Nature's Peace Will Flow Into You

John Muir once said the following.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.

I wish that I could have invited John Muir to join me in a walk along the salt marshes of North Carolina. I have seen my share of mountains from those in Alaska to the Canadian Rockies, the Tetons, the Southern Alps of New Zealand, and the Alps of Austria and Switzerland.

We even lived on the side of a mountain high above Roanoke, Virginia. Our house was just over the top of the highest point on the road and people often remarked as they came to our house at night that coming over the hill reminded them of landing at an airport.

Even so no mountain has ever brought me the peace that I feel walking or paddling the edges of the salt marshes, sounds, and beaches of North Carolina. I do not disagree that the redwoods and the tall mountains of the world are wonderful cathedrals to nature. However, I think marshes are even more important to our lives. What they give back to those who treasure them is priceless.

The wonderful thing about the salt marshes and the waters that surround them is that they are alive with creatures that touch our existence in so many ways. You can hear and see the life around you. The tides bring new life each day. Sometimes it is a drum or a flounder that ends up on our table. More often it is a school of bait that feeds fish we never see.

It is easy to fall in love with the beautiful feathered friends that I find on my trips through the marshes. However, it goes far beyond that. The other day I saw a fox chasing something along a marsh pond. I have watched river otters play on the shores of the marsh. I have been lucky enough to have an osprey dive straight into the water just yards from my kayak. I have caught fish in the marsh. I have seen ospreys eat mullet in the trees along the marsh edges. I have watched in awe as fish and crabs fight over scraps dropped in the water.

The marsh is a world in itself. Birds and fishes live and die in the marsh. Nothing is wasted in the marsh. Whatever falls there is always recycled. An area of marsh which has been either undisturbed or repaired is a powerful source of life, food, and healing for the soul.

Walking through the marsh, I see swirls of bait fish, ducks and other birds feeding in the marsh, hawks and ospreys hunting for food, and sometimes from the edge of the marsh I can even see bottle nosed dolphins feeding on fish that were born in the marsh.

The marsh can be covered with ice, stirred up from a strong wind, or nearly sucked dry by a strong storm, but given time it will come back and recover. I have seen it flooded with over twenty inches of rain. Hurricanes have whipped it with high winds, but the marsh always seems to survive unless man attacks it and tries to drain it. I have seen men convinced that they could subdue the marsh only to learn that the marsh has unlimited patience and resilience.

Mountains will always bring a smile to my face especially as I drive from the coast through the foothills to that first sighting of the Blue Ridge Mountains reaching for the skies.

However, I will always feel most at home in the salt marsh. The salt marsh is a hospitable place for we humans. It shields us from the harshness of winter and even holds back some of the fury of storms including hurricanes.

You can live on top of a mountain, but you have to work very hard and fast during three months to survive the next nine months. In our Southern salt marsh there are only a couple of months a year when life is challenging. Much of the year our salt marshes and the land around them are producing food. Many years we have harvested vegetables from our gardens along the salt marsh twelve months out of the year. It is a good place to live and enjoy life.

So if I had to pick a place to live, it would be a hard choice but here on the salt marsh it seems to be a better spot than a wild mountain top. The peace that I have found here has also healed my soul and somehow life by the marsh does not feel as precarious as it sometimes did on the mountainside in Roanoke.

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