Making honey out of our life

We have a beautiful bush in our backyard that has these shiny green leaves and groups of almost fuzzy white flowers. The bees adore these flowers. The small bees as well as the bigger ones just love dancing and buzzing around them, dipping into them.

Bees, as we know, work together to gather pollen and bring it back to the hive to be transformed into honey and propolis and nectar. It is an alchemical process that takes individual effort as well as collective support. The raw material of the pollen, is moved through sacred geometry and the fluttering of wings to create a nectar that is both delicious and healing.

There is a word in the yoga tradition that is similar to this nectar- soma. Some is sometimes called the nectar of immortality. It is that almost liquid down-pouring of sweetness that one can feel  within oneself through practice. Perhaps this is a sense of cool calm in the mind or a warm flow of energy in some part of the body or a deliciously easeful breath that feels a bit surprising and yet familiar at the same time.

We take the raw material of our life experiences and our movement and our breath, and in the collective of our body-mind-spirit as well as the collective of those gathered for class, we undertake the alchemical process of making honey of our present moment. It is a sort of magical thing. And yet also so natural.

May you taste the nectar of your life a bit every day. And may your yoga support this life-nourishing endeavor.