The Alchemists
Yesterday we extracted honey. Kristin and I took three boxes off the two beehives in our backyard, brought them into the house, and cranked the wood stove so that the honey would pour more easily. It's always a sticky mess, but joyful, too, with kids licking up every spill of the sweet stuff. The dog lay down with her head under a dripping honeycomb. Ick! Laughter and sweat and fingers sticking to everything.
As I carefully peeled the caps off a frame of golden honeycomb, it occurred to me who the real alchemists are. The bees. They make pure, liquid gold from air and earth and water, and oh! how beautiful is that gold! Far more so than the metal, and more useful. The wax and the propolis will go into Kristin's homemade salves and cosmetics. Other wax would make candles and furniture polish; other propolis would go into medicines and tonics. The honey itself will be a sweet treat, a flavoring, food, and medicine as well – we typically slather a little honey onto a bandaid to hasten the healing of a cut, and almost never use things like Neosporin. Honey works as well if not better, and it's sitting right there in the jar.
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
~Helen Keller
Reading List for Information about Transpeople
- Becoming a Visible Man, by Jamison Green
- Conundrum, by Jan Morris
- Gender Outlaw, by Kate Bornstein
- My Husband Betty, by Helen Boyd
- Right Side Out, by Annah Moore
- She's Not There, by Jennifer Boylan
- The Riddle of Gender, by Deborah Rudacille
- Trans Liberation, by Leslie Feinberg
- Transgender Emergence, by Arlene Istar Lev
- Transgender Warriors, by Leslie Feinberg
- Transition and Beyond, by Reid Vanderburgh
- True Selves, by Mildred Brown
- What Becomes You, by Aaron Link Raz and Hilda Raz
- Whipping Girl, by Julia Serano
I have come into this world to see this:
the sword drop from men's hands even at the height
of their arc of anger
because we have finally realized there is just one flesh to wound
and it is His - the Christ's, our
Beloved's.
~Hafiz
5 comments:
That is so cool. When I was under 5 or so, we lived next to a bee keeper and I thought that was awesome. He always brought us honey.
But I think that I would be a little scared to do that. But that is awesome, and I didn't know that about it replacing Neosporin. Maybe I will try that sometime.
yesssss!
yummy!
have you read The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd?
David,
Last year Trin got boiling water spilled on his shoulder - 2nd degree burns as big around as a softball. We slathered it with honey every night and covered it with gauze, and it healed very quickly and cleanly, without a scar. Yeah, honey works just fine for me.
AJ,
No, but Kristin has. She thought it was good.
Blessings all.
Yes, gorgeous fun for sure. Worth noting, David, that the honey that is medicinal is RAW and as local as you can get it.
Releases hydrogen peroxide slowly and is antifungal/antibacterial as well.
Thanks, Seda, for celebrating the harvest!
Hee hee, the above comment (and this one!) are posted by KRISTIN incognito, using Seda's account. I know she's delighted when folks mistake her for me on the phone, but dang, it seems I'm looking a heck of a lot like her, too!
:)k
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