The Peace of Wild Things

I know it's been awhile, I'll get better.

I just wanted to share one of my favorite poems, by Wendell Berry. If you've never read anything by him I would highly suggest it! He's written several fictional books, poems and essays. Berry is a passionate writer about such things as conservation, rural economics, complacency in religion, reverence towards nature and warns about the industrialization of life, greed, ignorance, and violence towards others and against all things natural. I find his work to be so sincere and genuine because he only writes about what he truly believes and he lives his life based on those beliefs. A quality I hope people can say I posses.

Well, I have long believed in the power of nature to heal and calm and have always found comfort in nature. Having worked in wilderness therapy, my beliefs were confirmed when I saw first hand the transformation and healing of troubled human spirits once they were removed from the chaos of their lives and sent into the woods. When you look around at His creation I don't know how anyone could question the existence of God! It's the most humbling experience to strip away the man made luxuries and distractions and place yourself in the middle of pristine wilderness and realize how truly small you are, but how glorious that you get to be at the mercy of something so grand!

So here is Wendell Berry's poem The Peace of Wild Things. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair grows in me

And I wake in the middle of 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 for their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world,

and am free.

Below are some of my pictures of places that I have been and experienced that have changed my life and perspective for the good.

Montana

Alaska

Minnesota

Canada

Maine

Blue Ridge

Alaska