Yesterday I kayaked on a pristine pond in New Hampshire and picked blueberries growing on the shore. It was an overcast day, so mist was rising from the pond, eerily beautiful. I paddled past a family of loons – a mother and father diving for food and popping up unexpectedly, showing their stunning markings of black and white. They had a little one alongside, practicing diving as he watched his parents. Their collective cries echoed the beauty of the rising mist, as their voices rose in haunting moans. I was reminded of Mary Oliver’s poems, which honor the power of nature’s pure simplicity and beauty, and I felt grateful to be one with the water, the blueberries, and the birds on that afternoon.
