How Small A Thing Can Be Pleasing

It feels so marvelous to get out into the woods. We love the familiar sight of Mt. Rainier rising above Seattle in all her surreal glory, but we haven't actually spent much time there - crazy, I know, since the National Park is only two hours away. We had a very good excuse this last weekend to go exploring as we were invited to a dear friend's birthday gathering. I was happily reminded that the best kind of therapy is tramping around in mountains. Watching yellow leaves falling in the sunshine trickling through the forest and remembering "how small a think can be pleasing..." as Wendell Berry muses below.

VII Again I resume the long lesson: how small a thing can be pleasing, how little in this hard world it takes to satisfy the mind and bring it to its rest. Within the ongoing havoc the woods this morning is almost unnaturally still. Through stalled air, unshadowed light, a few leaves fall of their own weight.                                        The sky is gray. It begins in mist almost at the ground and rises forever. The trees rise in silence almost natural, but not quite, almost eternal, but not quite.                       What more did I think I wanted? Here is what has always been. Here is what will always be. Even in me, the Maker of all this returns in rest, even to the slightest of His works, a yellow leaf slowly falling, and is pleased. ~ Wendell Berry, from This Day