Imagination is not just about creating images or “making things up.” I think of imagination as our soul’s personal laboratory for the study of the life and responsiveness of matter. We are learning how to master the relationships that draw this life of matter into partnership and harmony with the earth and a Gaian imagination. Here is an example from my life:
In the last few years I have been providing nesting spaces for pollinator bees. This is not “bee keeping” in the traditional sense. Pollinators like the Blue Orchard Mason bee and the leaf cutter bee that I have been working with don’t live in hives and don’t produce honey. They aren’t even very social, though they like to work and nest side by side.
My part is a small but engaging way to learn how to harvest the cocoons and add more housing in the most appropriate ways, while managing my role in the process, AND while trusting that Nature knows better than I. This has involved a more intimate, more complex relationship with Gaia than I had known would happen when I began. I am always learning to keep up my end of the conversation—without inadvertently interrupting it, or talking too much. That is harder than it might seem, when I care so much!
Each autumn I collect the cocoons from the two different kinds of nesting sites that I have mounted on an east facing (warmth of the rising sun) wall of our house. Now, yikes, each summer I feel partly responsible for 100s of bee babies, who began their journey the summer before as eggs laid by incredibly hard working bee mothers. Life birthing itself…
Because of the growing plight of bees, providing safe protected places for them to create their larva cocoons is a wonderful way to be part of Gaia’s conversation about the Spirit of Renewal. I like framing this work with the bees through the four foundations, or Hallows, of Incarnational Spirituality. The four foundations are Standing, Holding, Energizing, Co-creating. They come alive for me when I feel into how I use them in any thing I do.
Standing
I sense how taking up this project is a way for me to stand in and experience my life and intention directly in the work of the earth.
Standing in the Spirit of Renewal is a concept that I can experience directly in my body. It is not just a beautiful concept (though of course it is that too!). I have the capacity to affect the flow of Life. The more strongly I hold my intention, the more likely I will be able to be helpful to Gaia, and the more alive I will feel. This is what I was surprised by in working with pollinator bees. Surprised by joy, in CS Lewis’ words.
Holding
In David Spangler’s words: Holding is the capacity to support an action, to persist as necessary, to maintain integrity, and to love. Where my bee endeavor of earlier years was done kind of lightly, with interest and curiosity, now I really feel the power of my intent to hold this process together. I can literally feel how my contribution can support the earth.
I need to create and hold space in my life to study what is needed. I need to learn, for instance, how to cut open the 20 or so cardboard tubes that last year’s bee mothers faithfully laid their eggs in, and harvest each cocoon (about 6-7 in each tube) without causing too much damage. I also need to make sure that there aren’t pests and parasites in there. I don’t want to release any bee-damaging pestilence into the world, no matter how much part of the divine order it is!
Energizing
In a way, bees are made out of the sun. I am a sun in my own way. I have the power to be a source, be generative, to supply energy, empower and to nourish.
I spend a lot of time each summer watching the mother bees (there is no Queen… each working woman bee is a queen mother, and isn’t that the truth!!) fly home, over and over again, painstakingly creating individual cocoons like little rooms, one for each egg, bringing a tiny (to me, huge to her) load of pollen to place in each cocoon for each hatched larva to be nourished by. And surely I am creating a field of blessing for them too.
Co-Creating
This project is a wonderful opportunity to experience partnership. As a human I have the capacity, the *power* to collaborate with the bees, and with Gaia itself, and with the spirit that keeps the flowers and vegetables growing to feed life on earth. I get to feel my personal identity and power supporting creation at its source. What a wonderful privilege.
Looking toward our exploration of Imagination.
To deepen into the art of Imagination, Rue is offering a free webinar and a class:
February 22: Free Webinar, The Heart of Imagination
March 7-27 The Living Art of Your Imagination