The Shock of Spring

The Shock of Spring

Photo Marje Einre, 2016

I wanted to write about the joy of spring here in Los Angeles – how the scent of orange blooms from neighbors’ garden is sneaking into my bedroom and the amazement of vines around next door turning into soft purple flower rain of Wisteria and much more. But suddenly, there is news about another senseless killing spree in the middle of peaceful daily life.

I notice my shock and wonder how I have become used to hear about the bombings in Middle East, yet it seems so scary in Europe. I ask myself – how can one become used to any killings?

And, at the same time, media is feeding our fears, bringing more negative energies, hatred and anger into the world.

Now my main question is how can we maintain the balance in the middle of chaos?

How to keep the healthy caution without being swept away by fear?

Maybe the nature herself teaches us to follow the life force – life itself wants us to succeed!

Wendell Berry says in The Peace of Wild Things

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.