…and long leggetie beasties and things that go BUMP! in the night, good Lord deliver us!
Let me start by saying that I am allergic to bee stings. (Wasps, too, for that matter. Yellow jackets. Ants. The whole nine yards.) The Epi-pen carrying kind of allergic.
And, for many, many years, I was very, very afraid of the whole crowd known to my biology teacher as Hymenoptera.
Then, I became a gardener. I began to be very concerned about the growing global crisis of rapidly dying colonies of bees.
I read Braiding Sweetgrass (recently) and The Secret Life of Bees (about six times!) and, slowly, I’ve begun to have a much more vivid appreciation for the pollinators among us.
(Honestly, I haven’t quite worked it out with fire ants, just yet.)
Today, though, I had a close encounter. I was out in the garden, trimming back some rogue grape vines which were attempting to take over the porch and picking some cherry tomatoes.
A bee came to visit me. As instructed by Sue Monk Kidd, I sent her love. I actually thanked her for her presence in my garden and all her hard work.
And then, as she buzzed back to where I’m allowing some of the arugula to bloom, and hopefully re-seed, I took three slow breaths, inhaling deeply of the scent peculiar to tomatoes on a hot summer morning, and went to greet Auntie Maren who is the official chiropractor for the studio angels.
I’m glad to know the ancient Scottish blessing about ghoulies and ghosties. It seems that they abound, in many forms, in our world these days.
I would imagine it has always been so. And there are, indeed, a few lurking in my world just now.
And yet, the one thing I know for sure is that fear is rarely our most effective way to meet them.
Thus, the question for today, courtesy of the wise and ever-amazing Shiloh Sophia McCloud comes from a Zoom meeting yesterday about what I’m learning to call metacognitive drawing, which is kind of like changing things by drawing while thinking about thinking. (Stay tuned!)
What, I’m wondering, are the next steps in allowing creativity to bloom in my life?
If you don’t have a question of your own for today, I’m happy to lend you mine!
PS… the art today is a snipet from Honey in Your Heart, coming soon to Sue’s Shop!
Sue, please share the ancient Scottish blessing about ghoulies and ghosties!
Gladly, my friend! It’s simply the title of this post along with the first line… From ghoulies and ghosties and long leggitie beasties, and things that go bump in the night, good Lord deliver us!
So be it!
Whoever composed it is of same kin as my daughter and me. We have never heard of prayers like that and it will comfort us to know that somewhere (in scotland) people know the solution to our nighttime worries. Glad to know you, and get good grandmother knowledge passed over by you. Thank you!
I totally agree! I found a plaque in a catalog with this prayer when my girls were little and it used to hang in the room where they sleep when they’re here. When I started COW, I moved it to my studio space where it hangs right over my huge wild blue goose carving. Wild geese are considered by many to be a Celtic symbol of the Holy Spirit! Blessings for you and your daughter!