I am doing a yard sale tomorrow. A GIGANTIC yard sale. I have been feeling an overwhelming urge to purge this past while. To clean out, throw out, release, discard. To distill and streamline all of my possessions.
This is a huge task, because I have many, many, all too many possessions. I didn’t always have too much. When I was 22, there was a fire in my apartment building, which I escaped in my pajamas. Everything else I owned was burnt, including one of my three cats. After the fire, I possessed literally nothing.
A manuscript of my writing was lost to the flames. It was ironically called Burnt Offerings. Among my most precious offerings were my grandmother’s jewelry and the exquisitely worked infant clothes that she had sewn for my mother, her girl baby. The fire also took my personal archive that used to be stored in my mother’s house before she did the Grand Purge: my scrapbooks, report cards, drawings, awards, photos, etc. The real important stuff.
The fire drove me out to First Street in my nightclothes and in total shock. Luckily, The Catholic Worker charity just happened to be across the street. I ran there barefoot and they gave me a pair of jeans, a pair of sneakers and a sweater. Now I owned three things.
The next day, I withdrew (with quite some difficulty, since I had no passbook or identification) my entire savings of $300. I went to a discount department store and bought underwear, toiletries and an outfit to wear to work. I paid for my purchases and left my wallet on the counter as I walked away, still in a daze. There was to be no more shopping till my next paycheck.
My boyfriend and I spent a couple of months in a Red Cross operated welfare hotel until we could save enough money to get an apartment, a furnished three room place in the Village where we lived for two years. Then I moved alone into a sublet loft for the next two years.
So when I moved into my new loft with my new boyfriend four years after the fire, I still owned next to nothing. I had a sleeping bag, an hibachi, which served as both a stove and a heat source, a box of books and a suitcase of clothes. Nothing else. Nada.
I have been avidly adding to my collections —furnishings, kitchenware, clothes, books, spiritual artifacts, art supplies, office paraphernalia, people, plants, pets —ever since. And now, 37 years later, I am moved to seriously edit and refine my needs and tastes. I want to be surrounded by only those things that are particularly special and meaningful to me.
It has become my practice to throw out, re-cycle, or donate one thing every day. This has been a great way to claim what is truly important to me and to discard what is not. But despite this daily ritual, I still am overwhelmed with accumulated items.
It seems to me that we spend the first half of our lives accumulating things and the second half getting rid of them, paring our possessions down to a manageable cache. This is prime time to check my baggage and lighten up my load.
With blessings of less, which sometimes really can be more,
xxQMD
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
The Queen’s Chronicles: BELLY DANCING
My friend Kay is the official folklorist of Brooklyn. This winter she organized a month long Arab music festival. One of the evenings was a belly dance extravaganza, which I attended with my entire Goddess Group.
I was still on my cane following my fall a few months earlier, but that didn’t prevent me from getting up to swing my hips with everyone else during the participatory dance jam sessions in between the performer’s sets.
How could I stay in my seat? The music was so mesmerizing and the dancers so alluring. A sea of swaying, undulating arms, breasts and bellies, moving to the rhythms of the ages. That room was filled with fiery female energy. We were all, men and women alike, enveloped in the embrace of the Goddess.
“I want to learn how to belly dance,” I announced and Suzanne immediately said that she would take lessons with me. But I was hesitant about attending a class full of twenty-something skinny girls.
I really didn’t want to be the only zaftig mama old enough to almost be their grandmother in the bunch. But then, again, the Queen doesn’t deign to think such petty thoughts. Or does she?
Andrea, one of the women in one of my spirit support groups, a long time belly dancer who is twenty-something, lovely and lithe, directed me to the perfect class. A beginner’s class with women from their twenties to their sixties, every shape, size, color and aptitude.
And so, at the age of 62 I have taken up belly dance. Or perhaps I should say it has taken me up and held me in its thrall. It feels so natural, somehow. Sensual, earthy. elemental. Slightly sinful and delicious. It got my juices flowing big time.
I first saw belly dancing in Morocco thirty years ago. The women were
much older than me, mature and fleshy. Real women who had seen a lot of life and who knew a lot of things. Secure in their own power, they danced with assurance, and emanated an authoritative energy rather like Gypsy flamenco dancers.
Belly dancing gets better with age. My friend Serpentessa is an extraordinary belly dancer who performs with her snakes, She moves like the serpents who are her familiars. She is no spring chicken, but a luscious juicy autumn hen. My teacher’s teacher is coming to New York this fall to give classes in double veil technique. She is in her 80’s.
Last summer I gave a keynote address and workshop about The Queen at the International Goddess Conference in Glastonbury. On the last day there was celebration to honor the 90th birthday of Grand Dame Lady Olivia Robertson, founder of the Fellowship of Isis.
She appeared in a transparent gossamer toga-like garment, trailing veils and her long flowing white hair behind her. She danced slowly, with a concentrated reverence. Every movement was a prayer — in touch, intense and internal. Essential. Archetypal.
A ceremony to crown the Queens and the Crones followed Lady Olivia’s awesome dance. The mature women at the conference chose whether they were Queens or Crones.
There were maybe a hundred Queens sitting in a large circle and about a dozen Crones in a small circle inside of that royal round of Queens. The Maidens and Mothers sat outside of the circle and bore witness to the crownings. Nonagenarian Lady Olivia, Goddess bless her soul, insisted on being crowned a Queen. And so she is! It’s got to be the dancing.
With blessings of supple grace and grandeur,
xxQMD
I was still on my cane following my fall a few months earlier, but that didn’t prevent me from getting up to swing my hips with everyone else during the participatory dance jam sessions in between the performer’s sets.
How could I stay in my seat? The music was so mesmerizing and the dancers so alluring. A sea of swaying, undulating arms, breasts and bellies, moving to the rhythms of the ages. That room was filled with fiery female energy. We were all, men and women alike, enveloped in the embrace of the Goddess.
“I want to learn how to belly dance,” I announced and Suzanne immediately said that she would take lessons with me. But I was hesitant about attending a class full of twenty-something skinny girls.
I really didn’t want to be the only zaftig mama old enough to almost be their grandmother in the bunch. But then, again, the Queen doesn’t deign to think such petty thoughts. Or does she?
Andrea, one of the women in one of my spirit support groups, a long time belly dancer who is twenty-something, lovely and lithe, directed me to the perfect class. A beginner’s class with women from their twenties to their sixties, every shape, size, color and aptitude.
And so, at the age of 62 I have taken up belly dance. Or perhaps I should say it has taken me up and held me in its thrall. It feels so natural, somehow. Sensual, earthy. elemental. Slightly sinful and delicious. It got my juices flowing big time.
I first saw belly dancing in Morocco thirty years ago. The women were
much older than me, mature and fleshy. Real women who had seen a lot of life and who knew a lot of things. Secure in their own power, they danced with assurance, and emanated an authoritative energy rather like Gypsy flamenco dancers.
Belly dancing gets better with age. My friend Serpentessa is an extraordinary belly dancer who performs with her snakes, She moves like the serpents who are her familiars. She is no spring chicken, but a luscious juicy autumn hen. My teacher’s teacher is coming to New York this fall to give classes in double veil technique. She is in her 80’s.
Last summer I gave a keynote address and workshop about The Queen at the International Goddess Conference in Glastonbury. On the last day there was celebration to honor the 90th birthday of Grand Dame Lady Olivia Robertson, founder of the Fellowship of Isis.
She appeared in a transparent gossamer toga-like garment, trailing veils and her long flowing white hair behind her. She danced slowly, with a concentrated reverence. Every movement was a prayer — in touch, intense and internal. Essential. Archetypal.
A ceremony to crown the Queens and the Crones followed Lady Olivia’s awesome dance. The mature women at the conference chose whether they were Queens or Crones.
There were maybe a hundred Queens sitting in a large circle and about a dozen Crones in a small circle inside of that royal round of Queens. The Maidens and Mothers sat outside of the circle and bore witness to the crownings. Nonagenarian Lady Olivia, Goddess bless her soul, insisted on being crowned a Queen. And so she is! It’s got to be the dancing.
