It's Good to Be Queen

I love bees.  I especially love honeybees. They are decorative AND useful. I love that the color of their little bodies matches the luxurious golden color of the honey they create. They are the world's most important pollinators and they take what is widely available (nectar) and transform it into a valuable product that humans have coveted for centuries. We depend on bees to pollinate our food supply. Another seemingly magical ability they have is transforming an insignificant larvae into the crucial queen by feeding her royal jelly. We would all benefit from emulating their ability to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Some people make the unfortunate mistake of lumping bees in with wasps. Wasps can be very aggressive and when associated with bees, can cause people to have an unfounded fear of bees. Unless we go out of our way to disturb bees, they are peace loving creatures. At different times, I've seen honeybees share a flower with bumblebees, butterflies and hummingbirds. There's another example for us. The world needs bees for a plethora of reasons. Let's protect them. Long live the Queen!

Naturally Happy

It's hard to be grumpy when surrounded by nature. If you pay close attention, you'll notice that the wind makes a different sound in each type of tree. I absolutely love the wind. On windy days the whole world seems so alive. The trees seem to be dancing!
Water makes a variety of music depending on if it's part of a fountain or waterfall. The sounds of nature are drowned out by the noises of man. Make a point of listening for the sounds that are widely tuned out including thunder, rain, waves, birds and insects. Nature sounds are in meditation music for a reason.

One Man's Weeds Are Another Man's Flowers

I once knew a very wise man who said, "Weeds are just flowers that you didn't plant." So many people go to war with weeds. They cover their property in harmful chemicals that poison all living things, trying to make a golf course lawn that would never naturally exist because someone arbitrarily decided  that we should all conform to having “tasteful” green lawns. Wouldn't it be easier and healthier to just let the wildflowers take over? The butterflies and bees would flourish and increase their pollination which is vital to humans.
Take the time to look for roadside wildflowers. They are so diverse, you can find ten different kinds in a twelve inch area. They are exquisite, minute masterpieces that would make an extravagant mouse-sized bouquet. Wildflowers remind us that sometimes the best things are the ones we didn’t plan or pay for.

Pay Attention

Everyone has seen a beautiful sunset, but a moonset is something else altogether. In September, while driving to work early in the morning, I saw a gigantic orange ball to the West. I astutely assumed it had to be the moon since everyone knows the Great Pumpkin only appears on Halloween. It was low in the sky and I was looking for a place to pull over that allowed a clear view of the horizon. I should have stopped and taken a picture as soon as I saw my firey moon because within two minutes it had vanished. Something so lovely and rare existed for such a brief time. I guess we can't measure value by its duration.