
A magnificent African elephant about to start a sand bath int he river bed

Collection of pretty gourds in Missouri Botanical Garden, St Louis
So many people are shocked, angry, stunned, grieving at the outcome of the November USA election. “Whatever will be, will be” after this and events will run their course. But, living with anger and grief is not a good thing for anyone, so I thought this might help for a while.
Mother Nature is a wonderful thing, and usually getting out into Nature (in any form) can be very soothing. (Let’s just hope the new administration doesn’t reverse some/any of the good that’s been done to help our environment—might be a rather forlorn hope, I’m afraid).
I found this poem by Wendell Berry, and it does offer some solace.

A misty fall day in a park in northern Hokkaido, Japan
I’m also going to try and find a photo of ours of something beautiful and wonderful in Nature for the next few days, to try and help soothe some souls.
Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry, a farmer, poet, essayist from Kentucky
“When despair 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 for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
From The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry