The Peace of Wild Things – a poem by Wendell Berry

The Peace of Wild Things

By 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.

Wendell Berry, “The Peace of Wild Things” from The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry. Copyright © 1998. Published and reprinted by arrangement with Counterpoint Press.

Source: Collected Poems 1957-1982 (Counterpoint Press, 1985)

I followed the wise words of Wendell Berry and went to Pauatahanui today.

By the Inlet I found a Heron feeding….

And not a wood drake but a solitary Black Swan.

The Wild Things were calm and untaxed.

The water still and beautiful.

It was easy to breathe and calm and feel restored.

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Salt of the earth

The phrase “salt of the earth” is often used to describe a person who is of great worth and reliability.

But a year or so ago I was told about Himalayan Pink Salt which is very nutritious and reputedly very good for stabilizing blood pressure. Low blood pressure can be an issue here in the family so I went on the hunt to find the mysterious salt that is dug out of the foothills of the Himalayas in Pakistan.

I eventually located a bag from a health food shop in a suburb 20 minutes away. The price was nominal and the packaging told me that “Himalayan Crystal Salt was originally noticed by Alexander the Great, when his horses and men, weary and dying after many battles and journeys, instinctively began ingesting the salt. Almost immediately they revived and famously, Alexander bartered much of his gold for salt.”

I now buy the salt from our local Pauatahanui Rural Trading Post. The owner there told me that local horse owners swear by this salt and the horses love their salt licks made from this natural earth salt.

The second package tells me that it is a “natural source of over 84 minerals and trace elements including iodine and selenium.” Apparently it has a “unique crystalline structure that makes it easy for the body to absorb.”

Fortunately we were not in a depleted state when we began to use this salt for cooking and sprinkling on our food so any improvements in our health have been more difficult to observe but New Zealand soils are very low in selenium and with iodine present in a kind form for our bodies to absorb it seems a good thing to keep using.

Saturday Tip: Horses…..or Zebras??

Here is a phrase that I’ve found very useful in times of confusion, worry, and possibility. It is used a lot in the medical profession and it goes something along the lines of: “If you hear the sound of approaching hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras”.

I’m not a medical professional but the phrase serves to remind me to proceed with caution, to consider the simple rather than the complex, to allow time and observation before leaping to dramatic conclusions.