By Thoughts of Recovery
It was one of those perfectly ordinary afternoons—blue skies, bees nosing about the lavender, sun lighting up the old bricks on the back wall like stained glass.
The garden felt alive, awake in that specific way it only does when you’re not distracted. I had been sitting by the pond with a cup of tea, watching the dragonflies stitch light into the air. Just letting the day breathe.
Then came the sound. A wet, splashing KERPLUNK.
I turned sharply.
“Bloody pond!” came a sputtering voice.
It was Bertie.
Half-submerged, arms flailing, spines slicked down like soggy toothpicks.
“Help!” he shouted, dramatically.
I jumped up, tea and chocolate hobnobs flying everywhere, and rushed over.
“You alright?” I said, grabbing a small bamboo rake to offer as leverage.
He took it with what remained of his dignity and clambered out onto the grass, soaked but safe. “Well, that’s a new one,” he muttered, water dripping from his nose.
And then came her.
A croaky harrumph from under a rock.
“Excuse me!” said a stern, green voice. “That is a protected aquatic environment.”
A small, squat frog with intense golden eyes hopped into view. She wore an expression somewhere between disgust and disbelief.
Bertie blinked at her. “You must be Hamiltina.”
“Correct,” she snapped. “Head of the Pond Preservation Society and unofficial guardian of peace, order, and water quality. And you, sir, have disrupted the lot.”
“I didn’t mean to fall in!” Bertie protested.
“Intentions don’t clean lily pads,” she said. “And frankly, you smell like compost and confusion.”
I tried not to laugh. Bertie looked like a disgruntled pincushion.
“Sorry about the mess,” I said to Hamiltina. “But… actually, I’ve just been thinking about Step Six.”
That stopped her.
She cocked her head. “Step Six, you say?”
Bertie groaned. “Oh, not now…”
But I saw her expression shift—curiosity behind the grumpiness.
“Step Six,” I repeated. “Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.”
Hamiltina sat down on a flat rock near the pond’s edge, smoothing one webbed hand over her knee like a professor preparing a lecture.
“Readiness,” she said slowly. “You know, most creatures think they’re ready when they say they are. But real readiness? That happens when you stop defending the things that hold you back.”
Bertie, still dripping, narrowed his eyes. “Is this about me flailing in the pond, or are you making a larger point?”
“Both,” she said with a wink. “You flailed. Not because you can’t swim—but because you never let go of your pride long enough to float.”
I watched Bertie process that, slightly humbled, slightly annoyed.
“I didn’t ask to fall in,” he said quietly.
“No one asks for it,” she replied. “But readiness doesn’t mean perfection. It means you’ve stopped clutching your defects like souvenirs. It means you’re not afraid to change.”
I sat on the grass, warmed by the sun, humbled by the moment.
“So Step Six,” I said, “isn’t about fixing everything right away.”
Hamiltina nodded. “It’s about being willing to let them go. And sometimes… falling in the pond is the only way to see what you’ve been clinging to.”
We all sat in silence for a while. Birds trilled. A butterfly drifted past.
Then Bertie, now calmer, said softly, “Maybe I needed a dunking. I’ve been holding on to things. Control. Anger. That smug little voice that thinks it knows better.”
Hamiltina gave a satisfied grunt. “The pond has its ways.”
Bertie stood, water dripping from his fur, and looked at me. “You ever notice how the Way never shows up gently when you’re resisting?”
I smiled. “More and more lately.”
Hamiltina hopped to the water’s edge. “Next time, just ask before cannonballing into sacred spaces.”
“I promise,” Bertie said with mock gravity, “to respect aquatic boundaries and character defects alike.”
We all laughed.
The sun was high now, the sky impossibly blue. And in that warm, ridiculous, wet moment, I realised something:
Readiness doesn’t always feel like bravery. Sometimes it looks like soggy spines, wounded pride, and a grumpy frog pointing to the truth.
But in that moment, you stop fighting.
And you say: I’m ready to let go.
Message for those in recovery – Step Six:
You don’t have to know how change will happen. You just have to stop defending the parts of you that keep you stuck. Step Six isn’t about achievement—it’s about willingness. To let go. To be changed. To stop flailing and learn to float.
Sometimes that starts with falling in.
And if you’re lucky, there might be a frog waiting to help you out.
The Pond Knows
The afternoon had no agenda,
only bees in the lavender,
sun painting stained glass on bricks,
and breath,
slow and wide as sky.
I did not seek wisdom.
I sat.
Letting the world be louder than my thoughts.
Letting the dragonflies stitch silence into gold.
Then came the sound,
not divine thunder,
but a splash.
KERPLUNK.
The kind of truth that doesn't ask permission.
Bertie rose, soaked in indignity,
spines slicked like stubbornness in the rain.
He thrashed.
He shouted.
He blamed the pond.
And then came the voice,
stern, small, sacred.
“Excuse me,” croaked the frog.
Hamiltina,
keeper of peace, pond, and perspective.
He protested.
She did not move.
“You smell like compost and confusion,” she said.
And somehow, that was the kindest thing,
he needed to hear.
I mentioned Step Six.
Because the pond had reminded me,
readiness is not a declaration.
It is not loud.
It does not argue.
It sits at the edge of surrender,
and waits for you to stop flailing.
Hamiltina taught without teaching.
A single sentence from the mud:
“You never let go of your pride long enough to float.”
Bertie flinched,
as all who hear truth first do.
Then softened.
“I didn’t ask to fall,” he whispered.
No one asks.
But grace is not always requested,
sometimes it’s delivered,
wet and unexpected.
Readiness is not mastery.
It is the still hand that stops clutching
the souvenirs of pain.
And sometimes,
a sacred dunking
is the first honest prayer you’ve ever made.
We sat.
Still.
Even the birds didn’t interrupt.
Then Bertie,
soaked, but clearer,
bowed to the Way.
Not with eloquence.
But with a promise to respect the water
and what it mirrors.
Because the Way,
like the pond,
teaches without speaking,
corrects without punishing,
and reveals without forcing.
And on that perfectly ordinary afternoon,
as the sun made no sermon of itself,
I saw it:
Letting go is not weakness.
It is how the leaf meets the stream.
It is how the soul learns to float.
