Monument Valley, watercolor, Susan Snyder

The Peace of Wild Things

By Wendell Berry

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.

 I turned 50, was awarded my master's degree and lost my mother - all within a three-day period in February. It was the best and worst weekend of my life.

Still, upon reading the above poem that a friend sent to me when I returned from my mother's memorial, I found solace by remembering to "rest in the grace of the world."  Being 50 and healthy is a gift.  Having the opportunity to reinvent oneself and get an education is another bonus.

And my mother dying? Well, that's still tough.  But she was almost 86, and as I tell students at our nature center, everything dies in time and recharges the energy that sustains all life on our planet.  Thinking in those terms, my mother's light is brighter than it ever was.  And she is free.

How many times do we walk out of our front doors, these days, take a deep breath and find grace in the privilege of just being in this world?  For many of us, the answer would be rarely.  We rise to the beeps and twitters of our electronic thingamawhatses, pull on some clothes, jam down some breakfast, grab the coffee cup and thrust ourselves out into the world for another day of "productivity."

It's the way of the urban human. But does it have to be that way?  I decided it doesn't. Three milestones in as many days call for a true celebration of all that I can have with this one life I am afforded.  So I took up my nature journal again in earnest and have decided that spending a little time outside every day embracing the "grace of the world" is more important than, well, just about anything other than eating or sleeping.

And I probably could do a little less eating.