How did the rose ever open its heart

and give to this world

all of its beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light against its being

Otherwise we remain too frightened.  (Hafez, 14th c. Persian poet)

This past week I spent a fair amount of time picking up a small swarm….it was a mess of bees clinging to a fork in the branch. Standing on my car, I thought I could just sweep them into my insulated grocery bag.

Instead they suddenly took flight, as my brush gently swept across them. It became a profusion of bees flying around my head and my husband, who happened not to have a bee veil on his head. Then the stings came. They were not happy girls.

I closed my bag. It wasn’t optimum, but I would have to come back and collect the rest later since a clump of freewheeling bees refused to be caught, dancing around my car, eventually re-clumping in the tree branch.

When I returned later that evening, the disoriented group—tiny in size now—seemed to recognize my car and began to fly around. I swept the next group in from the tree branch and then opened my grocery bag on my car hood.  One by one, they began to fly closer and closer, until, as they smelled their sisters, they marched into the bag. My patience paid off. Traffic driving by, looked closely at this odd carnival sight on the side of the road.

I wanted to tell the independent or frightened bees what awaited them..a warm, dry tiny house, with food stores of honey that I had pulled from another hive.

Unfortunately they weren’t having it.

Sadly, I had to leave behind a handful of bees who were either too frightened or to obstinate to come with their sisters.

I pondered this bee situation in light of real life. My life. I often do this. The reality is, sometimes things get really messed up and chaotic before the good stuff that awaits us in times of change and transition. Things have to fall apart, and sometimes trust, versus suspicion, is a better quality.