Honey of my Failures…

Last night, as I was sleeping,

I dreamt-marvelous error!-

that I had a beehive

here inside my heart.

And the golden bees

were making white combs

and sweet honey

from my old failures.

    -Antonio Machado

The sweetness of living comes to us when the very humanness we regret and try to hide, our seeming flaws and shameful secrets, are worked by time and nature into a honey all their own. Ultimately, it is where we are not perfect-where we are broken and cracked, where the wind whistles through-that is the stuff of transformation.

Like others, many things I have wanted to be, have crumbled over time into cinders that have sparked the very next dream. And each time I’ve failed at being what someone else needed or wanted or hoped for, each time I’ve failed at being what I needed or wanted or hoped for-each failure at love has solidified into unexpected learnings. The painful shavings of one love have become the spices of joy in the next.

None of this lessens the pain of our journey, but it gives me comfort that our failures, are the very human past from which we are made sweet.

Just know, when everything is falling apart, that you are preparing the ground of you for something ripe that can’t be seen yet, but in time will be tasted. – Mark Nepo