The Palms Art Gallery

A DREAM OF WILD HONEY BEES 

A MOTHER sat alone by an open afternoon window. Through it came the voices of the excited happy children as they played under the trees, while the breath of the hot humid afternoon air did not move. And in and out of the room flew the golden honey bees, the wild honey bees, with their legs yellow with pollen, going to and from flower to flower and in and out of the room, humming her towards sleep as not even the slightest breeze crossed the highest of trees, As the bees went hypnotically humming all the while. She sat on a low over stuffed chair, and she felt her unborn child move with life as she darned. But the heat, humidity and humming of bees brought the desire for rest, she put her needle work back in the great basket that stood beside her chair and tried to read the book that rested on her lap, but she became drowsy, so instead she watched the going in out of gentle honey bees and listened to their dreamy hum as the sweet sounds of the children's voices became a confused murmur in her sleepy ears, while the bees, the pollen coated like fellows who make honey, flew closer and closer to her head, huming and her hand fell down to her book as the voices of the children outside grew far off as she moved  closer to sleep, then she did not hear them, but she felt under her heart where the unborn child lay. She leaned backward and fell to sleeping there, with the honey bees flying about her room.

And it was then she had a Dream Vision;

She drempt she saw the bees lengthened and lengthened themselves out and became as human like beings with wings and moved round and round her until they landed one by one and stood calmly before her in honor of her motherhood. Then one standing bee, cloaked in a long gold robe,  came to her softly, saying, " Dear Mother, let me lay my hand upon thy side where the unborn child sleeps. If I shall touch the child it shall be as I am". She asked,  "And who are you? " And the tall bee said, "I am perfect Health, whom I touch will have always the red blood dancing in their veins; the child will not know weariness nor pain; life will be a long laugh to the child". Then came a "No" said another bee, " let me touch your side, for I am Wealth, If I touch the child material need shall never feed on the child. the child shall live upon the blood and sinews of fellow-men like their master, and what  the child's eye lusts for, the child's hand will have. the child shall not know want." And the unborn child layed still as a cold stone in her body. And yet another bee said, "Let me touch him: I am Fame. The the child I touch, I lead to a high hill where all men may see the child. When the child dies the child will not be forgotten, the child's name will ring down the centuries,  Think of it— not to be for- gotten through the ages ever" And the mother lay breathing and dreaming steadily, while in the dream brain-picture they pressed closer to her. "Let me touch the child" said another bee. " Let me touch for I am Love. If I touch  the child, the child shall not walk through life alone. In the greatest dark, when  the child puts out its hand the child shall find another hand by it. When the world is against the child, another shall say, You and I always." And the child trembled. But then yet another bee pressed close and said, "Let me touch, for I am Talent. I can do all things — that have been done before. I touch the soldier, the statesman, the thinker, and the politician who succeed; and the writer who is never before their time, and never behind it. If I touch the child, the child shall not weep for failure".........But then in her Dream picture, out of the shadows of the back of the room stood one last bee, with a sallow deep-lined face, the cheeks drawn into hollows, but with a mouth smiling with a ever lasting great peace. He stretched out his hand. And the mother drew back, and cried, " Who are you?" He answered nothing; and she looked up to his soft glowing eyes. And she said, " What can you give the child — health?" And he said, "The person I touch there wakes up born with a blood thats a burning fever, that shall lick their heart as a spiritual fire. The fever that I will give can only be cured when their life is cured"

"You give wealth she then asked?" He shook his head. " The unborn whom I touch, when they bend to pick up gold, they will see suddenly a light over their head in the sky, while they look up to see it, the gold slips from between their fingers, or sometimes another person passing takes it from them." And both the mother and the elder bee just looked at each other,"Fame then she asked?" The old bee answered, " Likely yes, but not a fame it will want, For the unborn I touch there has a path traced out in the sand by a holy finger which few other persons see, but gives all beings a life, heart and mind that they must follow its force with passion. Sometimes it leads almost to the top, and then turns down suddenly into the valley. but they must follow it, though few other's sees the path, your unborn will, and that light will guild them on" ..."Love she asked?" then He said, " the child shall hunger for it — and the child may shall find it too, but if they stretch out their arms to it, and would lay their heart against a thing that falsely love's them back, then, far off along the horizon the unborn shall see a greater hope of love light play. And they must go towards it. The false thing they love will not journey with them. And when the child walks with a group of others, they must travel sometimes with others but alone a little bit too. When the child covets someone to their lonely heart, crying,  Mine, mine, this person i own,  they shall hear a voice — ' Renounce this! renounce, this is not thine true self, to be moved by such lonelyness, as no real person is ever alone" so the mother asked  "My child shall succeed ?"..... The wise honey bee said, "The child may fail. When your child runs with the "Herd" the herd shall reach the goal before your child. Because strange voices shall call to the child and strange lights shall beckon to them, and the child must wait and listen, for these things are of the angels, and this shall be the strangest; far off across the burning sands, where to others there is only the desert's waste, your child shall see a burning blue sea ! On that sea the sun shines always forever, and the water is blue as the burning blue bottom of a flame, and the foam is as white as the greatest hope in heaven where a great land rises up from it, and the child shall see upon the mountain-tops burning gold .......and some day the child may well shine with it"

The mother said, " My child shall reach it? "

But the wisest bee would only smile curiously.

She said, "Is all this that we think we feel really real?"

And the wise bee said,

" Have Not The Master's Told You To Question What Is Really Real? "

 and then the mother urgently said,

" Touch Me!"

And the wise old bee leaned forward and laid his hand upon the dreaming mother's stomach, and then whispered to her, smiling and this is all she heard — " This shall be the child’s reward —

"That Only Loving Ideals  Are Real To Thee."

And the child inside the mother

 warmed, and cuddled it self in this one truth.

 The mother slept on heavily on watching this dream, and then her Dream picture vanished. But deep within her the child that lay in her had a blinding white and warm dream of a single Large point of light at the center of the universe  loving all it had created -And in that dream, the child saw a point of light in it's heart, that would allow it to see the same point of light in all other hearts,  every one connected from one single God furnice of love, moment to moment every where at once forever

.....and only --

Falsely devided from light when selfish delusion was present.

And in the unborn child’s eyes that had never seen the day, in that half-formed brain was this sensation of unifying love, A Light — that was everywhere in every beautiful thing, with love and hope-- a light which was the only thing the child would ever trust and believe in. And already the child had Its reward -

the greatest reward that is-

“That true loving Ideals would be a living light,

and only,

all that is real to the child”



From "The book Of Dreams"

By Olive Shriner 1886