By Thoughts of Recovery
It had been three days.
Three quiet mornings without him.
I’d been up early each day, coffee in hand, sat by the rosemary bush where he usually emerged. I’d waited. Listened. Watched the wind comb the grass. But no sign. No rustling. No soft shuffle of paws. No Bertie.
And I’ll admit it: I was worried.
He’d never missed more than a day. And I hadn’t realised just how much I’d come to count on that small, spiny presence until he was gone.
I started imagining things. Maybe the crow had returned. Maybe the fox had misbehaved again. Maybe something worse.
Or maybe—maybe he was just… done with me.
That thought sat heavy in my chest. I tried to shake it off, but it lingered.
By the fourth morning, I was restless. Irritable. Not quite myself. I kept catching my reflection in the kitchen window—frowning, tight around the eyes.
Then, late that afternoon, just as I was about to head inside, I saw movement in the shadow of the compost bin.
A shape.
A waddle.
“Bertie!”
He emerged slowly, carefully, like someone just waking from a long sleep.
“You’re alright!” I said, rushing over. “Where have you been?”
He didn’t answer right away. Just climbed up onto the bench with an effortful sigh and looked at me, not with guilt—but with gravity.
“I needed space,” he said finally.
“From what?” I asked, taken aback.
He looked at me carefully. “From being needed.”
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve been asking a lot,” he said gently. “Of yourself. Of the Steps. Of me. Every morning, you show up hoping for another lesson. Another answer. Another piece of the map.”
I opened my mouth to argue. Then shut it.
Because he wasn’t wrong.
He went on. “Step Seven isn’t about doing. It’s about asking. Humbly. Honestly. Without performance.”
I sat down beside him. “I have been trying really hard. Maybe too hard.”
He nodded. “That’s what I felt. Like you were trying to earn your way through recovery. But Step Seven… it’s about surrender. Again. But deeper. It’s not about effort. It’s about humility.”
“Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.”
I looked at the grass, ashamed. “So I pushed too much.”
“You’re human,” he said softly. “It’s what humans do. You think if you dig deep enough, feel hard enough, try long enough—you’ll be rid of your flaws. But Step Seven isn’t surgery. It’s soil. It’s trust. You offer what you’ve uncovered, and then… you wait.”
“So you went quiet to teach me that?”
He smiled. “No. I went quiet because I needed the silence too. You’re not the only one walking a Way.”
I laughed, the tension easing. “Bertie the humble hedgehog. Who knew?”
He smirked. “Don’t get used to it.”
We sat for a while in the mellow light, the garden beginning to soften into evening.
“You know what I realised while you were gone?” I said. “I kept thinking something was wrong. But maybe… nothing was wrong. Maybe it was just a pause.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Step Seven lives in the pause. In the breath after confession, before the shift. In the moment where you stop striving and start trusting.”
I looked at the rosemary, gently swaying. The pond glinting. The whole garden breathing in rhythms I hadn’t noticed.
“Nothing changed while you were gone,” I said.
Bertie tilted his head. “Or maybe everything did.”
I smiled.
And for the first time in days, I didn’t feel like I needed anything to happen.
I just felt… here.
Message for those in recovery – Step Seven:
You cannot remove your own shortcomings through force. You can only uncover them—then offer them up with humility. Step Seven is not about being worthy. It’s about being willing. About letting go of the need to fix yourself, and trusting that something greater knows what to do with your surrender.
It’s not failure to pause. It’s faith.
So if the silence stretches longer than expected, don’t panic.
It might just be that healing has its own quiet timing.
And when the hedgehog returns, he’ll still call you “mate.”
The Pause Beneath the Rosemary
Three days, eternity.
Three still dawns without the rustle.
Three cups of coffee held like prayers
before the silent shrine of rosemary.
I waited.
Listened to the wind teach nothing.
Watched the grass remember how to be grass.
And I worried.
But the Way does not come when called.
Nor does it stay when clung to.
The hedgehog is not a messenger,
not a map,
not a god.
He is only a presence,
and absence is part of presence.
On the fourth day,
restlessness gripped me,
like a question too often asked.
I caught my reflection,
wearing the face of effort.
Wearing the face of needing.
Wearing the face of trying too hard.
And then,
a shape in shadow.
A waddle.
A sigh in spiny form.
He returned.
Not triumphant.
Not apologetic.
But whole.
Silent first,
then grave with truth.
“I needed space,” he said.
“From being needed.”
I wanted to explain.
To apologise.
To pull from him another wisdom,
to fill my unquiet heart.
But he shook his small head.
“You ask too much,” he said gently.
“Of yourself.
Of the Steps.
Of the silence.
You turn surrender into effort.
As if humility could be earned.”
I looked away,
because I knew.
I had mistaken the gift for the giver,
the lesson for the love.
I had sought transformation,
like a worker seeks wages.
But the Way does not pay.
It plants.
Step Seven is not a hammer.
It is a breath.
A kneeling.
A whisper without demand:
“Take this, if You will.”
And then,
a waiting.
A pause.
A stillness deeper than answers.
He did not leave to teach.
He left because silence teaches too.
So we sat,
two pilgrims,
resting from the road.
The garden bowed with evening light.
The rosemary,
unmoved by my worry,
swayed in rhythm with truth.
“Maybe nothing was wrong,” I said.
“Maybe it was just a pause.”
“Exactly,” he replied.
“Step Seven lives in the pause.
In the breath after the turning.
In the stillness after surrender.
In the soil of trust.”
And for the first time,
I asked for nothing.
I let the earth hold my longing.
I let the silence be the answer.
And I became,
at last,
here.
