Beetime Traveller Chapter 1~

Image from Internet

Well, I think most of us in the northern hemisphere can officially agree that spring has at last come. There are flowers blooming and birds singing and seeds sprouting in all directions. If I had a favorite time of year ( which I don't) this would be it. Of course I feel like this at every turn of the seasonal wheel. I am like a child trying to decide my favorite color, at first I declare it's red and then swiftly change my mind to, oh no it's blue, and then, actually no it's green, before I say, "no it's all of them, give me the whole rainbow." Yes, I am somebody who loves it all, including spring, winter, summer and fall.

And speaking of loving it all, I will take this opportunity to share with you, my latest endeavour, Bee Keeping. Because, let's face it, spring would not be spring without adding BEES to the mix of birds, flowers and trees. Indeed, the earth as we know it, would not exist without these busy little pollinating friends, whose miraculous ways pollinate 90% of the earth's plants. In fact, if we really think about it, it is quite possible that we humans wouldn't exist without them. For, I believe it was Albert Einstein who said, "if the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live."

Image from internet

As many of you know, there is much discussion with regard to the decline of honey bee's. Indeed, this is a rather enormous problem on our planet at this time, amongst a very long and frighting list of other enormous problems. I don't know about you, but I could get very sad if I let my heart break for the present state of our Good Earth. However, after much thought on this difficult topic, I have come the conclusion that sadness is not the best style for me to adopt in an effort to make positive change during these troubled times. And so, Instead of cultivating sadness I am endeavoring to cultivate happiness and although this is not always easy, it feels like the best option. I, Nao Sims, choose to dedicate myself to loving the earth with nothing but joy in my heart and a radiant unwavering belief that we can indeed heal this beautiful world.

When I first learned about the problems with pollination I cried for two hours straight. And, when I realized that crying wasn't going to do anything for the bee's, I got up off the floor and got organized. Within a week I had ordered 20,000 honey bee's, two bee hives, and registered for a course with a Master Bee Keeper in a large field, under a big sky, an hours drive my house.

I spent the last days of winter cozied up with tea, reading books on back yard Bee Keeping, dreaming of my own honey, and remembering those long ago days when I was a little girl and my father was a bee keeper. There is nothing like the smell of fresh honeycomb, like seeing a bee on a dandelion after a long winter, or like the smell on my fathers hands when he'd come back from checking on a hive.

Yesterday, the boxes containing my hives arrived. After a song and a dance, Gus and I gleefully opened our packages. Gus was just as keen as I was to see what was inside, although his canine sense of smell gave the contents away well before I opened the lid, and the smells of honeycomb permeated the living room. What we found in those big cardboard boxes resembled a jig saw puzzle more than it did a bee hive. Apparently bee hives, like most things, need to be assembled. Our boxes were filled with parts of hives, and one poorly photocopied pink piece of paper, with very few instructions as to how to put the parts together. I laughed for a long time before I considered how to begin.

And then, without further adieu, I began...

I hammered.

And I painted.

And eventually,

I did it!

(This is Bee hive number one of two)

Gus and Mark cheered me on through my trials and tribulations and an old friend came over with lunch and together we shared the painting. All this said, my first day as a bee keeper, went very well.

The Bee's don't officially arrive until June 1st, but the preparations for their new life, in my garden, have already started. I shall keep you posted as to how it all goes.

To read more about what you can do to help support Bee's and the important work of these winged friends click here.

Going Home~

Image by Martina Lang

There is a feeling I get whenever I go to my hometown that always surprises me. It comes the instant that I arrive in that valley surrounded by those familiar hills and mountains. At first it comes in the form of a kind of amnesia, where the memories of my new life disappear. As the car meanders down the winding road to the place of my childhood, I am nowhere else but HOME. In these moments I can barely remember that I ever left and I marvel at this feeling that seems to come up from the very ground I walk upon.

In my mind I can still hear my grandmother's voice showing me the buttercups blooming on the hillside just before town. "Spring is here" she would say, and the way she would say it, those three simple words, would always make me think that the whole world was new and beautiful and filled with promise. As my mother slows the car to round the last bend into town, we both look up at the hill to those tiny yellow blooms that speak to us of all the days before this one, and all of those to come after. We are silent for a moment, before we look at one another and say, "Grandma's buttercups."

Image from Internet

I have heard it told, that in the indigenous traditions, the people believe that the spirits of the land welcome us back to our birthplace. That the elemental beings and the guardians of the earth who dwell in our homeland, never forget us. That we are as much a part of the land as the trees and the blades of grass, as the yellow buttercups on the green hillside.

Artist Unknown

Walking by the creek with my little niece, looking up at a circling hawk in the April sky, I think I might agree with those wise indigenous ones. That indeed there is a kind of invisible magic inviting us to sink down into the roots of our own beings and drink up the nourishment of being HOME.

When I get on my plane tonight and I fly over these beautiful and sacred mountains I will give thanks to this good earth for reminding me of this beautiful circle I am a part of. And when I walk through the front gate of my little green cottage, 300 miles away from my hometown, another feeling will greet me. Another sense of HOME, and one that is just as wonderful. When my dog licks my face in his enthusiasm to see me after four long days, and my man put's the kettle on, I will remember my new life in all of it's beauty, just as I have remembered my old life.

