The Birds & the Bees ... and Bisou

This week I began again my morning walks down Natchez Trace. Having not walked for a week, I stopped to greet the deep purple morning glories, this summer’s offspring from their last summer’s kin, twining around the base of a mail box down the street. I circled the mailbox reminded of why I love these journeys. Nature abounds even in the city.

Before parting I happened to glance near the street’s edge and noticed a small dead bird. I picked it up only to realize it was half of a bird. I placed it deep within the morning glories and thanked its spirit for coming to earth. I asked that it return in peace to its tribe.

I walked on and smiled recalling a recent conversation with an artist from Montana whose work is presently exhibited at nearby Two Moon Gallery. At the opening of her show in the intimate, light filled space, Diana told me of feeling drawn years ago to sell her Los Angeles home and hit the road with her dog. They found and felt home in Montana where she now paints beautiful works of wildlife- deer, wolf, fox and other animals in our world.

I had gone to the gallery to meet the artist who painted the fox I saw in the opening announcement. Diana Tremaine was that artist. I heard myself sharing with this stranger who didn’t seem a stranger how we had buried a fox on our property in the country along with several other animals that we came upon or seemed to come to us to be buried and honored for their presence on earth.

Diana shared that she and her family do likewise. The two of us wondered aloud as to how many of us are out there in the world honoring the animals in their passing.

As I walked, I thought of Diana's family and how those of us who love animals whether rescuing, adopting, burying or bringing them to life on canvas are connected through the field of unseen energy while reuniting those passing with those passed and assisting in the healing of the heart's field.

I thought of my father who at times wished he had become an undertaker. He would have been good at this tending of the dead. I walked and smiled because I his daughter have become an undertaker for the animals laying to rest the once living and in my heart the still living dear creatures of Earth and the Universe.

I walked on and made my turn eventually arriving again at the morning glory grave where this time something else caught my attention. Several steps away lay the rest of the bird. I joyfully and gently took the wing and placed it along side the other half. I could not find this sad as much as I found it perfect, the symbolism of reuniting the whole and the healing of divisions between life and death, science and spirit, right and left, heart and head. We have lived so divided in this world.

I reached home grateful the first birds I buried taught me about not resisting pain but opening to all life's experience rather than choosing only what I label as pleasant.

I walked up the driveway my recorder in hand thinking this story was complete until I saw two bees, one dipping in and out of hosta blossoms and another not moving at all yet hanging on a blossom.

This small creature presented me with the morning’s greatest test. I had easily kept myself open to the bird yet I sensed something between me and the bee, something preventing me from being fully present and feeling.

It's said, "We teach what we must learn." I write of what I continue to learn. The bee presented me with my own inner divide.

I gently took the blossom and held the very still bee in my palm assuming it was dead. I said all the right words thanking it for being present in my yard. I asked forgiveness for the harm we’ve done having years prior sprayed chemicals not knowing of the harm they cause in creation’s chain.

I said all the right words but feeling did not come. It was then I realized my fear around the diminishing of the bees affected my presence. The prevalence of colony collapse disorder has greatly concerned me. The movie “Queen of the Sun” refers to this phenomenon mirroring a collapse in our own society. I thought of the personal inner collapse occurring over time when we don’t learn to sit engaged in the presence of all experience but especially perceived loss or anticipated pain. This level of presence takes strength and a lowering of walls which I thought I was getting better at ..... until the bee.

Could I set aside my fear of the bees diminishing and open to this divine creature with cellophane wings and black pipe cleaner legs? Could I stay unattached and just be with this representative of the bees that have come here for thousands of years and now show us through their demise our connection in the web of living things?

Still holding the bee I said again, “Thank you, thank you. Forgive us for all we’ve done through our ignorance and arrogance contributing to all life’s decline.”

Still feeling didn’t come.

I stood in the driveway, a bee on a blossom in my palm as a neighbor, a young woman I’ve never met walked by with her bouncing, white poodle reminiscent of Duchess the little white mop we had in childhood.

I met Lindsey and Bisou which I recognized as French. French I was told for kiss as exuberant Bisou did all but kiss me.

I showed Lindsey the bee and shared how I feared it was dead. This young soul suggested the bee might just be hanging out. That was a very different idea.

She and Bisou walked away as I carefully brushed a thread of spider web from the bee. It suggested Lindsey might have a point as a front leg, like a little arm over its face, wiped its antenna.

I sat down on the steps in our front yard and gave kisses to the bee, energetic puckers that carried not just words but feelings of deep appreciation, feelings voiced and felt.

Periodically I returned through the day to the hostas and coneflowers to check on the bee. Each time I found it still, very still, then it would move a leg or antenna.

I was reminded of the days during which Templeton my cat was dying. Morning after morning, I walked downstairs bracing myself to find her dead until I realized bracing meant my heart wasn’t open. After this Templeton lived for nearly two weeks allowing me to experience openness and non-attachment rather than trying to control my experience.

The bee did the same for the day. I didn't have years of attachment to the bee but I noticed each time I went outside to check on it, the sense was quite the same. I thought of Templeton.

Stay open. Stay open to experience.

I’ve never quite known what the birds and bees really have to do with love – until now.

The birds, the bees, Bisou, Templeton, the animals and artists like Diana teach me to stay open, to stay open to loving what is, to energetically hold dear and kiss each moment as it arrives.

If we can stay open and unattached to living or dying, we are freed to more deeply experience each moment. In doing so, I'm certain divides are mended and the heart is revived. And that is a beautiful thing.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 5 July 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

P.S.Thank you, Nature,for waking me!