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Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Just Bee

| | 3 comments

I woke up this morning with a panicky feeling that I had way too much to do and not enough time/energy/money to get things done.


I felt like a bee who had just been released into a new pasture of blooming wildflowers, and it was my (and only my!) responsibility to collect all the pollen from every single flower in the pasture.


It didn't help my mood when my favorite daughter cancelled her commitment to chauffeur my husband (who just had knee surgery yesterday) to one of his appointments today, which meant taking 2-3 hours out of my (already busy) day to drive him back and forth.


My list of "To-Do's" seemed even more insurmountable after that.  Not just the everyday things that need doing.  The messy house, the unsorted mail, the several months of checkbook entering and balancing.

Bigger things, like how to get our boys sheared with Papa Bear's knee out of commission. How to get Brigid sheared and moved to another farm in WI when we don't own a van or trailer.

And then, the Big Big things facing us - finding farmland in WI to purchase. Figuring out the best way to put in utilities. (Off-grid or grid-tied?  Well or cistern or both?  Wind?  Solar?)  Finding a builder to make us a recycled/re-purposed home (like this grain bin home - drool!).  What to do with all our animals when we leave the mainland US next winter.  How to turn my writing into a side-income stream.  How to run a more profitable farm business.


Every hour of every day, a constant stream of things I have yet to learn/do/be bombards me, some days nearly driving me crazy.

A quote flutters by in my gerbil-wheel mind, and I latch onto it, trying to find some bit of peace:

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing
left to add,
but when there is nothing left to remove.
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery


For a long time, I have been adding things to my life, in an effort to follow my joy and enrich my life. A lot of (enjoyable) things. Alpacas being one of them (which entails a huge learning curve regarding the business & marketing side of it). And this spring, chickens. And finding a farm. And writing. And photography. And fiber arts. And hoopdance. And and and...


There are a lot of beautiful flowers in  my pasture at the moment.  Like that solitary bee, I cannot extract all of the pollen that's available, all by myself.  I will have to let some of it go.  I will have to choose which flower to pursue.


I laughed to my husband on our way to his appointment today, an affirmation that I have been using for the past two months, "I accept myself unconditionally," struck me as the perfect template for anything that's getting my head into a bumble.  "I accept my lawn unconditionally (tall grass & dandelions and all!)."  "I accept my cluttered dining room table unconditionally."  "I accept my chaotic life unconditionally."  "I accept  not knowing exactly where I will be living this summer unconditionally."

Somehow, these images, these affirmations, help stop the constant buzzing in my head.  

At the arboretum on Monday, I was enthralled by their collection of tulips blooming in every color imaginable.


Suddenly it occurred to me that it might be fun to try to take some shots from a different perspective altogether - from beneath the flowers.


I couldn't look through the viewfinder for this method - I just had to hold the camera where I thought I might get a decent shot and trust that something good would turn out.


A lesson for life, I'd say.  Even when you can't see, or control, exactly what's in the viewfinder, if you keep doing the work and trust the process, something good will certainly come out in the end.

And when you find yourself in a buzz over all the details, all the flowers yet to be tended, the undone chores and To Do's, focus on the most important flower in front of you and...

Just...

Bee.

Blessings -

3 comments:

inadvertent farmer said...

Those tulip pics are stunning...I especially love the analogy you made for them...so very true! The whole post if full of stunning photos, I've never seen white bleeding hearts before! Great job, Kim

Jess said...

Before I saw Kim's comment, I was also going to say I've never seen a white bleeding heart. Your close-up photo of it is just gorgeous with that fading to black background behind them.

Shooting those tulips blind, wow, you got some really great shots. Love that bit of sunflare you caught on the last one too.

Victoria Strauser said...

Thank you both for visiting and for the comments!

Kim I've been visiting your blog for awhile now and I love it.

And Jess - I just visited yours and can't wait to explore it more!

 
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