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 or 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

The great blue was one of my dad’s favorite birds, along with the similar white egret. They always fill me with a sense of awe, of magic and stillness, even when they aren’t spectacularly framed by fog.

They are graceful, stately, BIG, and immensely soothing to the soul…

and observant.  Infuriatingly camera-shy.

I chased this one back and forth, back and forth, running the muddy trail and creeping down the briar-filled banks.

It was, if I am being quite honest, one of the most enjoyable hours I’d spent in quite some time.

Meditation wears many faces…

a church is where you find it.