Lessons from Nature

I missed my post last Saturday; it was a rough day. I'm working on this Saturday's post; it's going to be a good day.

On good days and bad, I like to get outside. Where else could I find scenes like this?

Nature never did betray the heart that loved her. — William Wordsworth

Maybe that's why I love the Romantic poets so much?

Indeed, whether searching for peace, insight, or inspiration, the Romantic poets—who in their day were reacting to the Industrial Revolution—urge us to look not to technology for answers, but to nature.

Come forth into the light of things; let nature be your teacher . . . One impulse from a vernal wood may teach you more of man, of moral evil and of good than all the sages can. — William Wordsworth

Nature reminds us, too, that we all live under the same sky. We're in this together, and no one lives a charmed life.

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

And since we're all fighting our own internal battles, no matter the situation or who we're addressing, we might as well be kind.

"Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

— William Butler Yeats

"The poetry of the earth is never dead." — John Keats

After all,

The little unremembered acts of kindness and love are the best parts of a person's life. — William Wordsworth