Healing

I was disappointed to miss John O'Donohue at Greenbelt this year. Here is a passage from 'Divine Beauty':

When the mind is festering with trouble or the heart torn, we can find healing among the silence of mountains or fields, or listen to the simple, steadying rhythm of waves. The slowness and stillness gradually takes us over. Our breathing deepens and our hearts calm and our hungers relent. When serenity is restored, new perspectives open to us and difficulty can seem like the invitation to new growth. This is also the exprerience of prayer. ... Rather than taking us out of ourselves, nature coaxes us deeper inwards, teaches us to rest in the serenity of our elemental nature. When we go among nature, clay is returning to clay. We are returning to participate in the stillness of the earth which first dreamed us.