back with the bees

went down to the gowanus sewagecanal, by the salt mines, where some young folk r recreating space, composting and purifying the water. a lot of them are architect students in landscaping or recent grads. good for them. they r also hosting a couple beehives.

olivia n kim r repsonsible for the hives. they were recruited by the gowanus kids, n have been caring for the bees since may. i met olivia n kim last year, in march, when we started our 6 month internship on keeping bees, with master beekeeper tim o'neil.

tim's a dope dude, tall and doofy in a cute-cool midwest way. u could tell he spent a lot of time with bees growing up and still does. he's real passionate about them and goes into tangents on tangents that make you bust out a notebook and scrawl like he was sharing recipes on human behavior.

bee behavior is wild, because its the opposite of the babylon human.

unlike the 'do-me', 'me-myself-n-i' culture here, the bees r like india indians. there's mad of them. thousands spilling out their 6 frame flat of three stories. and they r working harder than men pulling carts like ox in bangladesh.

olivia invited me, like a vet inviting his bud to go shoot in the range. i threw on some shorts and a tee and met olivia and kim at the redeveloping toxic site. they were both in suits, like astronaughts, discovering outter space. i since i was a bit exposed, i'd figured i would just watch ease into things, afterall, i was part of the team now. but the more i saw the hum drum music of the bees, the more i was drawn in. olivia noticed it, and handed me her suit, going off to cut up a frame of honey into a bucket.

i got stung twice, while observing and replacing frames. then a third time when we were leaving. there was a patch of honey on my calves and a bee was dipping in. it died for sweetness. again, i was wearing shorts and decided to cut up a couple of the frames that were thick and dripping with the honey of the bees. this was cool, but i made the mistake of neatly cutting an entire frame along the edges. before i could slide it in, the frame fell and broke in half, one part of which i caught. that part splattered all over my legs.

so what i learned was that i should cut the honey frames in half, instead of in full. but the deeper lesson was that i was relearning the bees, having been away from them since september or october of last year.

reconnecting takes calm, humbleness, meditation. i was going through the frames too fast, not pausing enough to watch them, give them the reverence they deserve, the breath of Oneness that joins Us together.

i was audience-conscious: didn't want my fellow beekeepers to think i forgot, that i slipped. i noticed this in meta thoughts, when i thought about my fasting, of aligning with the One, and asked kim about festooning and other terms i forgot.

by the end of the session i was pinned with lessons for pause. all praise is due...