Photo taken at Ghost Ranch in Northern New Mexico by one of my kids, July 2023
The hummingbird
Relentless in her pursuit
Of the nectar
The juicy goodness of life
She drinks all day long
And when the northern flowers
Have fully rendered themselves
And the lupine has gone to seed
She flies south to New Mexico
To cactus flowers and sunshine
To glimmering in the heat wave mirage
Until the telegraph comes
The faintest hint of honeysuckle
Delivered by the wind
Gathered, squabbling
Do they race back
To see who can find the first flower blooms
The tiny marvel
Who dies if she sits still too long
Is always moving
Sometimes vast distances
To search for the rendering
To taste the flower’s piece de resistance
Its very essence distilled to drops
-Albuquerque, May 12, 2023
Once an angry hummingbird came to me in the medicine space, he hovered right in front of my face and shouted in his tiny voice, “No nectar! No nectar!” He reminded me that his chief aim in his whole life was to seek the sweetness of life, from sunup til sundown.
When I cried and felt life was hopeless, I realized it’s in those times that the tears are the nectar. Sometimes that salty rendering of self is what is needed to amplify the sweetness of life, like salt on watermelon causes it to taste even more ambrosial.
It wasn’t long after that journey, it seemed my little world of sweetness drained clean out. All the precious stored up jars of honey, broken. A wasted mess spilled out. Glass and syrupy goo all mixed in. It was as if the bottled up memories, the very best ones, had been rendered fuel for the compost heap of this life. Perhaps I should’ve slathered heaps of that honey on toast, to deeply devour instead of to save. I’ve never heard of a bear saving some for later. Having found the honey pot in the tree, he eats until he can’t hold more. He says, if you can find the sweetness in life, get straight drunk on it. Don’t save it, drink it. Share it. Offer it to others. But for heavens’ sake, don’t store it up in little bottles. Don’t put the hope of tomorrow in fragile glass jars. Devour it as fertilizer for your dreams.
On the heels of heartache, we took a backpacking trip up into the mountains. With the glass cuts of devastation still fresh, the experience proved to be the hardest physical challenge of my life. It was the biggest hill I’d ever climbed, another reminder that it’s hard to store up pure goodness. There’s dirt and broken bee wings mixed in that have to be strained. Because to store nectar is to break something else, to render the bee hive of life is dirty work and something is always lost. Little bees, the very makers of the honey, die, too. Sometimes the jars leak and the honey spoils. Sometimes the tiny jars that hold memory burst and can’t hold them. Sometimes the bears rob the store. And, sometimes the hive simply collapses, lost to circumstances unknown. Other times, inexplicably, the queen decides to leave.
The flowers make nectar from soil and rain, they offer up their very life in mere drops to the bees, the bees digest and regurgitate the goodness for us, and we take that holy sacrament as a reminder. And, we render ourselves in grateful tears: our own enhancer of the sweetness. In that way, we can offer ourselves back to the earth.
I sat outside the yurt on the last day of that trip saying goodbye to the backcountry, looking out at a pile of storm-ruined spruce and pine. The trunks had been cut to make more warmth in the winter. Fallen trees keep the fires burning another dark night, offering themselves in the rendering. And right there, in front of me, was a hummingbird etched across the bark. A reminder that maybe nothing is ever wasted. Ruined memories make room on the shelf for more. But, ruin also reminds us to drink it all in now, because too often sweet memories spoil in dark corners. Wasted nectar can be found again, but like the hummingbird you have to be relentless. Day in, day out. Chasing life’s sweetest blooms and drinking it in.
With Love,
Amanda
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Amanda, your writings always provide comfort and speak to my soul. Never stop seeing the good and believing in yourself because you are truly amazing.
Amanda, this is an achingly beautiful outpouring of words.Your writing is nectar. I'm so glad you've decided to share it in this space. What a gifted writer you are, my friend. 🍯 💗