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
