Gift from the Sea
I am doing much better these days...I am finally getting back into the world, thanks to the miracles of modern medicine and some hard work on my own part.
I read recently Anne Morrow Lindbergh's short book, "A Gift from the Sea." I read it originally because I thought it would be somewhat autobiographical. Instead, it was something much better...a reflection on how to achieve happiness and personal fulfillment in the world as a woman. It's just as applicable today as it was fifty years ago. She recommends learning to be alone with oneself and communing with nature; simplifying your life to the best of your ability; and to learning to ride with what you can't control. I think about it now every time I walk in Pennypack. I try and observe the simple beauty of nature and the animals and birds in the forest, and it does help me feel better, as silly as that sounds.
So I saw this poem posted today in the Poetry community, and I had to save it:
The Peace of the 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 am free.
Originally posted on DreamWidth.
I read recently Anne Morrow Lindbergh's short book, "A Gift from the Sea." I read it originally because I thought it would be somewhat autobiographical. Instead, it was something much better...a reflection on how to achieve happiness and personal fulfillment in the world as a woman. It's just as applicable today as it was fifty years ago. She recommends learning to be alone with oneself and communing with nature; simplifying your life to the best of your ability; and to learning to ride with what you can't control. I think about it now every time I walk in Pennypack. I try and observe the simple beauty of nature and the animals and birds in the forest, and it does help me feel better, as silly as that sounds.
So I saw this poem posted today in the Poetry community, and I had to save it:
The Peace of the 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 am free.
Originally posted on DreamWidth.