Someone once said, "Home is where the heart is," and I think I would have to agree.

Waking with the Sun~

"Though we seem to be sleeping, there is an inner wakefulness that directs the dream, and that will eventually startle us back to the truth of who we are."

~Rumi

I must say that I find these the best sorts of moments, that is, being startled by a wonderful truth.

Just the other morning I was out in my garden doing sun salutations with Gus ( who, by the way, does the best downward dog I have ever seen) and I found myself in the midst of one of these waking moments that our dear Rumi eludes to.

Standing there, the rising sun on my face, my arms stretched up toward the sky, I realized that I was feeling as blessed to feel the warmth of the sun as the dazzling daffodils, standing in their yellowness beside me. That I was not so very different from these stemmed ones in my desire to grow toward the light. Somehow, in that moment, I "woke up" to something golden and divine, something that can be felt more easily than explained, some kind of mysterious wakefulness.

Sometimes, when I cannot remember who I am, I spend time with plants. You see, as far as I can tell plants are sure about what they are, sure about their beauty, about their purpose, about their goal, which appears to be nothing other than simply BEING what they are. And I have always been a believer in learning by example.

I am convinced that dogs know about this too and so do trees and rivers and stars and mountains and all the four legged and feathered and gilled ones. It's just we two legged's that seem to have this habit of forgetting.

It's a good thing that there is a whole beautiful world out there, just waiting to remind us~

Petals in the Morning~

I am someone in constant awe of Plant Spirit Medicine. As my garden begins to bloom, I am preparing to gather the magical elixirs offered by my petaled friends. Making healing flower essences is one of my joys. My gratitude for the wisdom here reaches to the stars and back again.

Just today, I was outside with the first spring beauties, gazing upon their dazzling blooms, my heart stirring with enthusiasm at the thought of discovering their healing properties. Standing there in the spring sun, I remembered that Dr. Edward Bach first discovered the homeopathic healing essences of flowers by licking the dew accumulated on flower petals at dawn. I have heard it told that Dr. Bach was not the first one to do this marvelous thing. That ingesting the dew on flower petals was a tradition the wise woman of the old world were very much aware of. That sending their patients out into dewy meadows at dawn, to lick the dew drops off flower petals, was a known medicinal practice.

All this is to say, that if you have never bent down to lick the dew off a flower petal, I highly recommend it.

Spring Equinox~

Spring Equinox 2009, March 20th,

Sunrise 7:03 am Sunset 7:12 Pm.

They say that the Spring Equinox is the festival of balance and awakening and alchemy. The magikal re-birth of the earth. The mingling of sun and rain. The time when opposite forces merge together in a divine act of transformation. The Alchemists call this merging, Conjunctio, meaning higher transformative union of two unlike substances. Like flint struck against stone to make fire, like sun and rain reaching down into the earth inviting green shoots and pink blossoms. On the day of the Equinox, day and night are of equal length. The sun and the moon spend the same amount of time glowing in the sky. It is indeed, a magikal time.

Gus(best canine friend) and I have plans to walk to down to the sea, to light candles and burn lavender and sage. To set our intentions for the next cycle and give thanks for the bountiful blessings that surround us. I might sing to the earth and the sky before we dash wildly through the green woods celebrating the return of life. Later we will join a dear friend for more singing, a fine cup of tea and some delicious food.

Sending Spring Blessings to you~

May the most wonderful things be sprouting in your life.

Turning of the Wheel~

Every year when winter comes and my garden recedes back into the earth, I wonder if spring will ever come again. And every year when spring comes again, I marvel at the incredible cyclical powers of transformation, death and rebirth. Not a year passes when I don't stand at the threshold of each season in awe of the changes that are happening all around me. I have, what I call seasonal amnesia. It's not as bad as it sounds. It's actually a kind of wonderful blessing, for I get to experience every season, as though it were the first time.

Each season is it's own beauty. How can we judge one as being better than another? As the wheel turns I often find myself ready for the same deep down changes that the earth is manifesting. My whole body says, yes!, I want to imitate the bare trees standing in the quiet of a snowy landscape, or yes!, I want to burst up through the darkness into the light and share my blooms with the world.

Today, I am thinking how wonderful if would be if I could marvel at my own being in the same way. If I could see the wintry depths of my own soul as I do the earths. I have to admit that I have a tendency to want to live in perpetual spring. And yet, I also see clearly the detriments of such a desire, that winter's decay is what brings new life.

In the ancient world the people would celebrate the goddess with kernels of corn, because they were representative of the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. The harvest of one cycle is the seed of the next. Isn't that beautiful?

Such age old wisdom. Nothing new. Those wise-ones have been celebrating death and rebirth since the very beginning. Still though, I have to put my cap of "heard it all before" down, because I cannot help but acknowledge how much wisdom is here. Today I look out my kitchen window upon the veg plot and see the tiny shoots of garlic poking up out of the earth to welcome the new day. It seems like yesterday that I tucked them into that black earth for a long winter sleep.

Spring always returns, and it too shall pass, but there is great comfort here I think. Great comfort in knowing that everything changes, that life is a constant infinite cycle of endings and beginnings.

Today, I feel like the garlic in my garden, encouraged by the light, roots in the earth, life force rising, growing up and down at the same time, trusting, alive, a radiant possibility, a "human-becoming."