Canada Geese, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge,Socorro New Mexico

The Generous Eye: “If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus

Early morning light, and two groups of Canada Geese on the Boardwalk Pond at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge south of Socorro New Mexico. (Actually, now that I look at the image more carefully, there appear to be a few Cackling Geese in that far flock as well.) The light, the Geese, both still and gently moving, and the reflections make this, to my eye, a very peaceful image. I have cropped it to accentuate that feeling. 

Peace is among the hardest human emotions to achieve. Joy is often thrust gladly upon us by events. We are overwhelmed with sadness. Pain is something we afflict and endure in about equal measures, but peace we have to work at, we have to strive for, we have to surrender to. Peace rests behind every heartbeat, but too often, just out of our reach.

Part of the reason we have such difficulty with peace, I think, is a misunderstanding about its nature. We think peace is stillness…the absence of motion…the absence of trouble. But just as in this image, peace is motion in balance, the harmonious relation of forces. Peace is the untouchable center which moves through the troubles of this world, and is not altered by them. Peace is not a rock in the stream…it is a twig floating at one with the current. 

This image, while it has a painterly look, is not lifted out of time. It is not a still-life. It is peaceful because of the dynamic it captures, the second when things are just so, that will, if we let it, flow into the next and the next, without disturbing our equilibrium, our balance, our sense of peace. Peace is in the light, is and inseparable part of the light, in our beings when our eyes are Generous Eye. May peace be with you and yours this Happy Sunday!