With blessings of supple grace and grandeur,
xxQMD
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
The Queen’s Chronicles: AN ANGEL PASSES
Last weekend I spent three days and nights with four very old friends in a lovely country house in Connecticut. We were there to help Sarah prepare for the annual fair on the village green that she directs - a huge endeavor with zillions of details to attend to. Just like my public ritual events.
On the night before the fair we stayed up to all hours preparing the descriptive cards for the silent auction. There we were, five midlife women up way after our bedtime, drinking white wine and trying to come up with snappy slogans for all 90 lots in the auction. Well I tell you!
We were completely slaphappy. Shouting out these ridiculous phrases in praise of Dottie’s Donuts, The Well Manicured Pet, and the Agway. Punning around shamelessly. We just laughed and laughed. Huge, full, deep belly laughs. “When was the last time,” I thought to myself, “that I have laughed so hard for so long?”
I actually remember when. It was at a wonderful brunch that I gave for six friends. Diane, who is always funny, was on a roll that day and kept us in stitches for hours. We laughed the entire afternoon away. It was last fall. Totally wonderful, but entirely too long ago.
I have known Sarah, Erica, Daile, and Kay for decades. They are beloved family for me. Yet I see them for food and fun so rarely. We live in different places and we are all always so busy. It was such a delicious joy to have so much uninterrupted quality time together. Being in their company was like being in the embrace of the Goddess, Herself.
My all time favorite film is Jules et Jim by François Truffaut. There is a beautiful scene in it where these two men, a woman and a child, a loving chosen family, are sitting around after a meal. They are sated and happy, comfortably quiet and content. Safe with each other. Out of the sweet silence Oscar Werner says, “An angel is passing.”
That is exactly how I felt in Connecticut. It was a perfect time. Nothing could ever feel better. An angel definitely passed that night.
Yours for love and laughter,
xxQMD
On the night before the fair we stayed up to all hours preparing the descriptive cards for the silent auction. There we were, five midlife women up way after our bedtime, drinking white wine and trying to come up with snappy slogans for all 90 lots in the auction. Well I tell you!
We were completely slaphappy. Shouting out these ridiculous phrases in praise of Dottie’s Donuts, The Well Manicured Pet, and the Agway. Punning around shamelessly. We just laughed and laughed. Huge, full, deep belly laughs. “When was the last time,” I thought to myself, “that I have laughed so hard for so long?”
I actually remember when. It was at a wonderful brunch that I gave for six friends. Diane, who is always funny, was on a roll that day and kept us in stitches for hours. We laughed the entire afternoon away. It was last fall. Totally wonderful, but entirely too long ago.
I have known Sarah, Erica, Daile, and Kay for decades. They are beloved family for me. Yet I see them for food and fun so rarely. We live in different places and we are all always so busy. It was such a delicious joy to have so much uninterrupted quality time together. Being in their company was like being in the embrace of the Goddess, Herself.
My all time favorite film is Jules et Jim by François Truffaut. There is a beautiful scene in it where these two men, a woman and a child, a loving chosen family, are sitting around after a meal. They are sated and happy, comfortably quiet and content. Safe with each other. Out of the sweet silence Oscar Werner says, “An angel is passing.”
That is exactly how I felt in Connecticut. It was a perfect time. Nothing could ever feel better. An angel definitely passed that night.
Yours for love and laughter,
xxQMD
Thursday, July 3, 2008
The Queen’s Chronicles: INTERDEPENDENCE DAY
I was recently invited to address a gathering of clergy who are being trained to serve as resident chaplains in the pastoral care department of a major urban medical center. Specifically, they asked me to present the shamanic point of view of team building with an emphasis on creating alliances and community.
What a fascinating assignment. I immediately sat myself down to give some serious thought to the substance of their request. After much rifling through of books and files as well as several sessions of deep meditation on the topic at hand, I realized that there is no such thing.
