The Peace of Wild Things

I found this poem on my aunt's fridge this weekend and loved it.

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

~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 I am free.

Reading this helped me realize that I am most peaceful within myself when I am out in nature.  Ever since Jonny has left and moved to Colorado, I've been having a hard time appreciating the beauty and nature that is surrounding me here in Minnesota, because alls I wanted to do was to be in the mountains with him.  Yet, I know that I am surrounded by amazing beauty here and so I have been trying to appreciate that more as a way to let go of the attachment to Colorado.  

I made a goal for myself on Saturday night, that for the next month, for every day that I am in Duluth that I am going to go down to the lake.  I decided this because I needed to find a way to let go of Colorado, to be present here and to appreciate what is surrounding me instead of living in this sad fantasy world within my head.  So as I was pondering about Colorado and what really attracted me to want to be there, I realized that the main reason was the mountains and how majestic they are and how much power and beauty they hold, and how being in the mountains makes me feel so small, yet so grounded at the same time.  And then I realized that while I don't have mountains here, I do have the greatest lake in the world in my backyard.  Lake Superior has an immense power to her that for me is so healing and grounding.  And just like the mountains, she makes me feel so small, yet so centered in my being.  And so I decided that I need to take advantage of the fact that this power is right here, because I haven't been doing that, I had been home for a month and a half and hadn't gone to see the lake until Saturday.  So on Saturday night I went, it was 10:30 p.m. and I just stood on a rock on the shore and let the energy soak in, and it helped, because for the first time in a long time I felt grounded and felt that sense of peace coming to me from within this wild thing.  

So that is my goal - go down to the lake for a little bit everyday and let her heal me and let my grief and my tears dissolve into her waves....I'm still so sad at this point that I'm not sure what else to do, so while this is still no Colorado mountains, I need to start somewhere....and this is it. 

Swimming on Sunday and feeling oh so tiny and alive.