I came across a poem recently by Wendel Berry called “The Peace of Wild Things”. It goes …..
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.
I have been blessed over the years to visit the places where the great heron feeds and remember, as the Poet did, the sense of calm one gets when touched by nature.
I also connect deeply with his sense of how the forethought of grief taxes our lives.
For it is human, even at the best of times, to worry about future things, especially about loss, and death. It is part of our “existential anxiety”. And in this time of pandemic – well, our fears and anxieties can be amplified.
I guess if I were a scientist or a researcher or a biologist or a physician, I would be working hard, (perhaps driven by this anxiety) to seek a cure. But I am none of these.
I, like you, and like our poet, am just a person who life sometimes get taxed with forethought of grief.
And, being human, I am caught betwixt the urge to do something and the need to reduce my anxieties.
And so, I pray. I channel my thoughts and energies to those I know who are struggling with their isolation, or have caught the virus. To those I know who are in hospital or in long term care facilities. It helps me feel that I am doing something.
And if I can, I get out and get close to nature to find a place that helps me get a sense of calm. But more often, it seems I can only travel to those places in my thoughts. So I take mental journeys to still, quiet spaces that are etched in my mind. Memories that bring back to me the sense of calm that I felt when creating the memory.
There is wisdom wrapped in Berry’s words. When we are journeying on uncharted and rough seas, it is important for us to seek still waters.