's where I become myself.

But I get caught up sometimes. So much to DO!

And then this morning, I said, no. No doing chores or purging

(oh, the endless purging of stuff!), no picking up or organizing.

But, on the positive side, last night's purging had led to a find.

As I placed old jewelry in various boxes to go various places,

I found a necklace I had forgotten.

And it helped me remember: Be the Tree. My first blog post, reminding me who I am.

I already had planned to head outdoors right after my waffles.

Then this poem arrived in my inbox.

 Everything slowed. The internal weight I had been carrying dissipated.

And his words also resonated with the grief I feel for so many in our country, so many in the world, the grief I have been too exhausted to bear.

I put on my boots, strapped on binoculars.

I needed to be amongst the peace of wild things.

Thank you, Wendell Berry.

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

#stoprushing #findingmypath #bethetree