Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “A man is related to all nature.”  Whether you look out over a beautiful scene or zoom in to enjoy the industriousness of a soldier ant, it is hard not to appreciate and relate in some way to the beauty and wonder of the natural world.   

I came across a wonderful poem in my evening reading that I trust will soothe and calm you after a long and fast-paced week.  The poem, written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning in a rhyme scheme typical of and Italian sonnet, is called “Patience Taught by Nature.”   

‘O dreary life,’ we cry, ‘O dreary life! ‘
And still the generations of the birds
Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds
Serenely live while we are keeping strife
With Heaven’s true purpose in us, as a knife
Against which we may struggle!  Ocean girds
Unslackened the dry land, savannah-swards
Unweary sweep, hills watch unworn, and rife
Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees
To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass
In their old glory: O thou God of old,
Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these!–
But so much patience as a blade of grass
Grows by, contented through the heat and cold. 
    

Look for inspiration in the natural world around you. Tune in to the lovely song of the birds around you.  Admire the geometry of the spider’s web or the spiralling canopy of a tree.  Let your heart and mind dance with the undulating evergreen caressed by the wind.  Take the time.  It’s worth it.   

There are so many lessons that can be learned through simple observation.  Patience is but one, yet how vital that it be known and practiced in all things.  

Have a lovely evening.