From a shamanic point of view (as well as quantum scientific thought) separation is a false concept. It is redundant to think of reaching out to build teams, alliances, and communities, since we are already all connected, allied, joined together as one. The fact is there is no such thing as opposing sides.
There is only one side: just us folks, all of us everywhere, trying to live life as best we can, much more alike than different. There is no us and them. There is only us. We — all of us who occupy this planet: organic and inorganic; living and not; past, present, and future — are the world.
We come from our Mother Earth and return to Her belly. We are made of the same substance as the sea, the soil, the stars. There are, and ever have been, only so many molecules in existence, and all the rest — birth, growth, death, decay, development, change, evolution, transformation — is really just about recycling.
We breathe the same air as our cave-dwelling ancestors, continually inhaling and exhaling, trading carbon dioxide and oxygen with our plant relatives untold billions of times over the millennia. And the same holds true for water. We drink the tears of crocodiles and elephants. We wash in the drainage of the ages. It rains, it pools, it evaporates, it rains. We drink, we pee, we drink, we pee. Again and again and again in a grand scale cosmic round robin.
All borders and boundaries and separations are pure illusion. Each time we touch someone we leave some of our skin atoms behind and pick up a parcel of new ones in an intimate epidermal exchange. Thus we merge, quite literally becoming part of each other. I am you and you are me and we are we. We are all in this together, inextricably bound, riding on our beautiful blue planet through space and time. We are one team, one community, one world, one living, breathing entity. And the sooner we realize it, the happier, safer, and saner we will be.
Today we are surrounded by artificial division, manipulated resentment and fear-mongered anxiety. The real dynamic being played out right now is not about conflicting religious, economic or nationalistic factions. It is not even about war. The struggle is actually between those who believe that the world is defined in terms of contrast, of black and white opposition — good or evil, right or wrong, war or peace, with us or against us — and those who are able to see things in a more harmonious, holistic and congruent manner.
These are deciding times. It is imperative for those of us who perceive the big picture to make a concerted effort to reach out in ever-expanding circles of affinity, support, and empathetic embrace. Now is the time to create healthy, functioning networks in recognition and in honor of our mutual state of being and our common fate.
Let us come out of the cocoon closets of our isolated, separate selves and set our intentions on unity. Let us come together to make connections. To make friends. To make sense. To make art. To make amends. To make whoopy. To make time. To make magic. To make love. To make change. To make peace in our hearts and on the planet.
Let us project ourselves outward as cooperative partners; as interconnected members of our families, communities, species and world; as consciously coexistent inhabitants of our planet, and as conscientious co-creators of our combined future. Life on Earth depends upon our interdependent efforts.
Yours for a fabulous fourth of July,
xxMama Donna
What a fascinating assignment. I immediately sat myself down to give some serious thought to the substance of their request. After much rifling through of books and files as well as several sessions of deep meditation on the topic at hand, I realized that there is no such thing.
From a shamanic point of view (as well as quantum scientific thought) separation is a false concept. It is redundant to think of reaching out to build teams, alliances, and communities, since we are already all connected, allied, joined together as one. The fact is there is no such thing as opposing sides.
There is only one side: just us folks, all of us everywhere, trying to live life as best we can, much more alike than different. There is no us and them. There is only us. We — all of us who occupy this planet: organic and inorganic; living and not; past, present, and future — are the world.
We come from our Mother Earth and return to Her belly. We are made of the same substance as the sea, the soil, the stars. There are, and ever have been, only so many molecules in existence, and all the rest — birth, growth, death, decay, development, change, evolution, transformation — is really just about recycling.
We breathe the same air as our cave-dwelling ancestors, continually inhaling and exhaling, trading carbon dioxide and oxygen with our plant relatives untold billions of times over the millennia. And the same holds true for water. We drink the tears of crocodiles and elephants. We wash in the drainage of the ages. It rains, it pools, it evaporates, it rains. We drink, we pee, we drink, we pee. Again and again and again in a grand scale cosmic round robin.
