February 4, 2011

The Bee and the Hummingbird

I am sitting in a garden in LA, watching a bee and a hummingbird drink from a hummingbird feeder. I am enthralled by the bird; the speed with which it moves its wings, the glint of sun on its back. I try to catch distinct wing beats, but can't.

Finished, it flies away, zipping, a mini tornado slicing through the air. I track it, and then it's gone. I feel blessed that I caught the moment. Where I'm from, hummingbirds are rare, and we put up feeders especially for them too, building them to mimic the red trumpet flowers which are the bird's natural food.

I look back to the feeder. The bee is still there, buzzing around the feeder. I watch it collect the residual sugar water the hummingbird has left. The feeder is not meant for the bee. It is a tribute to the beauty of the hummingbird. The bee only gets the leavings. It doesn't seem to mind.

I watch the bee, as it flies and buzzes, industriously crawling around the yellow plastic stigma of the flower. I realize suddenly that the bee too is beautiful, in its way. It too flies, wings beating, feeding and seeking out flowers. I missed this somehow, as I sat mesmerized by the flashier hummingbird. I've been taught that hummingbirds are more beautiful than bees, and my eyes aren't trained to see the beauty in this little creature. I realize that this doesn't mean that it isn't beautiful, only that i wasn't looking at it the right way.

There are many things we forgot to see beauty in; the familiar, the known, traits in people that we haven't been conditioned to see as beautiful. Yet like the bee, these are an expression of whatever they are intended to be, in any given moment, and there is beauty in that.

We build castles in the air and heap adoration on those with traits we've been trained to believe are special and rare, more pleasing to the eye. We experience it ourselves, when we come across someone who thinks we have these traits. Is it any wonder that when we feel like the bee we try to be more like the hummingbird?

In this world, the hummingbird gets the nectar, the love, the adoration. The bee gets the dregs, and we, even through our sadness, know that we deserve more than this. We try and change, to fit the ideal, to get our own castles in the air. But imagine a bee trying to be a hummingbird, rather than staying true to its nature; wings beating too fast, tiring itself out, focusing on imitation instead of the gathering of food. Instead of learning what it is to be a bee. When we try to be different than we are, we always end up as pale imitations, and we suffer for it.

I think, as I sit here watching this beautiful bee do its work, that rather than striving to become something we are not, that maybe we should be teaching the world to see things differently. To see beauty in new ways, in all different expressions, short or tall, heavy or thing, in zipping wings or in slowly moving ones. Beautiful - all.

Jodi Fedor

CEO, Exuberance Beauty

jfedor@exuberancebeauty.com

613-231-4087

www.exuberancebeauty.com