Finding Peace in Nature

Peace of the 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

or 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 “The Peace of Wild Things”

I love this poem, and have used it often as motivation for writing. It reminds me ever that when the world of human politics and aggression is raging, when drought and storms are blowing across the land, when nothing in our world brings comfort, the loons are still paddling about on Lake Martin; the hawks are circling on high, riding the wind for the shear joy of it. In South Alabama, bald eagles are nesting in the tops of the long-leaf pines, and feeding their giant babies, just as always. There was a video clip on the news this week about the hundreds of dolphin feeding together along the California coast. It must have been thrilling to see them. The people interviewed felt they had experienced a holy moment—a once in a lifetime event.

Yesterday, I sat for a long time and watched a flock of robins getting high on fermented holly berries. They whipped in and out of the trees at great speed, shouting to one another with exuberance. Clearly, they were feeling no pain. And this time of year thousands of starlings gather to fly their choreographed dance, moving in concert from tree to tree, ground to sky. Though they are close enough to form a veil, I've never seen one of them run into another. They and the robins cover the entire yard and peck about like kindred spirits. When one lifts off, the whole flock follows, as though they share a single mind, a single heart.

The wild things don't care if Congress is incompetent. They don't worry about nuclear weapons being produced in North Korea and Iran; they simply live in concert with nature—their own nature, and the earth's. They fly when it's time to fly, and eat when it's time to eat, and go about their business in peace. Once, we were more like them. Perhaps some day, we will be again.

                                                  In the spirit,

                                                     Jane