The World Lying in Wait

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   Another world is not only possible,

    she is on her way.

    On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.*

                                                                        ~ Arundhati Roy

 
Sometimes, when I hike through the woods alone, I have the sense of being held, embraced by the grasses and trees, as if the arms of the earth are the boughs themselves and her golden heart is the wind whispering that all things are possible. 

When I quiet my fretfulness, I can feel the breath of that other world, the world lying in wait, the world rooted in timeless wisdom about which writer Arundhati Roy speaks.

I wish for all of us in the coming year a quiet moment each day in which to listen for the hope Nature offers, this eternal and optimistic whispering. I wish for all of us a quiet place in which to lie, heart to the ground, so that we might feel our own smallness embraced by our greatest ancestor primeval, so that we might trust the beauty of this world.

`     `     `

*Thank you, Deborah O'Connor, for sharing Arundhati Roy's verse in your December newsletter. Thank you, John Gritts, for your inspirational photo.

An advisor for the Rocky Mountain Land Library and member of the International League of Conservation Writers, Page Lambert has been writing about the western landscape and leading nature retreats in the West for twenty years. Founding member of Women Writing the West, member of Wyoming Writers and Colorado Authors’ League, Lambert’s writing can be found inside monumental sculptures at the Denver Art Museum, online at Huffington Post, and inside the pages of dozens of anthologies. Page designs and teaches graduate writing courses for the University of Denver’s University College. Recent published works include “Not for Sale” (Langscape Magazine and “The Rural West,” included in Fulcrum’s new book, The Light Shines from the West. Forthcoming are 3 poems in DoveTails: Writing for Peace. Page writes All Things Literary/All Things Natural from her mountain home west of Denver.

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