All The Way Up

Yesterday, I stepped over one of my barriers. I lit a candle and spoke my prayer out loud to a congregation of strangers. My heart was pounding, I had to catch my breath before I spoke. Then I walked back to my seat and thought to myself, next time I don’t want to be nervous. It’s uncomfortable to make change, to do how we do things, differently.

As I sat in the backyard of my home, the sound of I-70 was roaring in the short distance. My little one and I watched the bees coming in and going out of the Apiary that our neighborhood cooperative has built. My daughter and I noticed the workers stationed at the door, cleaning the off the incoming matrons, their legs packed full of all these colors of pollen-orange, white, dark purple, yellow, maroon, more white… All of a sudden these yellow jackets come flying in front of the door to the hive and one of the honey bees torpedoes towards it, giving its life with a sting. An entire ecology lesson came wrapped up in that twenty minutes of sweet space in the back yard. The change to get a bee apiary in the backyard took five years. FIVE YEARS. Doing things differently takes time and the effort is often uncomfortable, but the reward is absolutely beautiful.

What kinds of shifts can we do in the everyday? You know, the little minute shifts like reaching out to make eye contact and introduce yourself to someone you don’t know…or actually getting two bikes rides to the office logged in this week…or planting spinach in the ground today for a late fall harvest…or not making that Starbuck’s visit today…those are my little everyday challenges this week, my little ways of spreading the love to live with more and use less. Til next time.