A body is neither a limit nor a cage,
but a flower on the vine of who you are.
And those bees buzzing
all around you?
Those zoom-zoom experiences
that keep swarming your life?
They just want to
collect your holy nectar
and take it back to their hive
so they can toast you
all winter long, quite possibly
for the rest of their lives.
Best to stop swatting them away
and open your petals wide–
invite them in for a landing.
Let them suckle upon
the sweet marrow of your being,
and carry your Love to wherever it’s needed.
The flower’s surrender does not require
an understanding of where its gifts are taken,
only the loss of all opinion concerning worthiness.
Those buzzing beauties will never stop trying, anyway.
Having tasted your sweetness once before,
they are incapable of interpreting
your shrieks and karate chops as anything but
the most exuberant, holy jokes.
Oh, how they love it when you tease them so.
You should know–
all your playful swatting is just
fanning the flame at the center of their being,
reminding them with agonizing Desire
that the very nature of their existence
is a perpetual coming closer.
Embracing Forever 
Yes! This resonates. Thank you!! Perfect.
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Thank you, Shailie! Much appreciated, as is your own writing. It is resonantly delightful!
Michael
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Oh I love this! Smiling. Such a heart-opening way to see it. It reminds me of Rumi’s poem about welcoming all visitors. Yeah, let those buzzing beauties in!
Alison
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Right! I have read that one I am sure, probably several times, as it rings familiar. If minds were truly separate, you could probably make the argument I engaged in some kind of chicanery here, but it gets kind of dicey to figure who borrowed what and from Whom inside of this boundaryless Everyone.
Would you kindly pass the Hafiz?
Thank you.
Michael
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Awesome post Michael. What a beautiful way to look at our bodies and path. Being a nature lover, this one really hooked me with its delightful imagery and perspective. I will do my best to surrender to all the feelings, people and events buzzing around me wanting to taste the divine nectar of my being. Thank you!!! 🙂
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Thank you, Brad. It is hard not to be a nature lover in this world. My wife and I often tell each other, as one of those jokes featuring the purest of ironies, “I hate nature.” Usually following a moment when one has just discovered that a woodchuck has consumed her heirloom day lilies, or a fungus decided to digest some wood in the mulched areas… But once you realize the whole world hinges upon bees, it’s kinda’ hard not to have a little reverence… 🙂
Michael
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Agreed, and good reminder. Reverence and awe are wonderful ways to live. 🙂
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(and the flowers blushed, ruffled in shy delight … )
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You said it, M. I gotta believe that when something approaches you for a landing with a pair of feathers beating at about 10,000 RPM, it probably starts tickling while they’re still a good few inches out… 🙂
Michael
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“The flower’s surrender does not require
an understanding of where its gifts are taken,
only the loss of all opinion concerning worthiness.”
This rings truly profound for me today. Special delivery a la Michael; it never ceases to amaze me how I often get what I need from your beautifully crafted Presents/Presence Thank you.
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Hi Amanda,
I’m always moved and grateful to discover a moment of inspiration gave birth to something, and that the something took flight and was able to find a home in the heart of a friend. It reminds me that the act of creating is always about something greater– that the open-minded-open-hearted act of receiving and translating something invisible into form is always linked to the movement of vast chains of beings. Thank you for linking up…!
Michael
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this is fricking awesome? “exuberant, holy jokes.” so much i love love love here. and i giggle inside because i see myself. thanks michael!
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Thanks, Malaika! What a great comment… I have lived this one myself, jabbed at life’s gifts, swatted them away, been withdrawn and pensive instead of free and, well, pensive. Ha! It is a good thing, though, to recognize and laugh at yourself isn’t it? Kind of smooths it all out… 🙂
Michael
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This poem is the bees knees. Here you go again, tapping into that vein, hitting the sauce, falling off the wagon, causing all the bean counters and census takers to fall into piles of laughter – You got me forgetting to protect that which can never be harmed, deflowered and blooming yet again.
** OPEN THIS PAGE AT YOUR OWN RISK – and ONLY when you have finished your reports, good and proper-like. For if you open early, you may forget to make any sort of accounting at all! Will my students get grades for their summer work? I’m just not sure anymore 🙂
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Any time one of us rediscovers the place of “forgetting to protect what can never be harmed” I think the whole world inches towards a joyous new beginning. Thanks for unfurling the sail here with me and casting your vote to point the ship to sea, catch some air, and find out where it takes us. I don’t know what to tell you about the essays, unfortunately. I’m trying something new at work– never leaving this space even though things still clamor for attention and I find ways to do them. When everything starts to blur together, it’s a pretty incredible feeling. I’m up to about halfway through the morning commute so far…! But it’s still delicious. 🙂
Michael
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Ah, I love to see this spaciousness being revealed in your words (as it was never not there) behind the ticktock clock busyness of modern life. I’m working this terrain, as well, you know! somedays just to the morning teapot, and other days, as you say, clear into the commute. On days I’ve conquered as my own, such as today, in pjs doing grades, I forget there was ever any confusion! I’m the betting sort, and so I wager that soonish the space expands well into lunch!?! 🙂 See you at the water cooler!
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The water cooler was given a hard time at the office this week, since the coffee machine AND the reserve coffee machine both failed us. Nothing like seeing a small contingent of engineers standing at random spots on a tile floor, staring at the space where the coffee machine USED to be. We’re installing an alarm system and putting together a preventative maintenance plan as we speak.
It was a great way to interrupt the normal for just a moment, so this spaciousness could slip into the room and play…
Michael
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Another gem from your ever-creative pen. I particularly enjoyed the lines:
The flower’s surrender does not require
an understanding of where its gifts are taken,
only the loss of all opinion concerning worthiness.
The Coleman Barks translation of the Rumi poem mentioned above by Alison can be found at the folowing link: http://www.gratefulness.org/poetry/guest_house.htm
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Thank you for the link, Don! Yes, I have definitely read that one before. Such beauty in those words… Discovering poets like Rumi was like discovering music for the first time… Or discovering you really ARE alive…
Michael
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love this…it made me smile… 🙂
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Excellent. Thank you, Aleya!
Michael
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I am loling inside once again. JUST earlier in this past week I spent a fair amount of time looking at apiculture. I was looking into one of the oldest apiary schools in the world, Rucher Ecole, which keeps it’s beautiful old beehives in the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris:
They have been a formal bee keeping school since 1856. And I just discovered that they have branched out and moved some of their hives also to the garden at the Saint James. As I watched the following, I was thinking about what it takes not to give in to the urge for swatting 🙂 :
Are you familiar with the Saint James? I think we should sent out a virtual reality invitation for any who care to join us for an apéritif along with a good conversation in the garden at this particular form of guest house. What a de toute beauté place to gather together with each other and the bees!
May be all remember that we are worthy of enjoying (and creating) such loveliness. -x.M
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Yes, indeed! May we all remember we are worthy of enjoying and creating such loveliness and more. The video of the guy with the smoker swapping out the honeycombs (my ignorance of bee-keeping is about to boil over here) was great. And not only because of the Black Keys sound track. It’s amazing to see them all crawling all over one another and being so closely packed in there. You really do have to be working from an incredible base of Love to be so devoted…
I am not familiar with St. James, but now that you have seeded my consciousness, we will see what happens… 🙂
Michael
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