bee honest

hello.

here i show off how i almost opened up one of the hives the day after we got home.  it was warm!   so warm, that the other hive was buzzing all around.  they scored the sunnier side of the bee yard.




(that bunch of sage there is their entrance reducer for the winter.)
see.  they are so jazzed i guess.  tons of flying bees outside that hive.  but not the other one.  it was clearly not getting any sun though.  just 5 feet over, and it's a different world.  in the summer though, they are happier i think.  that hive in the shade, did much less bearding on those hottest days.   it'll be interesting to watch and see the differences in these two hives and their placements with regard to the sun.  assuming i keep them as they are.  i am pondering moving them a bit.  going to ask the bee guardian teachers about my idea of moving them though, before i do it.

so i went in and thought i was going to move that one comb, that i posted about last time, how i gave it from one hive to the other.   i need to move it in closer to the middle of the hive so the bees don't have to travel so far to get to it on the coldest days.  sweet things, don't want to have to move very far.  god do i relate.  i really feel i might be a bee in a human body.  it's hard to feel that way.  and magical you can imagine at times, but dang, this human world and the way it's set up.  all the driving.  anyhoo, 'i'm making the best of the situation, before i finally go insane.' (ha!  i just took the words right out of the song from layla that is playing here right now, they fit too well.)....



well, i went in to check on this hive and had intentions of moving that one bar up in to the middle more.  like my outfit?  my pjays, tucked into socks, in cowgirl boots.  nice.


i'm not sure what i was showing david here.



i loosened up the top bars, cuz you know the bees seal them in pretty well with propolis.  such good insulators.

this is when it hit me, it was not the day to do this.  i pulled up a couple bars an inch or so and just peeked in.  they were active in there.  4 cute cute ladies crawled out on the top of the bar, looked around a sec, then flew back in through the front entrance pretty quickly.  something came over me and told me this was not to be done today.  i was going to attempt this maneuver without my usual bee suit and hood on.  i went into it really feeling it.  really feeling at one with the bees.  i don't know if it was me or them, though, but it became so clear, it wasn't the right time after that small peek in.  i shall wait for the next sunny day > 65 degrees.  david was nice and tried really hard to be patient with me as photographer.  i pulled him away from some other thing he was doing.  he whined a lot, but he did it.  ha.  thanks d.  i like the photos you took.



here's one pic from baltimore.  cousins.  i love the cousin connection now that they're older.  it's so easy and fluid.  there are some real bonuses to these children growing up.  i have to remember that as i grieve their babyhoods being a thing of the past.  yah.  to be alive is to grieve every other second or so, right?

and those in between seconds, rejoice.  hallelujah.  look how beautiful everything is right now.  how perfectly extreme it all is.  i am about to be on the moon.  it's all very extreme today.  my poor sister.  i just mailed her a package and the letter in it might make her worry for me.  or laugh.  i don't know.  but don't worry, cbear, ok?  i just vented.  i've noticed, when reading back through this blog how much i vent on here.  it is embarrassing.  but you know, venting though writing is maybe what keeps me from going insane.  i mean, if i'm gonna be pissed and blue, to 'make the best of the situation, before i finally go insane', that would mean sitting down and writing it out.  (layla again).  that's my way anyways.  but reading back on here, the number of times i have vented and freaked and let it all hang out, really made me shudder.  i don't know what to do.  we'll see.  at least i'm aware of how often i do that now, though.  i mean, i knew i did that, i just never really realized how often i did it.  i'm just so fired up when i'm angry and sad, that's when i have energy to write.  poor you guys.  my dear friends. poor sister.  i hope you just laugh, or maybe cry when you read my letter.  crying is so good.  i cried today and felt very different afterwards.  thank god for that.  thank god for salt water.  

a good friend sent me a link to an inspiring talk this morning.  it arrived in my email box, just after i typed out that crazy letter to my sister listing all the things i hate.  i was in such a mental box, it really felt like my head was in a box of metal, hating every living breath.  i played the talk right away.  it was so inspired and perfectly suited for my energy.  it was medicine.  the best kind of medicine.  soul medicine.    i want to finish listening to it, and then i'll link to it next time maybe.  i'm just saying this because, i love the timing of stuff like that.  i love the way people reach out to help each other.  the simple easy ways we help each other.  often just by thinking about each other.  without forcing it, but just because we can't help it.  i love it.  i often wonder if fairies are involved.

