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 dayblind stars waiting with their
light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world,
and am free.
–Wendell
Berry
