Greetings to you all and thank you for joining our little Bee-Coming Strong hive. We hope you are doing well and finding times of delight with nature, as well as your family, friends, and even strangers.
I’m going to just jump right in with a confession to make here. I totally forgot to do what Jazi has talked about to calm myself down. Let me explain…The other day I inadvertently got locked out of our website, as well as this very newsletter! For those of you who don’t know me, I am technologically challenged at times, and this was one of those times. In the extreme. I had a near meltdown and couldn’t figure out what to do. A good friend who could have helped me was out of town and I was stuck. 😬🤯😕
Did I once remember to do any belly breathing to calm myself down? No. Did I remember to hum like a bee? Nope. Jazianzza was flying around me, but I dismissed her because she wouldn’t have known how to get my accounts unlocked. “Please go away, Jazi. Sorry, but I’ve got a real problem here and I can’t take the time to listen to you right now.” Yep. That’s what I told her. I didn’t even remember to practice the very thing I talked about in the last newsletter…touching that wonderful Sea of Tranquility on my chest. Oh, my goodness.
Finally, the next day I realized that I could reach out to the amazingly talented and kind man who originally helped me build the website and set up the newsletter. Swapnil is a good friend of a dear friend of mine. We’ve never met because he lives in India and I live in Southern California, but I’ve felt from the beginning that he was a man I could trust and depend on. Long distance, only through the written word, I can easily say he’s become my friend, and in this instance, my hero! I reached out to Swapnil, told him the problem, told him I’d like to pay him a million bucks if he could help me get everything back on track, though I don’t have that kind of money, so just please bill me accordingly.
That very night he told me he’d fix it, and he did! I asked him what he had done and he said he “just moved his fingers a little.” I told him I did the same, and that’s how I got myself into the mess I was in! 😂 Because he “just moved his fingers a little” he wouldn’t accept any payment from me. What an incredibly kind thing this humble man did for me.
Ok, so back to our very own Jazianzza Azzaza Buzzabee…When I finally got everything on track again, thanks to Superhero Swapnil, I apologized to Jazi and said I was too distracted to be able to pay attention to her. It was then that she reminded me…oh, right…. belly breathing. Oh, right, humming like a bee. Those two simple yet incredibly powerful practices could have brought me back to the present and calmed my racing mind and soothed the anxiety I was feeling. That would have led me to “Bee here now,” as Ram Dass said.
Jazi thought it was pretty funny that after all these newsletters, all this time of practicing being calm, kind, and present, I forgot.
“It’s ok,” Jazi said. “After all, you’re only human.” 🐝🐝🐝
Oh, that stung a bit (yes, pun intended!). But really, it was a wonderful reminder for me, and I hope it might be helpful for you the next time you feel anxious about something. “Bee here now.” Breathe consciously. Bee present.
And on a lighter note — with Halloween just around the corner, Jazi wanted me to share something fun! We searched through countless YouTube videos to find you a good bee costume tutorial. So many were either too complicated or too long, but if you’re adventurous and like to sew, here’s one we think is pretty sweet. It’s 6½ minutes to watch, though obviously much longer to make!
As we move through this month and into the holiday season, we wish you much joy and delight — which is so much easier to find when we are truly calm, peaceful, and living in the present. The world needs that presence perhaps more now than ever. Would you like to join Jazi and me in our journey to bee-coming calmer, more peaceful, and more truly here? We’d love the company.
Bee here now. Breeathe. Bee well.
Much love,
Jazianzza Azzaza Buzzabee and Anandamayi
Be Here Now
— Ram Dass