Tag Archives: nature photography

Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

~Mary Oliver

~connecting to the healing and stabilizing powers of nature

~sunrise paddle

To be human means that we share universal experiences. We are born, take our first breath, require sustenance, seek the embrace of others and the shelter of dwellings, live in dependent relationships to the earth, sun, moon, and weather, and evolve day-by-day. Much else is variable in human experience. However, this moment in time has created a unique and unparalleled, global, shared reality.

Parallel to our individual lives, the natural world continues with its broader rhythms of day and night, moon and tides, fallow and harvest seasons, the expansiveness of skies and landscapes. There is a steadiness, a predictability in nature’s rhythms, as spring continues to melt frostlines and release sprouts and little blossoms in our northern hemisphere.

In this time of universal and individual anxieties, we can return to the embrace and solace of the natural world. We can lean into its rhythms and breathe deeply from the gift of fresh air. We can invite our worried minds to clear and open, observing thoughts, as if clouds in the sky-floating along-leaving no trace. We can remember our connection to something bigger and beyond and return renewed. This can happen by looking at a photograph, engaging in a visualization exercise, as well as taking a walk outdoors. Nature’s resources are ever-present and available. We are not alone.

~full moon in lavender sky