Tears and Cheers from 1968
I was a sophomore in college. It was 1968. I was discovering a new best friend, marijuana, and marijuana was discovering me. Although I was a nice Jewish girl in college, with zero-relationship experience with men or women, long before the word lesbian entered my stratosphere, I fully identified with the Peace Movement.
End the Viet Nam war. Bring our soldiers home.
Hey, hey LBJ, how many babies did you burn today?
I was a child, a young twenty years old, living in our sorority house, truly in love with one sorority sister at a time. In silence. Serial and silent monogamous fantasy was my romantic life.
In that moment, 1968, Wendel Berry wrote this poem:
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 for their light.
For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and I am free.
~~~
How’s your “despair for the world” quotient doing these days?
I find myself in a post-No-Kings-slump.
The enthusiasm, the connectivity, the fabulous signs and positive energy buoyed me, quieted my pounding heart. And it ended and now, it is now.
I find myself easily slip-sliding into potential worry about the limited press coverage of the largest non-violent demonstration in our county….
Or perhaps worrying about the du jour violation of law and morality being perpetrated by our government.
Yes, despair.
Despair = complete loss of absence of hope.
“Despair for the world grows in me,” wrote Wendel Berry in 1968. It was a time of intense social and political upheaval, during the Vietnam War, smack in middle of the Cold War. Berry names our need to find solace and perspective.
Does anybody who is reading these words need solace? Perspective?
I love, love this poem, because Berry reminds us of—well, the peace of wild things.
The birds are back to the wetland, my neighborhood. Such celebration.
The pussy willows are coming out. We had a bush in our yard when I was a kid. I remember shyly and secretively rubbing my face against their comforting, almost unbearable softness.
Niki the Dog fits within the definition of wild things for me. Even though she is currently on my/our bed, licking her feet, taking a respite from the busyness of her morning (playing, eating, walking, pooping, sleeping), she is a true wild thing. A domesticated animal that sleeps in my arms, a wild thing that runs like the wind with her friends Spenser and Clementine through the Berkshire Hills.
The peace of wild things. I practice, most imperfectly, most briefly. Nature is the place for me to rest within. I dip in, I dip out.
I need to rest there more.
I know from what Berry writes.
Where do you find solace?
What quiets you?
What settles you?
What renews you?
DO IT.
GO THERE.
LET THAT BE YOUR PRACTICE.
It already is.
~~~
Music! OH, this song is another gift from 1968. It gave me more good tears this week. The video is created by Playing for Change, the profound non-profit that travels the globe, weaving musicians from different countries into one song. As I listened to this oldie but goodie, written by Robbie Robinson and released in 1968, my heart opened. How interesting, it was the same year that Wendel Berry wrote the above poem.
Please watch this—I was so struck with HOW MUCH BETTER THE SONG IS BECAUSE OF THE MUSICIANS’ DIVERSITY! Is there a universal truth there somewhere?
Tears and Cheers from 1968.
~~~
Dear Friends,
One step,
One thing,
One bite,
One moment,
One breath
At a time.
That is all that life asks of us.
Right here.
Right now.
This is where
It’s happening.
May all beings benefit from our time together.
Blessings, all—
Aruni
~~~
Spring-Summer-Study Options
Dear friends, I wanted to share with you the programs I will be offering at Kripalu Center during our spring/summer. I look forward to telling you more about each program, their history, my personal relationship with each, and why I wholeheartedly invite your participation.
Grief, Loss and Renewal—Savoring Life’s Lessons
May 15-17
Inner Quest Intensive
June 25-28
The Yoga of Recovery
August 7-9
Follow these links—check it out. More next week about my personal as well as professional relationship with the program, Grief, Loss and Renewal—Savoring Life’s Lessons.