Bees move in again!
Over the past 4 years we’ve been host to a hive of honeybees 4 times! Twice in the past two months with the most recent on June 29th! The first time was in 2007 when they made a new home in the east wall of my bedroom. Next was in 2009 in the west wall of the same room. Third time was just two months ago under the eave of the kitchen on the south facing side and now they’ve moved into a precarious location on the north edge of our property. At least this time the walls are not buzzing 🙂
Just past noon on Wednesday, as I was preparing lunch, I glanced out my kitchen window and saw a spinning swirl of tiny golden blurs. An all too familiar bee swarm. Just to be sure, I went outside and the loud hum of a few hundred bees confirmed that I was witnessing the 4th hive moving in to our obviously, very bee-friendly property. I mentioned this to several friends who almost unanimously said, “the bees are trying to tell you something”.
My friends know me well and of course the first thing I did was find my copy of “Animal Speak”. I’ve been rereading the Bees chapter of Ted Andrews’ book, Animal-Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small
Andrews’ book includes exercises to interpret most any animal encounter and I’ve begun to realize a huge presence of bees (not always pleasant) in my lifetime. Here are some of the messages I’m finally getting from these often misunderstood little buzzing miracles of nature:
1. Community and working together is vital to sustain a society (a business, relationships).
2. Bees have been mythical symbols throughout history. In Egypt they represented royalty. To the Celts, the bee symbolized hidden wisdom, and in Hinduism, the bee can represent Vishnu, Krishna or Kama, the god of love, depending on the context and interpretation. An interesting post from Thomas Worrel’s notes on “The Symbolism of The Beehive and The Bee” at the Mill Valley Masonic Lodge website.
Because of the number and location of bee colonies that have moved in with us here in Miami, I’ve become acutely aware of the plight of one of our most industrious and vital creatures. In terms of crop pollination and food supplies bees are a vital component and because of the greed factor and mass, monoculture farming methods that depend on heavy pesticide use, the bee population is rapidly dying off. These pesticides are not only killing the bees, but are also poisoning our foods, water supplies and the very earth/dirt that formerly provided the essential vitamins and nutrients in our foods. For more information on this topic, I recommend “FRESH” the movie and suggest regular visits to your local, organic farmer’s market.
3. The geometric, six-sided construction of the honeycomb (home, nursery and food storage areas for bees) is a hexagon, a sacred geometry symbol that represents the sun and all energies associated with it. (hmmnn… I’ve been slowly working on a series of new designs incorporating sacred geometry and astrological symbols with my signature nature’s energy images).
4. It’s time to contact Mike Price of Bees-n-the-Keys again! Best bee rescue and relocation expert in South Florida!
5. Although by now, I’m thinking I should at least consider the option of beekeeping 😉
new tropical flowering tree designs by Debra Cortese
I’m swirling around in colors and nature since returning from Surtex. So many ideas, collections to edit and create.
Seems my love of nature and creatures was quite demanding for a couple of weeks… there was the 3rd honeybee relocation, then the blue jays had a riot in the back yard (and I don’t blame them a bit) because the cats were in their wild-thing-hunting-mode and killed a baby bird. I corralled all cats, locked them in the laundry room and with big tears of sadness and frustration, buried the little feathered one.
Next on my schedule was a trip to Pinecrest Gardens to photograph a peacock so that I’d have better reference material for the expanding collection of peacock designs. I did hear and then see the peacock, but had to find someone to get me closer to the bird to get the photo I wanted. Mission accomplished to some extent, but I still did not have the ideal pic. Back to the drawing board and photoshop!
Before leaving for Surtex, I was invited to participate in this year’s annual Tropical Flowering Tree Society ‘Royal Poinciana Festival’ exhibit – which I confirmed yesterday and immediately started working on new designs for this. I did complete several and even have a new bag design ready, but will not be able to produce it in time for the event on June 13th. So, realized I could put a few designs on products in my Cafepress shop. If you are attending the festival at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden on June 13th (heard Joe Donato is playing that night ;-)… I’ll have a sampling of mugs and journals with the new Royal Poinciana designs Plus, many of my nature’s energy design bags and royal poinciana prints.
Here’s my new home page design – more aligned with my focus on art licensing.
That’s it for now… need a break before moving to next projects 😉
My first day back from exhibiting at Surtex and I’m still not back to my routine – actually don’t want to go back to the pre-show 16 hour days, but I do want to move forward and start my show followups! I’m more than pleased with the show and have a minimum of 20 contacts that I’ll be sending either specific designs that were requested or new collections based on a qualified conversation.
I’ll elaborate more on this in a future post, but for now, I’d like to share a little of the fun and magic of my favorite subject, “Nature’s Energy”.
I created this little eBook as a handout for the show and would like to gift it to you as well.
Click here or on the image to download the pdf version of my entertaining, informative and colorful, 5 page eBook:
“3 Easy Steps to See and Feel Nature’s Energy”
AND PLEASE, do add your questions and insights about 3 Easy Steps in a comment on this post 😉
Final printing of portfolio designs today, and up to Thursday. Plan to ship display materials out Wed. Get mani-pedi and late Mother’s Day brunch with my daughter. What to wear is pretty much laid out along with my suitcase/garment bag that YAY, does have wheels! I can barely remember when they didn’t have wheels and am really appreciative that I don’t have to lift and lug anymore!
Just had my 3rd and hopefully final online chat with GES chat rep and got confirmation that we do indeed have the taller counter height and not the table. Apparently the form was not filling in correctly. Persistence is required. Thank you to all GES reps that helped with this. System is efficient and user friendly, but you must check and double check details.
Very excited to be headed to NYC to exhibit at
SURTEX, May 15-17. See us in Booth 644 Cortese Designs
along with ArtsOrganism, Tom Weinkle, Sandy Edie Designs
and Erin Inglis/Broken Fingers Art.
Nature's Energy design process melds plant image pixels into eco-trendy, fractal patterns and more! Click here for full post and images.
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