we came home from our trip and baked off some of that apple crisp, from the wild apples growing behind our house.  magical.


last night, olive unearthed this package of tracing paper i'd bought so long ago, i don't even really remember buying it, and the staggered trio of my womb, set off on a grand adventure discovering the magic of tracing paper.  olive was just fascinated by this paper that was see~through, when she came to show me what she'd found.  she was holding it like it was china.  it was sweet.

so.  olive chose to trace that book.  she has no idea what it really says.  their grandpa read it to them once, cuz david and i slipped it into the reading pile as a trick for him.  he rolled with it, while chuckling to himself, and improvised.  sweet man.  that's a funny picture though. olive tracing that book cover.  all on her own.  i had nothing to do with it, except appreciating the humor of it all.  humor on top of humor.  ha.  i'll take humor on top of humor any time.

the kids watch a lot of pink panther cartoons lately.  and then humm the song.  david ordered the sheet music and has been playing it himself to add to the ambience.  he is wanting to teach a child to play it.  but he isn't pushing.  we are both waiting and hoping these kids show some interest in playing music.   are you guys freaking ready to learn to play an instrument yet?  ok.  your dad won't,  cuz he says that is not a good way to be introduced to music,  but i am going to force you into music lessons soon, so please, just come on and say you want it!  nah, i don't know if i'd force it.  i really should just force myself back into guitar lessons, and play all the god damn time, and then david would play more, and then the kids would be begging to play too, cuz they just want to be involved in whatever juiciness is flowing in the moment.  why don't i just do that?  tell me, why don't i?  why do i not do the things that are so good for me?  that is a very good question.  WHY?


i love how zhi reads.  it's awesome.  she loves it.

and so.  the words are beginning to return.  today anyways.  nothing to do but be honest here.  the truth does set us free.  yes it does.  biggest cliche in all the world perhaps, but it is true, right?  i've felt very free, in an odd way, though the past month or so, going into my personal darkness.  maybe because i was honest about it.  here and in my personal life.  and i was met with nothing but love.  i sought out support.  we went to therapy so david would not be freaked out by my latest descent, and it's been fine.  i followed my intuition and read a novel, and started another.  i put aside all pressure to be a crafty inspired homemaker and tended to my soul.  pressure.  it's such a tricky force.  sometimes it's necessary to push us through some precipice, but other times, it's incredibly forceful and inappropriate. it's up to us know which kind of situation we're in.  i feel like the way i know which situation i am in is to check in with how the pressure feels.  if it fucking sucks through and through, it's probably not the right time for pressure like that.  it's probably some sort of self-inflicted ego pressure.  if some part of it, any part of it,  feels kind of good though, like it hurts~so~good, then it's a good pressure.  it's a pressure that is very likely pushing me into a higher state of awareness.   that's my formula for today.  that's my way of avoiding all unnecessary pain.  and my way of sneaking in a link to see john mellencamp  thrust himself.  ha.  you have to watch that link through minute 1 at least.   and then reenact it and sing it to your children later today.  k?  i keep looking around here in the trident completely paranoid someone can here that song playing through my headphones.

love.  i drank white tea.  i am able to have a little tea here and there.  i think.  we'll see.  my body will bee honest.  that is some truth.

the flower seekers

here is what i did.  sometime in july, i removed a bar with honeycomb from the first swarm's hive.  the one on the right.  the hive was full.  i had to.  i saved it however, and did not process it.


in october, on the very last warm day before our first snow, i gave our two hives their insulating panels.  before i did that, though, i put that built out honey comb, into our second swarm's hive.  that swarm came to us later in the season and their hive might not have been full enough to feed them through the winter properly.  so their neighboring hive gifted them.  how sweet they are.

it's only half full of honey comb.  a little brood there in the middle.  but that's cool.  it's perfect honey.  we tasted it.

