Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Finding Marlin

Sometimes life's instruction comes in an unusual way.  I'll never forget one of my favourite movies, Finding Nemo.  It's a computer animated children's movie about a clownfish family.

In a tragedy the Mom fish is killed and the young son is captured by a diver and taken away.  Now the father fish, fearful after losing his wife must go out past the safety of the reef to find his son:  Finding Nemo.

Quite the adventure.  I can see how it's so like beekeeping with the ups and downs along the way.  We're constantly dealing with one problem or another while trying to keep up with new threats like small hive beetles.

One of the great ups is making friends along the way.  In Finding Nemo Marlin, the father fish is full of anxiety and fear at the dangers out there beyond the reef.  He makes friends with a blue fish named Dolly and they both look for Nemo.

[Photo - me staying cool by eating Feezies].

The important part for me is understanding the transition Marlin goes through.  Somewhere along the scary fear driven journey one episode after another Marlin learns to let go and just be.  Then he starts having fun.  Instead of being afraid of the jelly fish he learns to jump on their tops - the stingless part.

And Marlin laughs.  Is the journey still hard?  Yes.  Is it still scary?  Sure.  But Marlin has learned to relax and laugh along the way.

And so I'm being a Marlin.

We had a wonderful opportunity for a bee yard at Pioneer Village located on conservation land less than two kms away.  We were a go ahead until their top brass killed the plan.  So after one phone call with the bad news we have no place to go.

So like Marlin I'll continue on my journey but instead of panic I'm going to jump on the parts that don't sting. 

It should be a good laugh.  At the very least it should make for a hell of a good story.

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