No specific question, but we discussed what defined and who we thought might be the “queen bee.” We also discussed the Black Madonna and white privilege.Quotes which resonated for us are below.
p. 1 “The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness. –Man and Insects
p.92 “She (August) reminded me that the world is really one big bee yard, and the same rules worked fine in both places: Don’t be afraid, as no life-loving bee wants to sting you. Still, don’t be an idiot; wear long sleeves and long pants. Don’t swat. Don’t even think about swatting. If you feel angry, whistle. Anger agitates, while whistling melts a bee’s temper. Act like you know what you’re doing, even if you don’t. Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved.”
p.97 “Wailing wall,” she said again. “Like they have in Jerusalem. The Jewish people go there to mourn. It’s a way for them to deal with their suffering. See, they write their prayers on scraps of paper and tuck them in the wall.”
p.141 “Well… you know she’s really just a figurehead off an old ship, but the people needed comfort and rescue, so when they looked at it, they saw Mary, and so the spirit of Mary took it over. Really, her spirit is everywhere, Lily, just everywhere. Inside rocks and trees and even people, but sometimes it will get concentrated in certain places and just beam out at you in a special way.”
p.147 “You know some things don’t matter much, Lily. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person’s heart—now that matters. The whole problem with people is…they know what matters, but they don’t choose it…The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters.”
p.148-149 All the roles of bees – nest builders, field bees, mortician bees, nurse bees, the queen and her attendants. The queen is “the mother of thousands.”
p.209 “Up until then I’d thought that white people and colored people getting along was the big aim, but after that I decided everybody being colorless together was a better plan.” Thinks of Eddie Hazelwurst, policeman’s comments on where she was living and thought: “You only had to look at them to see how special they were, like hidden royalty among us.”
p.226 “Me, I had never seen grown-ups feed each other, and I watched with the feeling I might burst out crying. I don’t know what got to me about it, but for some reason that circle of feeding made me feel better about the world.” June feeds her and apologizes for being hard on her – act of intimacy, care, repentance and forgiveness
p. 236 “I wanted you to have a chance to get yourself on solid ground, get your heart bolstered up first. There’s a fullness of time for things, Lily. You have to know when to prod and when to be quiet, when to let things take their course.”
P. 257 “A worker [bee] is just over a centimeter long and weighs only about sixty milligrams; nevertheless, she can fly with a load heavier than herself.” – The Honey Bee
p.270 “ Our Lady was covered with hands, every shade of brown and black, going in their own directions, but then the strangest thing started happening. Gradually all our hands fell into the same movement, sliding up and down the statue in long, slow strokes, then changing to a sideways motion, like a flock of birds that shifts direction in the sky at the same moment, and you’re left wondering who gave the order.”
p. 280 “Regrets don’t help anything, you know that.” August to June worrying that May died before June got married, one of May’s biggest wishes
p.285 “Drifting off to sleep, I thought about her. How nobody is perfect. How you just have to close your eyes and breathe out and let the puzzle of the human heart be what it is.”
P. 288 “You have to find a mother inside yourself. We all do. Even if we already have a mother, we still have to find this part of ourselves inside…Give me your hand…You don’t have to put your hand on Mary’s heart to get strength and consolation and rescue, and all the other things we need to get through life…You can place it right here on your own heart. Your own heart.”
p.298 August: “If you need something from somebody, always give that person a way to hand it to you.”
p. 302 “I feel her in unexpected moments, her Assumption into heaven happening in places inside me. She will suddenly rise, and when she does, she does not go up, up into the sky, but further and further inside me. August says she goes into the holes life has gouged out of us.”
p. 302 “I have more mothers than any eight girls off the street. They the moons shining over me.”
No comments:
Post a Comment