All borders and boundaries and separations are pure illusion. Each time we touch someone we leave some of our skin atoms behind and pick up a parcel of new ones in an intimate epidermal exchange. Thus we merge, quite literally becoming part of each other. I am you and you are me and we are we. We are all in this together, inextricably bound, riding on our beautiful blue planet through space and time. We are one team, one community, one world, one living, breathing entity. And the sooner we realize it, the happier, safer, and saner we will be.
Today we are surrounded by artificial division, manipulated resentment and fear-mongered anxiety. The real dynamic being played out right now is not about conflicting religious, economic or nationalistic factions. It is not even about war. The struggle is actually between those who believe that the world is defined in terms of contrast, of black and white opposition — good or evil, right or wrong, war or peace, with us or against us — and those who are able to see things in a more harmonious, holistic and congruent manner.
These are deciding times. It is imperative for those of us who perceive the big picture to make a concerted effort to reach out in ever-expanding circles of affinity, support, and empathetic embrace. Now is the time to create healthy, functioning networks in recognition and in honor of our mutual state of being and our common fate.
Let us come out of the cocoon closets of our isolated, separate selves and set our intentions on unity. Let us come together to make connections. To make friends. To make sense. To make art. To make amends. To make whoopy. To make time. To make magic. To make love. To make change. To make peace in our hearts and on the planet.
Let us project ourselves outward as cooperative partners; as interconnected members of our families, communities, species and world; as consciously coexistent inhabitants of our planet, and as conscientious co-creators of our combined future. Life on Earth depends upon our interdependent efforts.
Yours for a fabulous fourth of July,
xxMama Donna
Thursday, June 12, 2008
The Queen’s Chronicles: WHY FRIDAY THE 13TH IS A VERY LUCKY DAY, INDEED
When the 13th day on the month lands on a Friday, the culturally unfavorable attributes of each are multiplied by infinity. Friday, the day of original sin, the day Jesus died, the day of public hangings, in combination with 13, the number of steps on a gallows, the number of coils of rope in a hangman’s noose, the number of the Death card in the tarot deck, is indubitably designated as a day of portent
and doom.
The pitiful suicide note of a window washer that was found with his body in a gas-filled room at his home and quoted in a 1960 issue of the Yorkshire Post, underscores its powerful, popular reputation, "It just needed to rain today — Friday the 13th — for me to make up my mind." Poor sod.
But up until the patriarchal revolution, both Fridays and 13s were held in the very highest esteem. Both the day and the number were associated with the Great Goddesses, and therefore, regarded as the sacred essence of luck and good fortune. Thirteen is certainly the most essentially female number — the average number of menstrual cycles in a year. The approximate number, too of annual cycles of the moon. When Chinese women make offerings of moon cakes, there are sure to be 13 on the platter. Thirteen is the number of blood, fertility and lunar potency. 13 is the lucky number of the Great Goddess.
Held holy in Her honor, Friday was observed as the day of Her special celebrations. Jews around the world still begin the observance of the Sabbath at sunset on Friday evenings when they invite in the Sabbath Bride. Friday is the Sabbath in the Islamic world. Friday is also sacred to Oshun, the Yoruban orisha of opulent sensuality and overwhelming femininity, and Frig the Norse Goddess of love and sex, of fertility and creativity. Her name became the Anglo-Saxon noun for love, and in the sixteenth century, frig came to mean “to copulate.”
Friday the 13th is ultimately the celebration of the lives and loves of Lady Luck. On this, Her doubly-dedicated day, let us consider what fortuitous coincidences constitute our fate. The lucky blend of just the right conditions, chemistries, elements and energies, which comprise our universe. The way it all works. The way we are. That we are at all. That, despite whatever major or minor matters we might think are unlucky, we have somehow managed to remain alive and aware. This Friday the 13th, let us stand in full consciousness of the miraculousness of existence and count our blessings. Knock on wood.
With blessings of nectar and honey,
xxQMD
and doom.
The pitiful suicide note of a window washer that was found with his body in a gas-filled room at his home and quoted in a 1960 issue of the Yorkshire Post, underscores its powerful, popular reputation, "It just needed to rain today — Friday the 13th — for me to make up my mind." Poor sod.
