Tags
faith, habits, hope, learning, life, love, nature, seeing in the dark, truth, understanding, wisdom, worth
This morning, as I arrived for work and exited my car, I heard something – an almost silent droning – like a distant lawn mower, but closer.
It was sweetly familiar and before I found the source, I knew already what I would find. In the bushes to the front of my car, I saw a discarded coffee cup sitting upright in the mulch, obviously left behind by landscapers.
Inside the cup, a bumblebee.
The cup was probably about ten inches tall, and I knew instinctively what would happen if I did nothing. The bumblebee would die in the cup. He would swarm and swarm in circles, the excessive flutter of his tiny wings echoing off the cardboard, filling the summer air with the sound of jet engines on idle. He would never think to look up. It’s their nature – to search frantically in circles for a way out where none exists.
To be honest, I used to think it was the same way with tiny birds trapped in my garage, until quite by accident, I discovered a perfect little nest inside the plastic armor that protected the garage door opener.
But back to the bumblebee. I was immediately reminded that sometimes we are the same way. We can wear ourselves out looking for something (a way out) that doesn’t exist and never think to reach beyond our habits, beyond our preconceived notion of how things should work. It may just be a different way of frying cornbread or it could be in the way we look at love. Perhaps our clearest vision exists beyond the reach of our understanding.
“The world is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
reach beyond
this dusty view
into the heart
of all I am –
where mountains
stretch
to meet the clouds
where wings
unspoken soar
NOTE: For those who might be wondering, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep if I hadn’t knocked the cup over. Some things are worth the risk of being stung (ahhh, and there another story)…….
. . .
tornadoday 
I loved this post. I really needed to read some positive words of encouragement! Thank you ❤️
Thank you so much, my lovely friend. I am thrilled to have provided you a view of the sun! ❤
A cuppa bee. That IS thought provoking, especially compared to the silent flight of the butterfly. Such lovely thoughts.
……….but butterflies are an entirely different story, my friend. Did you know that typically it is the brightly colored butterflies that are toxic, and this proves a nature defense to ward off predators? However, there is a small subset who aren’t toxic at all, but have evolved to bright colors so that the predators are confused and think they are. ❤
Yes Bobbie, for the way we can all circle and for rescuing the bumble bee. The yarn for me to make bumble bees to decorate some of my creativity has arrived today. Masses of it! Each day you and I, and many others, reach out to lift our fellow bees to see beyond their cups. Our loving connections do that for each other too. Your words always find their home in my heart, as do you. ❤ xXx ❤
Thank you, my sweet precious Jane. Bees are an interesting lot…… Did you know that if a hornet finds its way into the hive, the worker bees surround it, flapping their wings such that the temperature is raised to 116 degrees (F), for that is the temperature at which the hornet will die. The amazing part is how careful and precise they must be because at 118 degrees, they die………… ❤
Nature’s wonders. There are campaigns over here to stop the use of pesticides that are killing bees, and goodness knows what else. ❤
People seldom realize that nature does a real good job of taking care of herself. If we use pesticides to control the bee population, then we unintentionally control their natural predators. Lets say that’s barn swallows. When we kill off the bees, we cut off their food supply and so they either starve or go somewhere else. Fast forward a couple of seasons and the bee population has started to grow again. The natural predator is gone, so we ultimately end with more of the thing we were trying to control ❤
And even get me started on the protests against hunting. It’s a necessary evil in a world where we’ve limited the space of nature and killed off all the predators…. 💜 🐝
Big ol’ bumbles don’t generally sting … But you did the right thing … I find that slowing down, and reflecting often saves me time and effort, but then age is like that …
Indeed……only a poet can hear the symphony between one breath and the next…. You’re right that bumblebees rarely sting, Peter, but when they do, they can sting repeatedly, unlike honeybees who have barbed stingers and can only sting once….. I think there’s another insect that looks almost exactly like a bumblebee but isn’t a bee at all. I’m unsure of its name. Some type of fly I think 😊
Yikes! Like a wasp … They sting until you make them stop … Not fun!
💜
Wondering why so many try to control things that were here long before they ever thought to be ! Been my experience with bumblebees that if you leave them alone, they leave you alone. Glad you kicked over the cup, Bobbie. 🙂 …….xo
It’s astounding how little we see or know. Yet we make poetry.