This week brought the joy of being with family, and the satisfaction of some worthy work being done, and then some sharp sorrowful news from far away.

It can be a terribly helpless feeling, caring from a distance – but in the midst of the floaty useless anxiety, I got to be near this amazing falcon, who was trained but not tamed.

It helped a whole lot.

Dear ones, beyond us, the day-blind stars are always waiting with their light. We cannot un-do our sorrows, but we can steer them towards the worthy work of mending our graceful, wild world.

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.

     – The Peace of Wild Things, by Wendell Berry