When my daughter came to visit she walked in the door and asked, “What’s that’s smell?”, but she meant it in a good way. The house smells different on any given day depending on how I live, so I couldn’t really pinpoint it for her.

There was a Voluspa candle burning, but there was also a scent lingering from the back of the house of Palo Santo from a morning meditation. The kitchen usually smells like garlic and really good olive oil, so I had lit an incense cone in the there earlier called, ‘Big Sur’. Walking through the house she said, “This house has so much natural light!”, and to that I replied…”Oh yes…I couldn’t live in a house without light.”

It’s early Saturday morning as I write and even though the morning is overcast and cloudy there’s only one lamp on in the house. The rest is being lit by what’s outside. Almost every room has at least two full-size windows and with the house being small, there’s not a lot of wall space between the windows. This little house has been called a variety of things by people in passing. The Hidden House, The Doll House and when a neighbor steps into the yard they say I have my own little private sanctuary tucked underneath the trees.

This month I split and repotted the Asparagus Ferns so they’d have fresh dirt and more room to grow. I had two left over and wasn’t sure what to do with them, so I stuck them in a pot of dirt and nestled the pot into the heart-shaped, wrought iron hanger purchased years ago. I was thinking this would be only temporary, until I found the right spot, but a female cardinal had different plans that were not so temporary.

The Asparagus Fern is excellent for camouflaging bird nests and the birds usually dig a hole in the dirt which is why I like to repot them, but this bird started building her nest in between the outside of the pot and the hanger. This was going to be interesting to watch because the hanger isn’t solid and is full of gaps!

My favorite window in the house is the one over the kitchen sink. There’s always something to see while standing there washing dishes and sometimes I stand there if there are no dishes. The wrought iron hanger is within view from this window and I watched the fern wiggle for days, knowing there was a bird busily at work, but I couldn’t see what she was doing through the branches of the fern.

Watching the fern wiggle and shake was similar to faith. I couldn’t see the details, but I knew outside of my purview that there was something being prepared to be useful for a season.

The female Cardinal left, so I stepped outside and stood underneath the hanger to see how much of the nest was built. I lifted a few of the branches and what I saw looked like a mess. There was white fur from Denver’s brush crammed into the space with lots of tiny twigs and leaves. I left the nest so she could come back when ready because I was thinking she had a long way to go before it looked like an actual nest.

But, no…as you can see she has settled in to lay her eggs. The events from this week showed me that no matter how we choose to feather our nests, it’s worth gazing out a window, or stepping outside to realize…we might just be dwelling in sanctuary.