An edible fruit called the Hackberry sent us to the Emergency Room this week. Or rather, I chose that it was the path we would take after Aurora curiously sent this pitted berry up her nose and it disappeared. The image I can’t move through is her being wrapped up like a mummy in a blanket on the Emergency Room bed. She was screaming, tears rolling down her face, as the doctor took a little scoop like tool, shoved it up her nose and popped out the giant seed that is enmeshed within the flesh of this tasty berry. The doctor seemed to disappear the seed as like it was never there in the first place.
It was as though a message came through at this moment that when we pay attention only to the flesh of our being, the inner seed of what we are trying to grow will disappear.
I felt then that part of Aurora’s magical being was also disappearing as she endured this perhaps momentary trauma of being bound and unable to hold authority over her delicate nasal cavity.
This may seem dramatic, but is it?
Those small moments when you give your power away, or when you feel powerless, and those deep inner gifts and seeds end up disappearing. One never begins to manifest what their inner being longed to cultivate.
Were there voices around you, your own ego even, that shut off the sprinkler to your own inner seeds that only you could possibly tend?
Perhaps it is the seduction of the tasty flesh that makes you spit out the seed, never to sprout that inner divine voice in the first place.
The flesh may represent the drive to make money over the drive to tend your soul’s request to plant more trees. I understand the relevance of creating money, just like the tasty flesh’s importance for the seed to be chosen and planted, but instead of leading from the flesh, listen and lead with the seed. How does your inner strength and resolve, connected with the divine, guide you to do so?
The monument race track we have been placed upon that says control, force and aggression are the ways to free this seed from your child’s nose. But in the long term, the seed disappears along with the child’s innocence.
She nor I have not been the same since. Her demeanor has shifted and her emotions have enlarged.
I know what you’re thinking: I should be grateful it is out.
A family should be grateful to be eating after they slaved away all day.
But I call attention to the inner light that is so needed at this time. A light that shines with love and trust instead of one who feels controlled and so then feels the need to control. Another way of saying this is being led by the ego rather than our inner divinity.
This ego pattern, how do we transform it?
After the visit we had to the Emergency Room, I brought Aurora to the Flea Market to find a few things we needed and find her something fun after this excursion. She found a duck book, and I found a book with quotes for mothers that line up alongside adorable animal photos.
In one of the photos is an Orangutan holding her baby in the trees. Along with each of the photos and quotes there’s a tidbit about the animal.
The Orangutan, it is said, does not scramble from tree to tree looking for fruit like other apes. Rather, it watches for hours while sitting in one tree, and when ready will swing from tree to tree and land perfectly in the abundantly filled fruit tree.
They explained further in the book that a scientist did an experiment that compared the cognitive techniques of Orangutans and chimps by placing a peg alongside a board with holes in it, where the peg only fits into one of the holes. The chimp would aggressively try the peg in all of the holes until finding the right one. The Orangutan on the other hand waited, picked up the peg and scratched her head and then without looking at the board, placed the peg in the correct hole.
Perhaps some people must act out like the Chimpanzee, which is certainly what I have done much of my life, acting through this masculine way of action without first listening to the feminine side of myself.
The Orangutan shows me that, yes, I can reunite the feminine way of resting, patience, and going within—into the darkness, where the seeds of our soul can be born. And as we listen to that deep inner voice, only then may we be ready to take action.
It reminds me of Rudolph Steiner’s prediction in his nine lectures on bees published in 1923. He warned about the inevitable challenges the bees would face in fifty to eighty years due to the mechanization that was happening to their hives at the time. He said that the approach may seem very attractive in the moment and be making beekeeping easier, but in the long run the bees would be severely affected since they could not live out their natural processes.
And it’s true. So what has been forgotten there?
The bees are the ancient and revered ones whose sacred teachings show us what the feminine principals are, and with their collapse they are showing us that we are not upholding these important aspects of ourselves.
Looking around me, and with the collapse of both of my beehives this year, I know I have a ways to go. Perhaps these patterns can’t be relearned in a lifetime but rather something that may be carried over as the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren continue on with this work.
This quote from the series Rings of Power has stuck with me: “Sometimes to find the light, we must first touch the darkness.”
Here we are with the most glorious opportunity, as we have touched the darkness as a civilization. As the bees live most of their lives within the darkness, we too may begin by going within, into the darkness, reaching into the soul’s innermost knowing. It is here where we can find our inner light and the guidance we seek.
And as we begin to reclaim our divine feminine, we will be able to find, save, and replant our sacred seeds of power.
With Love,
Louise and the Bees
You did an absolutely beautiful job sharing this story, Louise. She will carry both a mental & physical memory of this experience . . . But as a Mom, you knew it needed to be removed. I “Shared” it with many today. Thank you for applying language to those things we forget to remember. ~ Teesie