A favorite poem, ‘A Summer Day’, by Mary Oliver, speaks to spending time in nature, for no reason other than to connect, refresh, & restore.
It can also reflect on the direction life is currently taking – whether leading to peacefulness and joy or to stress and frustration. Truth is, life is bitter/sweet, so we don’t always get to choose. But many times we can – and then we can ask: What’s needed – a walk in nature, to sit on a bench, listen to music, connect with a friend?
Sometimes we can choose joy – and sometimes circumstances make that difficult. Maybe then we can take steps either to accept, or change those circumstances just a little bit.
‘A Summer Day’ is a great inspiration – to stop, pay attention, and look – for a little more light, a simple beauty, a deeper connection.
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver