הרהורי החשבונות–Meditation 2, “The Peace of Wild Things,” Wendell Berry

Great Blue Heron, Morro Bay

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, Openings
(h/t UUCSS)

Image: great-blue-herogn-morro-bay-rookery_13 by mikebaird

הרהורי החשבונות–Meditation 1, “All the world”

In its entirety, all the world
is a too-narrow bridge
and the key
is to not be afraid
at all.

(Attributed to Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav)

Hebrew text taken from Kol Haneshama–Prayerbook for the Days of Awe (Elkins Park, PA: The Reconstructionist Press, 1999), p. 48.  Lineation and translation by M. Salomon.  Image: perilous crossing by Tangent~Artifact, here sometimes