There’s no doubt we are going through some pretty wild times right now, both here at home in the United States and globally. Sometimes it seems everything is falling apart. This past week made me so anxious that my lower back stiffened up. I can’t wait for yoga tonight. Six o’clock can’t come soon enough. The anxiety is building up day by day.

I bet I’m one of millions who feel the same way. This observation is based on the thousands who meditate with me (check out the app Insight Timer) each morning and night. I started taking Passiflora, a natural supplement for anxiety, and pounding the treadmill downstairs AND I’ve become a cleaning fanatic. I’m sure the latter has to do with control issues as well as working out the anxiety jitters.

This morning, as I washed the dishes after cleaning the bathroom sinks and considering washing the bathroom floor, I looked out of the window. There lay serenity in the form of a beautiful snow covered wooded area with fields beyond. A healthy looking red fox ran by while a squirrel gazed at me from the bird bath. I wondered how the deer family was and thought about throwing out those bread heels I’d saved for the birds. The tree tops swayed and the sun shone through the clouds. I breathed a sigh of relief and remembered a poem that was used for a friend’s funeral.

“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.