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.

— Wendell Berry

On a busy day, when life seemed flooded with too many challenges, with one thing after another breaking down or going wrong. I took a deep, deep breathe and went and sat by my upstairs floor to ceiling window, and looked out into my back yard.

I saw a mother doe and her young deer eating the fallen apples in our back yard. I called to them from my heart and waited. Step by step, they began to walk across the field.


And then as I emphatically called to them to come closer, the miracle happened. The mother walked under my prayer arch with all of its bright colored prayer flag strings of fabric, and paused and looked right at me.... and straight into my heart.

It was such a blessing of pure joy of contact. Such a gift from one world to another and I felt, truly felt, the peace of all wild things coming from her and right into me.

So, now, I share that peace with all of you. And I ask that you take a moment,one moment.  I ask for that one thought, one moment, back from you, in return.

Please take a moment and hold a thought of peacefulness and blessings for my youngest brother's wife. Her name is Shelley.   Shelley has just been diagnosed with Stage 4 Squamous Cell Carcinoma...Small Cell Lung Cancer. The prognosis is not a good one, but as you all know I am a firm believer in miracles.

Miracles do not always come in the form that we think they should. They do not often answer our prayers in the same form that we may want them to be answered.  But a miracle is gift of the unexpected, a gift of a blessing at a time when we need them most. A time when we call forth all of our strength and goodness and power to face our lives with hope and the ability to still find joy in small things. To feel peace, to feel bits of joy, and to always...no matter what..feel hope. That during the times of greatest challenges and deepest sorrows or feelings of loss that there still may be gifts and blessings and peace from one to another, shared. This is the miracle that I ask for Shelley.

May she be blessed with the gift of life-extended for however long that gift might be hers to hold. May she understand that all of life is the passing of one moment to another and live each moment as fully as she possibly can. May she be surrounded by love and a sense of peacefulness and know, truly know, that her time on earth was noticed, appreciated, and will always be remembered with love and with joy.

That is the true miracle that each of us wants, and needs when it is our time to pause, stand at the center of prayer, and look into and shares anothers heart.

Shelley became a part of Praying for a Miracle as I pray for you, and all of yours.
She passed away after battling cancer for 10 months. But she did so, surrounded by family, in one of their homes near the hospital, and always believing a cure would be found.

Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska. Sewing, quilting, and wildcrafting, with small format art quilts, prayer flags, and comfort quilts for a variety of charitable programs. And best of all, sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join her and make and donate quilts to charitable causes.   Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!