Tag Archives: honey

The History of Honey

bees, poetry,

A thousand bees are drinking nectar and collecting pollen in my garden this week, so it’s time I posted this poem I’ve been tasting for a while. Twice this week I went out to photograph the buzzers, but most of the time with little luck. They are too busy to pose for me!

THE HISTORY OF HONEY

“The History of Honey” — by an aged mandarin,
And I bought it for the pictures of the burnished bees therein.

For the dainty revelations, masquerading up and down,
For the odor of the sandalwood that talked of China-town.

According to the mandarin, the Oriental bees
Were the first to hoard their honey in the mountain cavities.

In the ages of antiquity, each summer afternoon,
They flew in golden convoys to the mountains of the moon.

And there, in caves by cataracts, where nothing could annoy,
Poured gallons in the caverns when Confucius was a boy.

Many mountains bulged with honey stored before the days of Ming,
From each crevice dripped the essence of a very precious thing.

Imprisoned in this honey, aging as the aeons wane,
Are the souls of all the flowers, waiting to be born again:

Every lotus, every poppy, every tulip, every rose.
And those who sip the honey slip beyond all human woes,

Dream again of youth’s digressions, index misty ways of joy,
Turn unto the pagan pastimes of Confucius — as a boy.

Doubtless there are yet secreted some divine distilleries
Overflowing with the wonder worth a dozen dynasties.

But the mandarin, he made no map, contented in old age
To draw the clinging love scenes of the bees on every page.

There he found an inspiration antedating all the Mings,
And he got the ancient essence of the very sweetest things.

-Nathalia Crane

Incense to solace the Princess.

bees, poetry,

These verses are fun when read aloud, especially if shared with a child.

THE BEES’ SONG

Thousandz of thornz there be
On the Rozez where gozez
The Zebra of Zee:
Sleek, striped, and hairy,
The steed of the Fairy
Princess of Zee.

Heavy with blossomz be
The Rozez that growzez
In the thickets of Zee.
Where grazez the Zebra,
Marked Abracadeeebra,
Of the Princess of Zee.

And he nozez that poziez
Of the Rozez that grozez
So luvez’m and free,
With an eye, dark and wary,
In search of a Fairy,
Whose Rozez he knowzez
Were not honeyed for he,
But to breathe a sweet incense
To solace the Princess
Of far-away Zee.

-Walter De La Mare,
from the collection for children,
Peacock Pie

Eat this scroll.

art, church, Holy Week, , ,

One of the readings for Holy Monday is from Ezekiel, a description of what the prophet saw in his vision of creatures and wheels:

…a whirlwind was coming out of the north, a great cloud with raging fire engulfing itself; and brightness was all around it and radiating out of its midst like the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Also from within it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: they had the likeness of a man. Each one had four faces, and each one had four wings. Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the soles of calves’ feet. They sparkled like the color of burnished bronze. The hands of a man were under their wings on their four sides; and each of the four had faces and wings. Their wings touched one another.

The creatures did not turn when they went, but each one went straight forward. As for the likeness of their faces, each had the face of a man; each of the four had the face of a lion on the right side, each of the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and each of the four had the face of an eagle. Thus were their faces. Their wings stretched upward; two wings of each one touched one another, and two covered their bodies.

And each one went straight forward; they went wherever the spirit wanted to go, and they did not turn when they went. As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, like the appearance of torches going back and forth among the living creatures. The fire was bright, and out of the fire went lightning. And the living creatures ran back and forth, in appearance like a flash of lightning.

Now as I looked at the living creatures, behold, a wheel was on the earth beside each living creature with its four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their workings was like the color of beryl, and all four had the same likeness. The appearance of their workings was, as it were, a wheel in the middle of a wheel. When they moved, they went toward any one of four directions; they did not turn aside when they went.

As for their rims, they were so high they were awesome; and their rims were full of eyes, all around the four of them. When the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. Wherever the spirit wanted to go, they went, because there the spirit went; and the wheels were lifted together with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

I was interested to see how artists might have rendered these images. Many of the pictures were quite psychedelic, and just as mind-boggling as the descriptions Ezekiel gave. My favorite was this quiet sculpture, detail of an Amiens Cathedral facade which shows only two wheels, and a prophet who might be seen as receiving his vision, or perhaps meditating on the whole of it — which would be impossible to render in stone. The complexity and drama are only hinted at by the way the wheels are interwoven or interweaving.

The church fathers have written that the four living creatures are the cherubim, the guardians of the throne of God. The burning coals are holy men, the lamps signify the light of the gospel, and the wheels signify Holy Scripture; St. Gregory the Great tells us that “the New Testament lay hidden by allegory in the letter of the Old Testament.”

Ezekiel closes his description (beyond this day’s reading) with the words, “This was the vision of the likeness of the Lord’s glory. I saw it, and I fell down on my face….” and God spoke to him, gave him an assignment, and gave him a scroll, saying:

“Son of man, eat this scroll, and go and speak to the children of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and he fed me the scroll. Then he said to me, “Son of man, your mouth shall eat and your stomach will be filled with this scroll that is given you.” So I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey.

My Bible footnotes remind me that the faithful can also know that sweetness that Ezekiel tasted, as the Psalmist sings:

How sweet to my taste are Your teachings.
More than honey and the honeycomb in my mouth.

This probably works best when we love and obey those teachings… Lord, have mercy!

Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed;
save me, and I shall be saved:
for thou art my praise.

Jeremiah 17:14

Milk white as light – and honey.

quotes, , , ,

“For in the deepest sense God the Father is Himself the promised land which -– as the Holy Spirit has promised us -– the gentle and the upright in heart will inherit (cf. Matt. 5:5), as they strive in hope to attain it. The honey and milk that flow in that land, which is the Father, are the dawn luminaries, the twin rays, the Son and the Spirit, that are the life and delight and purification of the whole world.

“For the Son, who was begotten from the Father and who is inseparable from Him, may be called ‘honey,’ since He has become incarnate in human nature as in a honeycomb; and through this enhumanization He has sweetened and gladdened everything human in a miraculous way with -– how should one express it? -– extraordinary teachings and graces and countless other blessings and bounties.

“The ‘milk’ is the Holy Spirit, who is simple and uncompounded. He is not the offspring but the ‘going forth’ or procession from the Father. He is white as light, and He feeds with divine nourishment the intelligent beings who are still immature, thus initiating them, as the Lord said, into the kingdom of heaven (cf. I Cor. 3:1–2).

“Thus the ‘land flowing with honey and milk’ is rightly considered to be the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; and it is to this land that the intellect which ‘crosses over’ is conducted through the guidance, power and energy of the Godhead in three Persons.”

— The Philokalia Vol 5, by G.E.H. Palmer