i am so grateful for these bees.  before we left on our trip out east, i went to the hives and gave them a gentle tap.  i just wanted to say bye, and hear them buzz a little.  just to check in.  you know, like how you check to make sure your baby is breathing when asleep.  each hive gave me a sweet buzz, just loud enough to hear with my ear up to the wood.  i hope they are enjoying their restful months.  in that eery, etherial, dreamy space of this time of year in the northern hemisphere.  i hope we all are tapping into that space, as we go deeper and deeper into the darkness.  the time of year i was born into.  in some ways, i am more comfortable, oddly, in these dark seasons.  so weird.  they feel like home.  spring and summer, i feel like a visitor, on a splendid blissful holiday.  a holiday i look forward to all fall and winter long.  but i really do feel at home now, with the trees bare, my depression front and center, asking me to chill out and cozy up under the shelter of our human hive.  this depression, for me, my personal unique manifestation of it, is seeming to point me in a specific direction.  i am listening this year like i haven't before.  it is fucking hard to sit and let go, so that all the feelings can finally flood in.  once i do, i am finding i am not afraid of the slumber.  the winter.  the dark.  oh it's so f'd.  the resistance i have to stopping.  it's this culture, i am sure of it.  it doesn't stop for winter.  no mam.  well, i must resist that.  i am resisting what is not me, and embracing what is me.  i am eating honey, and staying warm next to my mates.  and you know, our house is kind-of in the same shape as those bee hives.  pretty much.

i love.

i love.

i love.

look what i just bid on.

ha!

if anything, this weird holiday is cool for waking up the gratitude in us.  i just say, let's take it deeper.  somehow, take it deeper.

roots

the root of happiness.

what is it?

something about not resisting.  because resisting is the root of suffering.

i can be a good resister.  like i can win contests in this category.  no wonder i fall down into the pits of depression like i do.



but still, depression will come for me like a cycle, i predict, no matter how close to enlightenment i get.  HOWEVER!  the less i resist it, the lighter it is.  then i can mess around in the fodder it has to offer.  the  fruits of depression.  there are some.






this morning, max and i sat together at the table.  we chopped the tiniest apples up, from the sweet tough trees behind our house that the girls and i picked a while ago, which stored very nicely in the cellar up till now,  into pieces for some pies.  we, meaning, i,  listened to a pema chodron teaching on fearlessness while we knifed.  it was some kind of peaceful bliss.  max moved on after 20 minutes, and then came back and did some writing work as i continues on the chopping block.  right at the end of the 80 minute cd, he declared we were listening to some boring stuff, and can we please change it.  ha.  how'd he make it that long?  makes me laugh what i put my kids through sometimes. (like demanding they wear corduroy on a random day just cuz i say.  haha!)   i did change it.  we listened to some music from my magical swap partner.  and as it happens, she got her package from me.  yesterday.  what the heck happened there?  that's about a month in transit.  i was sure the box was confiscated cuz i sent some dried sage.  but no, yay!!!  maybe soon she'll post on it and you can see some of what i sent her way.  i'd just begun putting together her second box.  you almost got two there girl!





(shoot!  i just realized i forgot about making vinegar from the scraps!  poo. i threw them out for the birds.)

here's a good article that relays some of what i was listening to this morning.  if only i did a practice like this  daily.  hmmmmmmmm.

look how much turkey girl has grown.....so sweet.

cleared out the freezer of some old peas. the birds and the rats were very into them.

david yelled out the door this morning, to me in the chicken yard, 'where are olive's monkey socks?'  like it was a serious thing, but i could tell, he was aware at the same time, of the hilarity of this question, and it was a funny moment that stopped me, and made me laugh.  i knew where they were, like all good moms with virgo playing heavily.  olive was relieved.  it was not gonna do to have any other socks today.



you know, i've been in a state for a while now.  a reflective state.  at first it was depressing.  but then it became rich.  rich with light and weight and me and slowness.  a big part of this state, was about me not wanting to make anything.  i all of a sudden was completely averse to knitting.  to writing.  to putting any energy out.  i saw how much pressure i put on myself to put out.  why?  because often, putting out brings me joy.  i put pressure on myself to find the joy!  taking the pressure off, mostly i think, by slowing down and living without caffeine, which for me, is just ONE of my personal ways of resisting myself and my world, was cool.  it was sad too.  it's sad to not be able to meet my highest dreamiest expectations of myself.  but by stopping activities that had pressure infused into them, i started to feel myself in this way that has been pretty nice.  i'm not made of pure sadness.  no.  but i am tuned into a lot of sadness.  and then around the corner comes a child, or a funny husband, or a sister or friend on the phone, or a caring mom/grandma, or a friend to have tea with, or a fun friend who introduces me to a fun new photo app, or a good song on the radio, or another.  along come these butterflies of energetic change, and i feel happy.  it's the nature of the game, right?  my personal game anyways.  don't resist the sadness, and then miss butterfly is bound to appear sooner or later.

