I've been checking the beehives every couple of weeks.  At the beginning of the summer there was a lot of honey, things were building up quickly and it looked like a great year for honey making.  I was excited, looking forward to selling at the market, feeling kind of proud of myself (as if I had much to do with it).  Then it started raining.  Everyone was happy, we've had so little rain for so many years and it meant lots of flowers and thus lots of honey.  A good year for the bees.  Then it kept raining and did not stop for weeks.  When I checked the hives the honey was gone, the bees using it to stay alive when they couldn't forage.  Now folks are starting to feed sugar water hoping to just keep the hives going.  All those wildflowers and the bees can't get to them. 

Somehow this seems like a bigger message.  Life just goes wrong sometimes; often.  What seems to be good might not be.  We can do everything right and it still doesn't work.  Sometimes all we can do is hold on, do what we can, and keep moving forward.  Sometimes all we can do is hold the line and hope we make it.  Life is like that.  It's not a judgement, it's not a test, it's not good or bad.  It just is. 

The girls keep working hard, I will be gentle with them...leaving most, if not all, the honey for them this winter.  We will look forward into what the next year brings, trusting in a compassionate pattern to the light.  The world keeps moving forward in it's own time, in a bigger dance than I can really imagine.

Just a little thought tonight.  It's not all about me.