a willingness for beauty

Okay - another bee update. Yesterday was rained out, so no super removal. I did spend a lot of the day, too much of the day, trying to organize the people who'd offered their help. As a person who instinctively and impulsively offers help and follows through with those offers, I find lack of follow through vexing. Vexing is actually a gentle way of putting it. People who offer and then seem irritated at being asked to follow through especially push some pretty tender spots in my emotional make-up. I also had someone who offered to pick up and deliver some equipment for me insist on being paid for their time and mileage after they dropped said equipment off. My bad. I assumed it was a kindness, not a business transaction.

But those disappointments are not what I want to focus on today. In meditation last night, I realized how much I have taken responsibility for right outcome with this, what a burden that has been to me, and how much I have allowed this to enrage and irritate me. This morning, I read a few things that also shifted my orientation from dread about the upcoming honey harvest to a willingness to find it beautiful. I reminded myself that my responsibility is to show up and to be present, to listen to myself. That there is too much else involved for me to claim sole responsibility for outcome. That and a full-coverage bee suit, and I was calm and ready.

The first helper was actually there when I got there, smoker going, equipment ready. He was around my age, dressed how matt would have been, which helped immensely. As it turned out the three other people who said they would help never came. But the helper I had was calm, respectful, funny. He was in no way patronizing as some of the older potential helpers had been via email. He remembered me announcing that my partner had died at a beekeeping meeting that first year. He had a perfectly calm response to my few teary moments speaking of matt. He encouraged me to really think about whether I was going to give up beekeeping, but didn't try to convince me not to. He did most of the work and was not one bit annoyed or impatient with the bees or with me. It was, quite simply, beautiful. A gift to me.

So now I am home. Five supers full of honey waiting to be uncapped and spun out. Podcasts loaded on the ipod for background. This went well. Willingness for beauty really helped me out today.


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