But up until the patriarchal revolution, both Fridays and 13s were held in the very highest esteem. Both the day and the number were associated with the Great Goddesses, and therefore, regarded as the sacred essence of luck and good fortune. Thirteen is certainly the most essentially female number — the average number of menstrual cycles in a year. The approximate number, too of annual cycles of the moon. When Chinese women make offerings of moon cakes, there are sure to be 13 on the platter. Thirteen is the number of blood, fertility and lunar potency. 13 is the lucky number of the Great Goddess.
Held holy in Her honor, Friday was observed as the day of Her special celebrations. Jews around the world still begin the observance of the Sabbath at sunset on Friday evenings when they invite in the Sabbath Bride. Friday is the Sabbath in the Islamic world. Friday is also sacred to Oshun, the Yoruban orisha of opulent sensuality and overwhelming femininity, and Frig the Norse Goddess of love and sex, of fertility and creativity. Her name became the Anglo-Saxon noun for love, and in the sixteenth century, frig came to mean “to copulate.”
Friday the 13th is ultimately the celebration of the lives and loves of Lady Luck. On this, Her doubly-dedicated day, let us consider what fortuitous coincidences constitute our fate. The lucky blend of just the right conditions, chemistries, elements and energies, which comprise our universe. The way it all works. The way we are. That we are at all. That, despite whatever major or minor matters we might think are unlucky, we have somehow managed to remain alive and aware. This Friday the 13th, let us stand in full consciousness of the miraculousness of existence and count our blessings. Knock on wood.
With blessings of nectar and honey,
xxQMD
Saturday, June 7, 2008
The Queen’s Chronicles: MY BEE CAME BACK TO SAY GOODBY
For years, there has been a certain auspicious day every spring when a bumblebee would fly onto my terrace garden where it would hover contentedly everyday, all day long, throughout the entire summer, until a certain day in autumn when it would fly away.
This ritual visitation took place without fail for more than 15 years until a few years ago when my bee stopped showing up. I say “my bee.” But was it? Could it possibly have been the same bee for a decade and a half? How long to do bees live?
Or did my fuzzy fat friend select a successor who also passed the mantle when her vacation time was up? But whether or not it was the same bee, it was definitely my bee. My buddy. My constant summer companion. My nectar-gathering compatriot.
In Hellenistic Greece, bees were understood to be related to and a manifestation of the muse. My bee was an inspiration to me, as well, and I missed her visits dearly. And so did my flowers.
My bee isn’t the only one who stopped showing up. Millions upon millions of bees all over the world have been abandoning their hives and simply disappearing. Scientists named this mysterious phenomena colony collapse disorder.
If they are dying, they have chosen to do it in private, because large numbers of their corpses have not been found. Last year I found three dead bee bodies on the sidewalk just outside of my building. I saved their remains and added them to my growing collection of dead bumblebees. I keep my beautiful box filled with dead bees on my healing altar, where I pray for their wellbeing.
In some areas over sixty percent of the American honeybee population has died or disappeared during the past ten years, and this trend is continuing around the world. The potential results of this trend are terrifying. After all, one in three bites of all that we consume has been pollinated by bees.
In 1923 Rudolf Steiner predicted the dire state of the honeybee today. He said that within fifty to eighty years, we would see the consequences of mechanizing the forces that had previously operated organically in the beehive — including breeding queen bees artificially.
Well, I could have them that the Queens don’t take interference kindly. And now they are having their royal revenge — a terrible, drastic, exacting retribution, which maybe, just maybe, might force us to rethink our precarious relationship with Mother Nature.
Last week, my bee came back. I was completely delighted, overtaken by the depth and passion of my joy at our reunion. She hovered in front of my face for a moment then landed on my leg. And stayed there for a really long time, our bodies buzzing in unison.
Soon I noticed that she was uncharacteristically lethargic. Oh, no! Did she come back to die on me? I began to stroke her back ever so softly. I whispered prayers and gave her reiki. Then, because I had to leave, I placed her on the dirt of one of my flowering plants. If she was going to die, I wanted it to be in nature.
