ARIADNE'S THREAD #2
Praxis, praxis, praxis
Each month I publish Ariadne’s Thread parallel to Latest from the Labyrinth: while the latter is an update on general RPG stuff, Ariadne’s Thread features discursive pieces around topics of interest to me. These may or may not directly inform my RPG output but they certainly indicate what aspects of the labyrinth I’m interested in exploring. The next Latest from the Labyrinth will be with you 6th June.
This began as something longer and heavier, but I’m paring it back—much like the jasmine you see above. Planted last summer in a deep wooden box, my dreams of it ascending the wall seemed optimistic by the time it came to removing the dead wood at winter’s end, leaving this sorry skeleton. Perhaps even more optimistic was the decision to place my crudely-made birdbox among the withered stems: this is a story about that birdbox.
Already a few weeks into March and with little-to-no evidence of avian life on the newly-built housing estate my family and I had occupied for over a year, the idea of this little structure (built with help from my five-year-old) housing a family of birds seemed unlikely—at least as far as my wife was concerned. When I mounted it on the wall and dedicated it as a shrine to Cyanistes caeruleus she thought it made a cute garden decoration, though nothing more. Yet one morning, peering out of the kitchen window I noticed a blue tit perched in the branches of the quince tree suddenly take off and fly towards the exterior of our flat, beyond my field of vision. I snuck outside and spent a good ten minutes watching the same bird inspect the opening, return to the branches of the tree, flying back again.
The Eurasian blue tit is one of the nation’s favourite birds for its bright colours, acrobatic aerial displays and small size. It’s call is also very recognisable:
The joy this creature brought into my life surprised me, a joy multiplied by recognition that the bird had found a mate and that they had decided to nest in the structure. Soon I began to see them bringing caterpillars and grubs back to their nest, and could just about here the chirping of their chicks above the noise of the building work going on just a hundred yards or so away. It was difficult to resist the urge to lift up the lid and take a peek inside, but resist I did, knowing that my devotion had been rewarded being enough.
Where this post might have initially been longer was in the exploration of this devotion and its broader connotations: the friction between materialism and idealism, how the laws of cause and effect are not so distant from what might be considered woo. In my devotion I had followed a set of scientific principles: the box’s dimensions, placement and width of the opening were all intended to attract just the guest that I wanted. Yet my adherence to these was not entirely rational: it was a means to an end, a way by which I might see my desire manifest. I struck a bargain with a spirit of the Here & Now, my reward was the joy of seeing my creation occupied.
Just a few days before I finally was able to commit these thoughts to the words you read now I found myself staring out of the kitchen window again, waiting to see one of the bird parents perched on the branches of the quince before flying towards its brood. But it did not appear. I waited all morning until, curiosity bettering me, I ensure out onto my tiny yard, climbed atop the jasmine’s planter and peeked into the box…
It was empty. Having fledged, the baby birds had flown the nest. For a moment I was bereft. And then… then I heard the familiar call, though this time from the whitebeam, not the quince.
The whole family: mum, dad, and three healthy looking fledglings sat in the tree, chirping away happily. They flew hither and thither, alighting and landing on various branches, before finally I was once again alone. It was if they’d come to say goodbye.