Honey

Love is like honey.  Yesterday, I was cleaning out my pantry and found a mason jar of honey I bought in Asheville, NC  last year, that I didn’t use very much because it had the whole honeycomb filling it, and I couldn’t get the honey out of the jar without scooping up some of the waxy stuff.  So, I got out a bowl and a strainer and placed the jar of honey on the strainer upside down.  It was a process of waiting for the honey to slowly go through the little holes and down into the bowl.  I was happy to see that my idea was working quite well.  There wasn’t anything to do except be with this process. This sweet nectar was so beautiful, a rich, gorgeous amber color .  When held up to the sunlight, it turned into gold.

The honey was in the jar, along with the messy honeycomb, and I saw the potential of having a nice jar of pure honey sitting on my shelf.  I saw the immediacy of not having to dig through the honey comb.  It was going to be much easier to get a scoopful of honey for my tea.  It would be there, present, within my reach.  Towards the end, I had to mash it with a fork, to push the honey through the comb and extract as much as I could.  The comb was finally dry and my honey was ready for it’s container.

That is the way love is.. a pool of nectar, flawless, pure, sustainable, within reach.  Beautiful like my jar of honey, it sits on the shelf of the pantry, behind closed doors.  It is there all the time, but it is not always in my awareness.  It is only when I think of a nice cup of tea, that it beckons to me..Open the pantry doors, I am sitting on the shelf.  I am here.  I boil the water, get the teabag, and reach for the honey.   It isn’t waxy anymore, it is ready to use, simple.  No effort now, no work, it is smooth and perfect.  My spoon reaches down into the thick amber and goes into my cup, melting, swimming.  It fills the cup, filling the cup of tea with it’s magic.  Drinking it , gratitude somehow comes into my awareness.  Just a simple act of drinking a cup of tea, with a touch of honey from a divine queen bee and her worker bees, I drink it all in.  Love in a cup.  All the work of my honey straining, all of the work of the bees, all of the sunshine and happy days and bees on flowers collecting pollen, skip me down the street.

There was nothing but joy that created a bee, a flower, a spoonful of honey, a cup of tea.  Love is like honey.


written by Karen Ferguson