When I returned home a few hours later, the first thing I did was rush out to check on the bee, half expecting to see her lying on her back with her legs sticking up in the air.
But she was gone. Just gone.
“Like the bees from which this exhibition has drawn its name, we are individuals, yet we are, most surely, like the bees, a group, and as a group we have, over the millennia, built ourselves a hive, our home. We would be foolish, to say the least, to turn our backs on this carefully and beautifully constructed home especially now, in these uncertain and unsettling times.”
-The Museum of Jurassic Technology, Venice , CA
With blessings of nectar and honey,
xxQMD
This ritual visitation took place without fail for more than 15 years until a few years ago when my bee stopped showing up. I say “my bee.” But was it? Could it possibly have been the same bee for a decade and a half? How long to do bees live?
Or did my fuzzy fat friend select a successor who also passed the mantle when her vacation time was up? But whether or not it was the same bee, it was definitely my bee. My buddy. My constant summer companion. My nectar-gathering compatriot.
In Hellenistic Greece, bees were understood to be related to and a manifestation of the muse. My bee was an inspiration to me, as well, and I missed her visits dearly. And so did my flowers.
My bee isn’t the only one who stopped showing up. Millions upon millions of bees all over the world have been abandoning their hives and simply disappearing. Scientists named this mysterious phenomena colony collapse disorder.
If they are dying, they have chosen to do it in private, because large numbers of their corpses have not been found. Last year I found three dead bee bodies on the sidewalk just outside of my building. I saved their remains and added them to my growing collection of dead bumblebees. I keep my beautiful box filled with dead bees on my healing altar, where I pray for their wellbeing.
In some areas over sixty percent of the American honeybee population has died or disappeared during the past ten years, and this trend is continuing around the world. The potential results of this trend are terrifying. After all, one in three bites of all that we consume has been pollinated by bees.
In 1923 Rudolf Steiner predicted the dire state of the honeybee today. He said that within fifty to eighty years, we would see the consequences of mechanizing the forces that had previously operated organically in the beehive — including breeding queen bees artificially.
Well, I could have them that the Queens don’t take interference kindly. And now they are having their royal revenge — a terrible, drastic, exacting retribution, which maybe, just maybe, might force us to rethink our precarious relationship with Mother Nature.
Last week, my bee came back. I was completely delighted, overtaken by the depth and passion of my joy at our reunion. She hovered in front of my face for a moment then landed on my leg. And stayed there for a really long time, our bodies buzzing in unison.
Soon I noticed that she was uncharacteristically lethargic. Oh, no! Did she come back to die on me? I began to stroke her back ever so softly. I whispered prayers and gave her reiki. Then, because I had to leave, I placed her on the dirt of one of my flowering plants. If she was going to die, I wanted it to be in nature.
When I returned home a few hours later, the first thing I did was rush out to check on the bee, half expecting to see her lying on her back with her legs sticking up in the air.
But she was gone. Just gone.
“Like the bees from which this exhibition has drawn its name, we are individuals, yet we are, most surely, like the bees, a group, and as a group we have, over the millennia, built ourselves a hive, our home. We would be foolish, to say the least, to turn our backs on this carefully and beautifully constructed home especially now, in these uncertain and unsettling times.”
-The Museum of Jurassic Technology, Venice , CA
With blessings of nectar and honey,
xxQMD
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
The Queen’s Chronicles: TIME TO PLANT TREES
Lately I’ve seen several outrageous television commercials that blithely extol the benefits of throwaway dust rags and floor mops and disposable baby bibs, of all things. Apparently the landfills are not yet filled to over-flowing capacity with pampers as I had assumed. As it is, every American uses an average of 4-6 trees a year on paper goods, wood products, and newsprint.
