Hour of Wrens

 

August 12, 2023

Evening, just before dark, has become the Hour of Wrens. They gather in the garden in surprising numbers. Several resort to the lintels of my front porch pillars, where they congregate like friends at a bar, fluffing and chattering. 

I read in an article in The New York Review of Books the word “biophilia,” which probably describes my state. I welcome creatures into my sphere with great joy, take pains not to disturb or startle them. I can walk through a flock of wild turkeys without much more than an increased level of clucking. Wrens gossip on my porch. Last night more catbirds than I had ever seen at one time leapt about in the roses. My rabbit watches me at the sink in the morning. 

Morning spent at Deerfield, where the rich go to die, discussing our Enneagrams. I am not a believer, but several things rang true and I would not call the morning a loss. But, almost. Arrived at Deerfield in deep morning mist. Rabbits played on a huge lawn. Anyone attending a church meeting would conclude that genetics itself dictates that women talk more than men, by levels of magnitude. Eleven women and three men. . . it was grueling. One huge aspect of my nature did find clarity, though. Enneagram 4s when faced with conflict tend to withdraw, to disappear, to try to regroup away from the immediate field of battle. This explains the several times, which still haunt me, when I did not fight a necessary battle. Inside me I’ve called it cowardice– though of a puzzling kind-- but the enneagram allows me to think of it as a sort of default that would take more time than what’s available to me in the moment to overcome. In fight, flight, or hide, I am hide. Unless I am fight, which happens when I’ve had time to consider. 

Huge, wind-driven rain.