"Waging Peace" #4
Featuring Wendell Berry and Voices of Peace
Welcome to “Waging Peace”
Remember, you’re the co-creator of this dive. Do as much or as little as you’d like, when you’d like, how you’d like, with the materials I provide. Just keep gentle faith with yourself.
Set your intention
Take a moment to name the primary intention you have for this month-long deep dive and/or this particular session. Take a quiet moment to center yourself in that intention.
Receive the music
Try to refrain from judging the music as “good” or “bad” or forming an “I like it” or “I don’t like it” opinion. For a few minutes, cultivate curiosity and openness. If resistance arises in you, be curious about that too.
Read the poem
I invite you to read this poem twice—aloud, at least once. You may also listen to Wendell Berry’s reading of the poem in the video below, perhaps with your eyes closed.
THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS 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. (from The Peace of Wild Things and Other Poems)
Contemplate/Create
Use any of these questions however you wish—e.g., as openings for meditation or prayer, as prompts for journaling or poetry-writing, as sparks for drawing or painting, as catalysts for change-making . . . You may also ignore my questions altogether to go off in other directions!
Reflect/write/create in response to this stem phrase: “When despair for the world grows in me, I go and _______.”
Choose one (or more) of the following excerpts and, from your vantage point, explore its significance for waging peace:
not “taxing your life with forethought of grief”
feeling above you “the day-blind stars / waiting with their light”
“resting in the grace of the world”
Want to visit with other Rafters in the Deep Dive?
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These materials are for educational purposes only. Not for sale or reproduction.
Join me and a SPECIAL MYSTERY GUEST
for a closing Zoom on February 1!
6:00-7:00PM Central (7:00 ET, 5:00 MT, 4:00 PT)
Let’s close “Waging Peace” with a time of voluntary sharing. (It’s fine just to listen!) Come and reflect with other Rafters on this Deep Dive.
Registration is required for this celebration.
(Note: Minimum of five people must have registered for the Refuge by midnight, January 31, in order for this Zoom to take place. Thanks!)
Questions? Never hesitate to contact me.
See you tomorrow.
I Change my View of the World
(after Wendell Berry)
When despair for the world grows in me, I find
my Clearing, a place of whispering grasses,
sweet smell of wild flowers, the soft move-
ments of the dappled-patterned fawn,
the slap of a beaver building her nest in the lake,
and look up into a sky blue as viewed from the moon
looking back at the small round marble of earth.
Even the business of the honey bee and wasp
gives a sweetness to the air where I will set up
my tent. I wait for the night’s stars and glistening
of the moon to find more goodness to bathe in.
When my spirit is renewed and I once more
return to my secular life, I will keep my tent
and maps of experience close in order to return
again and again.
jackie: 1//4/24
Voices of Peace is a lovely vibrational peace offering
to the universe. Thank you.
I have enjoyed Wendell Berry’s “The Peace of Wild Things”
for many years.
Then one day I watched a blue heron slap a fish repeatedly against
the concrete sea wall until it finally stretched its neck
and swallowed the fish whole.
I suppose the peace of nature depends on where
you are in the food chain.
I pondered further.
Peace of wild things…?
Surfers’ accidental meetings with sharks
Hungry growling gator encounters
Grizzly grizzly attacks
Hurricanes, wild fires, tsunamis…
Don’t get me wrong,
one can truly find the peace of wild things…!
Paddling past a pelican perched on its post
An adolescent porpoise playfully swimming and slapping the water
Bird songs at dawn
Sunshine, warm breezes, moonlight shimmering on a smooth lake…
Nature is peaceful but also fierce.
The word that jumps out to me in the poem, though, is fear.
Fear has its place in the world for survival sake,
but we must continually and intentionally
accept grace and choose love
rather than allow fear to birth despair.
It is a practice.
And for me…
“When despair for the world grows in me, I go and
empty myself in centering prayer.”
It is a practice.