Restorative musings as we approach the winter solstice...

On a rainy and chilly December afternoon, thoughts turn inward as we move to nature's cycles.  I'm doing more time looking out into the winter garden than spending time out there, and that is to be expected.  Cozying up by the fire, mug of tea warming my hands, I am feeling the deep peace of a restorative yoga session just completed at The Yoga Center in Corvallis.  Each year around this time they hold these sessions and I was lucky enough to jump into an open spot for someone who couldn't attend at the last minute.  Once again, the experience was heightened by poetry readings from Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry and others.  This one came to us today.....

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair grows in me

and I wake in the middle of 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 for their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. 

Peace and our place in the nature of things is a key theme of my thoughts lately.  And, as I begin the process of creating the woodland garden, this feel right.  A quote from Ann Lovejoy's "A Year Along the Garden Path" sums it up...."We make gardens not just to embody our dreams but because our spirits are uplifted each time we touch the earth."

And, I would add, to find peace in the grace of the world.