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.
Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things
* * *
I read the news. I study the polls. I remember.
My stomach’s in knots.
I opened an old book and betook myself to Walden, far from the madding crowd, far from death counts, burning forests, and the dismal swamp. I sat in the doorway with an old friend and gazed upon the mist hovering above the pond.
He had no radio, no television, no newspaper.
The sun rose.
A woodchuck waddled by.
A loon wailed.
I spoke of my worries, anxieties, and rage.
He pointed to his garden. He pointed to the birds. He pointed to the trees. These were his neighbors, his companions. He knew each by name.
We walked around the pond and into the woods. Leaves and twigs crunched beneath our feet. Squirrels scampered. Butterflies fluttered. Flies and other insects darted hither and yon. A breeze brushed by.
Time stopped. The past, the future, the present were one. We walked through four seasons and back to his doorway.
We sat in silence.
Can a man by taking thought add one inch to his stature? he asked out of the blue.
No, I replied.
Do the birds of the air or the flowers of the field worry themselves about tomorrow?
No, I replied.
Who sees the sparrow fall?
He stood, walked inside, and shut the cabin door.
I returned home.
I knelt by our fish pond. I listened to the birds. I gazed at the woods. I watched leaves falling, the season turning.
The sun set. The moon rose. An owl hooted. I fell asleep.
The election ended. The president conceded.
Civility returned. Racism receded. Democracy revived.
The mountains rejoiced.
The hills skipped like lambs.
The trees of the forest sang.
The lion lay down with the lamb.
And a little child led them beside still waters.
_______________________
See Paula’s heron photograph on the home page.
Just reading this gave me a feeling of peace. Sitting, eating breakfast and reading my emaiI and The Devil’s Gift, I look out the tall sunroom windows at the trees each reaching for sunlight. Some insects are singing their morning song. The sun has yet to shine, but all is at peace.
I, too, have been pondering the simple joys of nature in the midst of uncertainty, confusion and lies. Pico Iyer speaks of “the urgency of slowing down”. And so I have been pondering the likes of the immensity of sea and sky at the horizon, a star at dawn, a calm lake, the chatter of birds and a bubble in the stream—among other things. Your words, so beautifully expressed, also enabled me to “slow down” and be aware of the wonders of life.
Beautiful and helpful!
I hope your dream comes true. Hope, hope, hope. But, now that the ills of our society have been brought front and center for these last almost four years, I fear we will all go back to our happy little cocoons and forget to remember the racism and mistrust and misogyny we’ve had thrown in our faces. I believe we are slowly awakening to see what could be if we keep up the good fight. Maybe racism won’t just recede; maybe we can make it go away by showing our courage and willingness to get into some “good trouble.”
A beautiful reminder on this “peacemaking Sunday” of the peaceful wonders of nature! Sadly that peacefulness is tarnished by statements such as “stand down, stand by” as orders for “White Supremacists.”!
In the absence of a real pond, and very little wildlife since we moved to Fernbank, just reading your post invokes a much needed sense of calm and reflection. Proper credits to Msrs. Thoreau and Berry, of course. And what a gorgeous photograph!
Nice invocation of my hero Henry David Thoreau. It is a curious fact that three of the top Transcendentalists, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Margaret Sarah Fuller, all reversed their first two names. Thoreau was born David Henry T. Emerson was born Waldo Ralph E. and Fuller was born Sarah Margaret Fuller. You can I should obviously have followed suit — except that my name would’ve then been Defrance Edward Zahniser. Jesse!
Very peaceful and wonderful dream. But I can’t see democracy returning if the Congress continues with most of the same people returning. What happens to Racism will take a lot of work. We can do our part but what about the oppressed? Peace. George