My newest friend

We had a visitor last night on the wrought iron railing of the front porch.  I had let Professor our for a nightly wee and there was a green tree frog on the railing.  He stayed there for a moment, turned and looked at us gawking at him in the doorway, then turned his back to us and leapt off into the darkness.  I have never seen a frog like this the whole time we've lived here.  I've seen frogs, but they were a mottled dark green and weren't quite so flat at the rear end.  This is what the little guy looked like.

Maybe I go overboard in assigning meaning to the animals, birds and insects I see but I think I'm just trying to find that happy medium with me being hyper aware of my environment and finding the Gods/Goddesses in Nature.  I've spent a lot of years self-absorbed with my "faith" and trying to be an impossibly better person to the degree that I never paid attention to what Nature was telling me.  It's a bit of a struggle to put myself on a level where I am vigilant to my environment but it's becoming a lot easier since I stopped trying so hard.

Still, when I see things like this, out of the ordinary, I tend to sit up and take notice.  The hawks had disappeared from my life for months but are now back on a near daily basis again.  Same with the crows. I need to start writing all this down and watching for patterns in the sightings and encounters.  I did have an almost fatal encounter with a chipmunk today on my way to town.  He raced across the highway and with a car on my ass, no way could I even slow down or tap the brakes.  But he was fast and made it across before I got to him.

I also need to develop more discipline in my attention to my crafts, both Pagan and mundane.  I'm wasting time that could be better spent.  One of my favorite Gods is Lugh, in part I think because of his craftsmenship and ability to do everything well.  I would love to put more effort into my talents and do them all well, instead of just settling for okay.  I know I could do better if I just applied myself.

I'm finding myself, as the days shorten imperceptively, getting ready to nestle in.  That's my favorite time of the year, Autumn, when we start battening down the hatches, insulating, putting the storm windows and plastic on and other winter preparations. 

But for now, I will endure the seemingly endless heat and humidity that leaves me drenched in sweat and flares my fibromyalgia and try to live in the now instead of always looking to the next festival or the next season.  Or the next meal as I need to get in there and get supper started.  So off I go to live in the hot kitchen of now.  I'm lusting after air conditioning these days.  Good thing I don't believe in sin anymore.