against the grain.

I find myself, with each new day, wishing that the morning would never end. Wishing that I could sit here at my table, in this room, with this new light and this coffee- for the rest of time.

Left to sit and be awakened.
Left to grow towards what's shining in.
Left to make a person truly untethered from herself.

As I ate breakfast, I wished for something kind of silly.
'I wish I could just go out in my backyard and find feathers...'
It was a jealous wish. A thought filled of all of those people out there who are able to explore their own backyard. Who pass coyote bones and antlers. Who collect and dissect owl pellets. Who see animals with their young, and birds collecting everything possible for a warm winter nest.
...but for me, a feather in my backyard is about all I could wish for, and even that wish has only come true not even a handful of times.
So I got up.

I slipped on shoes.
I pulled my sweatshirt over my head.
...and I just stepped out.

The saguaro in our neighbors yard was filled with baby cactus wrens last year...and they've never left.
That cactus is their home. Their family has all stayed together. They care about one another. They protect one another. They enjoy one another.
Those wrens have an incredibly important spot in my heart, because... those wrens are me.
They live the animal life of my life.
At least that's how I see it.

And so I hoped, as I do so many other days, that the wrens may have left me something...
I said hello to them all, and walked over.

...and then....

FEATHERS! Not wren feathers, but TONS of feathers, big feathers, feathers for days as far as I'm concerned... and not one of them looking to be left from a fight with a cat or a struggle with an owl.
It was just the most strange thing.
An answered wish?
I thought about it all morning...

Something was saying, "If you want it, well then just go get it."