"And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures."
Antonio Machado
I don't know Spanish, but ever since hearing the poet David Whyte read this Machado poem in translation, these lines have been among my favorites. I know the poem by its first line in English, "Last Night As I Was Sleeping." Or something like that.
I've been thinking about them a lot lately, and I want to write a series of posts about "the Golden Bees' School of Art"--or how these golden bees seem to operate in my own art-making (and life-living).
But because I'm up against a serious deadline to be ready for an Artisan Fair on Friday afternoon, for today I am only going to leave you with these lines. Let them wash over you and into you, and see what happens.
Here they are again, with a few more lines that go with them:
Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt--marvelous error!--
that I had a beehive
here in my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.
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