OM, or is it MO?

The brood is the most protected part of the honey bee Being.  The nursery is swaddled on all sides by extra layers of golden blankets; cells full of colorful pollen and honey.  The brood is cradled in the center of the Being, all vibrations that reach the brood are more easily controlled by the Sisters of the Hive.  Message of love, light, health and the Being’s own history may be what the brood hears as they metamorphose into their adult forms.

Once a honey bee worker hatches, her first job is to clean the hive.  Her next job is to be a nurse bee, where she feeds and takes care of the needs of the brood.  Her next job is to build comb and ripen honey, which then leads to guarding the entrance of the hive.  It isn’t until the end of her life, that a worker bee goes out into the world for the hive and forages for food, water and medicine.

I can’t help but compare this transformation of inner exploration to outer exploration to humans transformation of outer to inner.  As young humans, we are sponges; absorbing all of the information and stimuli coming into our own beings, and learning to make sense of this outer world.  We learn words to Name everything so we can then categorize everything.  We learn about history, math, language, science and if we are lucky, perhaps arts.  We learn about other people and how to make them happy or sad and we rely on them at first to make us happy or sad.

It usually isn’t until we are grown and perhaps, our own children, if we’ve had any, leave the “nest,” that many of us turn within and start to explore the Inner World of our Selves.  It is only then that we can realize what truly makes us happy or sad.  It is when we start to yearn for real history or language and perhaps when we learn how magical our science really is and how our Universe is made up of mathematical patterns.  Our Outer World becomes brighter as we explore this Inner World.

I wonder, just what would happen if humans, just like the honey bees, had a culture that encouraged Inner exploration BEFORE outer exploration.  Would our world be more colorful to us?  Would we be filled with more love and compassion like the honey bee?

Excerpt from “Song of Increase” by Jacqueline Freeman:

In the Bees words:

“Humans wake up in an external world and you work your way to learn of the interior.  You first know the external world, the open sound of OM.  As you progress in your development, you come to know your interior world and the sound moves into you.  Thus OM begins with the sound of all of the world and then carries you inside to the sound of one.”

Try it now.  Say OM.  You start with your mouth open and the sound O is projected outward, but when you continue to the M sound, your mouth closes and the vibration is felt deeper within as it is projected inward.  What would happen if we reversed that sound and started with M and ended with O?  Would we notice a change of thoughts?  Feelings?  Actions?

I invite you to try it in your own practice, whatever age you are.  We do not need to follow the path that is well worn and turn to our Inner World only when we are of a certain age.  Invite younger ones to MO with you!