The Girl and the Bee

The girl with her feet in the cold pond saw a leaf floating into deeper water. Living in a world where the bees were dying off she was so sensitive to their shape and color she noticed the bee was not a crinkled edge of leaf.

The bee, motionless, was now underwater, and not moving, so probably dead.

But the girl didn’t hesitate. She waded waist deep into the cold water and lifted the leaf.

The bee fell from the leaf to thrash in the water causing small ripples to glisten with sunlight.

The girl used the leaf to scoop up the bee. This time the bee held on tight.

As she carried the bee to safety the girl reflected that the bee had given up, but once almost saved, had struggled for life again. Setting the leaf in the sun the girl returned to her perch now dripping water and shivering in the hot sun.

The bee slowly climbed to the top of the leaf where it carefully used its legs to wipe the water off its wings.

The girl wondered if the sun felt as good to the bee as it did to her.

An ant on a scouting mission noticed the bee and fled for cover.

The bee, a winged buzzing monster hundreds of times bigger than the ant, never seemed to notice the little creature’s panic.

The girl reflected that she was as much bigger than the bee as the bee was bigger than the ant. The girl wondered what creature might be watching her, too big to see, benevolent or malevolent? Was this superior being looking down on her indifferently or with fond recognition of unexpected resemblances? She hoped she wouldn’t have to drown to find out.

Truth eludes words. Meaning evades language. Words obscure as much as they reveal. Language captures only traces of meaning. Truth can turn to fiction with a single discovery. And fiction too can turn out to have been true.

Love is higher than wisdom.

Never assume someone superficially good is trustworthy. Never assume someone superficially bad is untrustworthy. In all cases only time and a history of right action can earn trust.

Sometimes irrationality is the only way to counter the irrational.

To help when no help would lead to the best outcome is no help at all.

Be careful how, when and whom you help. The right kind of help is often marked by serendipity. Strive to know the difference between when you can help and when you can’t.

What is taught here in this world where we live? Consequences, it would seem, for so few of us understand them.

The sacred trust between generations is to save and revive for the future all the beauty that nature, art and and wisdom carry today.

Because the world surprises us with love and wisdom we can expect collaboration as we move along in life.

Relaxed appreciation is a good start to any meditation or prayer.

No light without dark. No love without loss. Only together can love and loss and light and dark bring awakening.

When awakened try not to forget how cramped life was before so that you can deal kindly with those suffering the claustrophobia of a sleeping soul.

Love between two people is the most relentless but rewarding spiritual path. Lovers are mirrors of every human fault and glory. Together lovers witness the tragedies and comedies of daily life, compounding their reactions, in the laboratory of their relationship.

Inspiration arises from the visible and the invisible. When we pay attention to how inspiration arrives we know where to wait for it.

Excerpt from a Spiritual Mysteries, a book in progress.