Hiding Out On Earth Making Honey

Like actors in a great science fiction movie, we're kind of doing our thing here on Earth in these costumes of the human kind. It's almost like making white combs and sweet honey from our old failures.

Date:   9/19/2005 12:14:15 AM   ( 19 y ) ... viewed 2002 times

We can sometimes look at our lives to represent a sort of movement through time and space in “camouflage:” that is, we’re “hiding out” in these earth-costumes, doing our thing in these human bodies.

It’s kind of like Hollywood actors walking around in their space suits for the movie 2001 Space Odyssey. They’re actors in costume. That’s us. Actors in costumes.

My friend Lee and I had a great talk yesterday about esoteric matters: how our work in graduate school is really is meant to help society and our culture. It is as though in whatever role we take in life, it’s all camouflage. We’re spirits in a material world, with apologizes to Sting and the Police.

Or so it seems!

So, let’s keep moving.

I was doing some work yesterday and the name “Angeles Arrien” came to mind, so let’s go to her book, The Four-Fold Way, and see what happens.

It is a poem:
Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvellous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.
—Antonio Machado, Times Alone, (p. 48)

A beautiful poem, no? “Healers in any tradition are skilled in the art of acknowledgement,” writes Arrien (p. 49). Well, I acknowledge my appreciation and gratitude for this time of being able to write, of being here in a home where I can have the space and freedom to write and breathe—this, I do feel tremendously grateful for. I have been given a gift for some time: for many years, actually; for I have been able to live this way always, huh? I’ve always been able to live in a way that allowed for solitude when necessary—well, almost.

This life is in a way, a movement in making honey. I’d like to think so. Then I can make a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich and give it a really good taste.

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