The Peace of Wild Things - Musings and Meditations
Dear friends,
Following Ervin László and Richard Heinberg, another great and wise soul has passed this month: Wendell Berry has died at the age of 92.
I had already reported on the passing of László and Heinberg in the blog post ‘Short Update’. With the passing of Wendell Berry, the planet has once more become a little poorer, I was almost tempted to write, but of course that is not how it works.
His work will continue to enrich and inspire us, and whether or not he is still walking this earth makes no difference to that. But many wonderful people and wise souls have indeed passed on this year and last year, and it does feel a bit like we’ve been left behind, as if we’ve lost yet another guide. But of course, new guides are always joining us, and at an ever-faster pace, I sometimes think. That’s why I remain such a die-hard (apocal)optimist.
There is much to say about Wendell Berry, who walked so many paths in life at once: that of a writer, poet, environmental activist and -last but not least- also a farmer in rural Kentucky, for life on the land was for him part of the very essence of his being and of what he saw as the ‘right way of life’. I’m not very familiar with the details and facts of his life, and I’d actually like to learn more about them, because he has long been a source of inspiration to me, as he has been to so many others who care deeply about life, about the planet, and about what we call ‘ecology’. I have never really studied his work, but whenever I came across a text or a quote of his, it was a source of light, energy and hope.
So I won’t say any more about him, but I mainly wanted to share a poem of his. It is probably his best-known poem, and it is one of my all-time favourite poems. In its simplicity, it remains a beautiful ode to nature, and how it can sustain and inspire us… and how the wild can remind us of who or what we really are, and how that insight can also help us in these extremely difficult times and the even more difficult times yet to come.
Whenever I read this poem, it moves me to the very core. I hope it does the same for you.
So, without further ado:
The Peace of 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
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.
Wendell Berry
Thank you for reading, and until the next episode,
All the best to you,
Filip