and those songs i searched to link to, led me to this hilarity.   had me crackin up out loud in the trident.  aftershocks even.  yikes.

well.  that was kind of nice. to sit here and mess around with myself and some words.

we are off to baltimore in a couple days.  maybe i'll check in from there.....

love.

hello from the land of no internal inspiration

i'm reading one of zadie smith's books.  i googled her to learn more about her, and found this list she made.  i like it a lot.  i'm fillin up my inspiration reservoir with others' creative works.  i guess?  i'm hoping that's how it works.

i made my whole little family wear corduroy friday.  it wasn't easy.   not for olive anyways.  she was so mad!   she did it though, for me, and then took the dress right off.  ha.  zhi keeps talking about how this day won't happen again for 100 years.  but, she is wearing that corduroy jacket again today. hmmm.

being off of caffeine like this is insane.  i haven't gone without tea, some kind of caffeinated tea, in so so long.  pretty much since max's surgery.  and that was such an altered time i didn't have time to sit and feel myself really.  well i am now.  sitting and feeling.  that is what i am doing.

  it is so cute to me that max will watch fairy movies with the girls.  and he enjoys himself.  such an open mind!  ha.  i just need to get the husband on board now with watching some girly movies with me.  now that my sister is in brooklyn, i don't see girly movies anymore.  miss.  gotta change that.

we got a new couch.  i look forward to posting about it next time.  david actually spotted it in the furniture consignment shop as he walked to the bank the other day.  so we said good bye to our old love, big brown.  our first couch.  that was hard.  but it feels good to have this fresh change.  new color.  style.  it has a sanguine feeling, and color too.   (zadie smith is teaching me lots of new words.  david says i must not have gone to junior high.  wah.  i did.  and i could have kicked his butt in math.  but vocabulary, i totally admit i didn't even try.  well, now i am.  you may just need your dictionary here and there, if and when i get that sweet writing bug again.)  we can still get cozy just fine on new snaguine.  it's a lot smaller.   we need a couple cozy chairs maybe?  so we can all cozily sit by the fire.  they will come eventually.

serious

we really need to step it up people.  on our corduroy wearing. of course.  biggest holiday ever for corduroy is this friday.  get it together!


 


okay?


    


 okay.

yay saturdays

here is something cool.  i made this soup last night.  it is hot pink.  so many beets.  the girls love it.  even the girlfriend that came over to play this morning gobbled. it. up.  yeah they were watching cartoons while they ate it, but last night my kids were not watching cartoons and they kept coming to me asking for me to just feed them like babies this soup.  i really think a big part of it has to do with the color.  and zhi is asking me what the parts in it that are cabbage are.  she says she loves whatever it is.


olive told me yesterday, that 'sometimes, mom, there are really REALLY big waves in the ocean.'  i said, 'yeah!  .....................what's got you thinking about that?'  she says, 'oh, it's just this brain.  it's SOOOOOOOOOO smart.'

i said, 'yeah.  it REALLY is.'

yay.  for saturdays.

some things.  a list.  to keep it simple and fun.  i have lost my love connection with writing.  it's horrible.  and sad.  it's like a death happened and i didn't even know it.  it's like i'm pulling at something to come back to me and it won't, it can't.  maybe i'm looking back instead of forward.  oh well.   i think i may need to just read.  read read read for a while.  that will for sure inspire and recharge me.  oh yes.  i'm excited to do just that.  i've got my eye on a few books in particular.  i'll maybe just use this space for photos and simple words and for the time being.  light fun stuff.  oh that would so not be my style.  but it may just be a new thing i do.  change.  i had the change card in a tarot reading yesterday.

chamomile tea can be weirdly jazzy.  i think i'm turning into a bee.  just naturally buzzy.  and fuzzy.  and loud when i need to be.   not sure.

so a list.  of loves with bullets.

• resting
• eating 
• bed
• handsome men
• earrings
• good fathers
• role models
• grandmas who get excited to see their grandchildren
• baths
• breathers
• people who decorate their yards like crazy for trick or treaters
• good friends to trick or treat with
• slowed down mind
• books

ok.  here i go.  over and out.  my words are all dried up.  but my photos are not.  

love.

love.

love.

and may the force be with us all.