When the World is Too Much

Wickaninnish in Blue

When the world is too much, I go to the sea,

watch those eternal waves rolling in and out.

I walk a forest trail, old growth trees

with their mossy trunks breathing peace at me,

making the bad news fade away.

How to not give up, when humans are bombing

other humans; when the climate crisis, ignored,

is flooding and burning the planet; when both

human and beyond-human beings are struggling 

so hard to survive?

Spring blossoms aren't enough to soothe me

any more. But baby animals give me hope.

Life lives itself forward, as it is meant to do.
Mother Earth never gives up,
so how can I?

The world is in terrible distress, and yet
a small orphaned orca swam free last week
in search of her pod and, hopefully, will survive.

And I heard that a grey whale, giving birth,
as sharks began to circle, was surrounded by
hundreds of dolphins, who stirred up the waters,
encirling her with their protection
until mother and calf were safe.
There is a larger landscape
than the one we see.*

There is so much that is mystical, beautiful,
life-affirming, and inspiring in this world,
a bigger picture than we can comprehend.
We are more connected than we know.

We don't know where we're going, yet our feet

obediently follow each other along, as if

programmed. What lies ahead?

When the world is too much, I go to the sea,

watch those eternal waves rolling in and out.
I think about the whales, their fate as tenuous as ours,
dependent on humankind's
engagement and cooperation
with the natural world.

I think about how life never gives up,
how everything in this world
just wants to live.

* I no longer remember the source of this quote, but it is one of my favourites.