417. The bee is more honored than other animals, not because she labors, but because she labors for others. St. John Chrysostom

by

13

Today the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove.  Now it is time to sit quite, face to face with thee, and to sing dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure.  ~Rabindranath Tagore

Screen shot 2014-07-05 at 1.42.33 PM

Veiled in this fragile filigree of wax is the essence of sunshine, golden and limpid, tasting of grassy meadows, mountain wildflowers, lavishly blooming orange trees, or scrubby desert weeds. Honey, even more than wine, is a reflection of place. If the process of grape to glass is alchemy, then the trail from blossom to bottle is one of reflection. The nectar collected by the bee is the spirit and sap of the plant, its sweetest juice. Honey is the flower transmuted, its scent and beauty transformed into aroma and taste. 
 ~Stephanie Rosenbaum

Screen shot 2014-07-05 at 1.51.48 PM

The careful insect ‘midst his works I view,
Now from the flowers exhaust the fragrant dew,
With golden treasures load his little thighs,
And steer his distant journey through the skies.
~John Gay

Screen shot 2014-07-04 at 3.53.13 PM

His labor is a chant,
His idleness a tune;
Oh, for the bee’s experience
Of clovers, and of noon.
~Emily Dickinson

Eat honey, my child, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. ~Proverbs 24:13  ✝

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace! Like Saint Hildegard Lord, may I too be a feather on your holy breath and spread, like seeds, the gospel abroad.

**Images via Pinterest

13 thoughts on “417. The bee is more honored than other animals, not because she labors, but because she labors for others. St. John Chrysostom”

  2. As sweet as honey your post dear Natalie ! Extraordinary quotes and photos to praise those hard working and blessed insects !!! You have done really very meticulous work my friend ! Love ~♥~♥~♥~ and kisses , Doda 🙂

    Like

    Reply

    • Thanks, Cookie. I wasn’t familiar with St. John until today, but like with Hildegard, I enjoyed reading about him. I love honey too and adore the little bees that make it as well. As you know they are terribly endangered right now and so we who garden must plant things to encourage them to come to our gardens. Normally I have lots of them but am very alarmed that the numbers are down considerably this year. As good a cook as you are, I’ll bet you make some yummy things with honey. Hugs and love, Natalie 🙂

      Like

      Reply

      • you and I both—our yard / pasture yard–(don’t tell Gregory that, he gets insulted 🙂 ) is mostly clover—where normally it is overrun with honey bees—not so much as of late—so many more bumblebees and very few honey bees–I had said when I retired I wanted to start a bee hive—but I am terrified by the African bees trying to usurp a normally mild mannered regular honey bee hive—-first my chickens, then we shall see…
        hugs—Julie

        Like

    • Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed the post. Sadly bees are endangered all over the world and have been in decline for decades. The scientists struggled to find out why and now they think they know, but they can’t be sure yet that they will be able to make a comeback. One of the ways, we who garden, can help is to plant the things on that list. Blessings, Natalie 🙂

      Like

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.