Knowing myself to be a concerned citizen and certified Queen of Reducing, Re-using and Recycling, I feel morally indignant in the face of such crass waste. The mere sight of The New York Sunday Times stacked in high piles at the newsstand fills me with queasy guilt. Heaven forbid I should buy one. I take my own bags to the grocery. I use cloth napkins and hankies and refuse to use paper towels. I’m the one who used the same paper bag for 65 days worth of coffees-to-go.
All well and good, but what have I done lately? What did I do today?
This is an important distinction: what did I do versus what did I not do. The issue is not how many trees did I save, but how many trees did I plant? I am 62-years old. That means that I should have planted 250-350 trees by now to replace those that I have used. While I have conducted quite a few tree-planting ceremonies over the years, I still owe the earth a new orchard, at least.
Maybe it is self-defeating to think that we should be giving up comforts and luxuries in order to be more environmentally correct and connected. Such negative terminology doesn’t make acting conscientiously seem like a very attractive prospect, but rather like some sort of deprivation that would appeal only to martyrs. That’s just bad psychology. Unproductive. The medicine does not have to taste bad in order to work well.
Perhaps it is more fruitful to think not of giving something up, but of giving something back. It is the most elemental and universal rule of etiquette that if you take something, you put it back; if you use something, you replace it — plus some. While saving and conserving are admirable virtues to be commended and encouraged, being generous and proactively responsive is equally crucial to our survival, body and soul. Take less. Give more.
It is pay back time. So I pledge to plant trees this Spring. As many as I can. Won’t you join me?
Let’s plant trees everywhere. In our gardens, inside our houses, throughout our parks and school-yards. Even those of us who live in the most crowded cement cities can join a community garden or participate in a park clean-up and planting day.
We can “buy” acres of rain forest to give as gifts or have trees planted in honor of all the special occasions celebrated by friends and family. We could adopt a neighborhood or a stretch of highway and help take care of it. Like a brigade of Green Guerilla Queens, we could spread out and scatter wildflower seeds in every vacant lot, strip, mall and avenue median. Just like Queen Lady Bird did.
With best vernal blessings,
xxQMD
Knowing myself to be a concerned citizen and certified Queen of Reducing, Re-using and Recycling, I feel morally indignant in the face of such crass waste. The mere sight of The New York Sunday Times stacked in high piles at the newsstand fills me with queasy guilt. Heaven forbid I should buy one. I take my own bags to the grocery. I use cloth napkins and hankies and refuse to use paper towels. I’m the one who used the same paper bag for 65 days worth of coffees-to-go.
All well and good, but what have I done lately? What did I do today?
This is an important distinction: what did I do versus what did I not do. The issue is not how many trees did I save, but how many trees did I plant? I am 62-years old. That means that I should have planted 250-350 trees by now to replace those that I have used. While I have conducted quite a few tree-planting ceremonies over the years, I still owe the earth a new orchard, at least.
Maybe it is self-defeating to think that we should be giving up comforts and luxuries in order to be more environmentally correct and connected. Such negative terminology doesn’t make acting conscientiously seem like a very attractive prospect, but rather like some sort of deprivation that would appeal only to martyrs. That’s just bad psychology. Unproductive. The medicine does not have to taste bad in order to work well.
Perhaps it is more fruitful to think not of giving something up, but of giving something back. It is the most elemental and universal rule of etiquette that if you take something, you put it back; if you use something, you replace it — plus some. While saving and conserving are admirable virtues to be commended and encouraged, being generous and proactively responsive is equally crucial to our survival, body and soul. Take less. Give more.
It is pay back time. So I pledge to plant trees this Spring. As many as I can. Won’t you join me?
Let’s plant trees everywhere. In our gardens, inside our houses, throughout our parks and school-yards. Even those of us who live in the most crowded cement cities can join a community garden or participate in a park clean-up and planting day.
We can “buy” acres of rain forest to give as gifts or have trees planted in honor of all the special occasions celebrated by friends and family. We could adopt a neighborhood or a stretch of highway and help take care of it. Like a brigade of Green Guerilla Queens, we could spread out and scatter wildflower seeds in every vacant lot, strip, mall and avenue median. Just like Queen Lady Bird did.
With best vernal blessings,
xxQMD
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