Having the chance to try some raw honey from the comb with Cliff Wire and all the folks who joined us in the orchard and pollinator garden this past Sunday was a highlight of the Summer, for me. Communing with nature entails that we show up for nature. UUCC has done that in at least two ways when it comes to honey bees––we created a garden, and when we noticed they had arrived, we spent some time with them.

After that time with them on Sunday, I’m noticing bees everywhere! And my office hours on Monday entailed more representations of bees than I usually expect to see! They are buzzing around our blooming world, waiting to be noticed, and they were there at Van Aken as I arrived, attending to the flowers that decorate the walkways. While I was there, they introduced me to their pollinator friends of all kinds who join them among the flowers.

If that wasn’t enough, I found them painted on the windows while I walked in. These images quite literally reflected the bees that were exploring right outside the window. (I couldn’t manage a picture of them that wasn’t VERY blurry, I’m sorry to say!)

But I wasn’t done running into bees. Some of their work was waiting for me at the bakery, where I was shocked to learn that someone on the very street I live on is a local honey producer! (With a spicy name to boot!)

Not only were bees there to greet me at the food hall, now I realized they’d been my neighbors the whole time!

But I wasn’t done with the bees just yet. When I sat down to pull out my laptop, I put in some earbuds and pressed play on a playlist. And as if the bees themselves had curated it, a beloved song from a great band started playing.

I suppose the deeper spiritual dimension to this is realizing what happens when you pay a little bit of attention to something you take for granted. Bees have a lot more to do with structuring the world I inhabit than I realized. Now that I’ve noticed them, what else am I not noticing? Spirituality is a spectator sport. It requires all of our senses to be tuned into the world around us, in order to understand the world and ourselves. Noticing may be one of the most important things we do.

Sometimes it is hard to tap into our spiritual selves or find time to nurture our creativity and intellectual curiosity. Here is a section that reflects on some nourishing materials from around the web and related media channels in order to get us thinking, get us feeling, and get us reflecting on the lives we are living in this big world. **Some Adult/Mature Themes May Appear in Links and Other Attached Material**

–––––––––––––––

Allan T. Georgia, MDiv, MTS, PhD

Share this post: