The Peace of Wild Things.

When despair for the world grows in me

And I awake in the night at the least sound

In fear of what my life and my children’s life 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

"Water that flows down the mountain does not think that it flows down the mountain.

The cloud that leaves the valley does not think that it leaves the valley.”

-Tran Thai Tong, Viet Namese Zen Master

There is little suffering when one awakens to the moment, living without forethought of grief. When I asked Dr Doty if this treatment would save my life he said, “I can't give you a blank check. Life is a gift.”

My oncologist is also my Zen master.