09/01/2026
Today we honor Wendell Berry: poet, Kentucky farmer, environmentalist, peace activist, novelist, and skeptic of technology. He reminds us we belong to the Earth; our existence is connected to everything in the world. What do you notice in your mind and body when you are in the woods, near water, observing a bee on a flower, or walking on the grass?
The Peace of Wild Things, by 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.
