Wren and Toad

Last night, after dinner was made and the kitchen cleaned, I started gathering up my things to go cleanse my and the Husband's room. Well, cleanse and make mine/ours, since Big Brother Housemate has this place so spiritually sparkly that it's like a magical fallout shelter.

I couldn't find my cauldron. I realized I had no charcoal. I was rooting through boxes like a crazed squirrel and getting more frustrated by the moment. Husband suggested that I put it off until the next day. But I was driven to do what I'd set out to, and nothing short of having all the damn boxes fall out of the closet on top of me was going to stop me. So I found Big Brother and got the necessary supplies, then stepped out on the front porch to smoke, listen to the rain, and get in the right headspace.

The wren was there again.

See, the front porch has these square, slender columns, and this wren has been sleeping up at the top of one of them, on a ledge just big enough for it, for a few weeks now. When we go out to smoke, it doesn't wake and fly away. I was worried at first that it was a stranded fledgling, but it leaves during the day and then comes back. It is clearly able to fly. And it keeps coming back, making a little puffball of feathers up there until morning.

That little bird makes me happy, roosting up there, obviously feeling safe enough to sleep through us coming in and out. I sat down in the chair I've dragged outside, and leaned over to sit my drink down next to me. I startled hell out of a Gulf Coast Toad, but he didn't hop off. So I moved my drink a little, and shared space peacefully with bird and toad.

When the five minutes before ritual is full of soft rain and wild creatures, you know it's going to be good. Maybe not special-effects-like-in-"The Craft" good, definitely not can't-get-grounded-for-hours good, but a deep, soul-restoring kind of good that hums along in the background.

I slept like a baby. Or maybe like a wren.