Bees & Corn Pollen
8/19/2026
The pleasant hum of Honey Bees surrounds me with murmurs of sound, lulling me into sigh after sigh of settling, releasing stored tension, allowing armoring to slip and subside. My breathing slows and deepens. Soft morning sunlight bathes the world in golden hues like seeing through a filter made of honey. Dappled shade plays across my skin. My eyes take in the colors of flowers - Hollyhocks - salmon pink, buttery yellow, white with just a hint of silvery blue as if reflecting the sky, wine red and dark purple bordering on black. These humming Bees are laden with Corn pollen. I see seven Bees just on the one tassel nearest me. The stalk is only a couple feet tall, but I look up from where I sit on the ground. On the other end of the bed the Corn grows taller than I stand, but for some reason it grows shorter on this end.
Two weeks ago the irrigation ditch was shut off, and this is the first time I’ve made it up to the garden since the last watering. I am amazed at how it is still alive, seemingly thriving. Nonetheless, we are going to need some rain soon. (Thank you.) These strong, vibrant Corn stalks just starting to set ears, Bean vines reaching for the sun, Cabbage plants each with multiple heads forming, Peppers of purple, red and green, tiny Tomatoes coming on, flowering Basil and Sunflowers, Carrots, Celery and Onions going to seed, a wild abundance of herbs, flowers and weeds, Grape vines growing strong in their third year but getting messy, and even some small fruit trees hanging in there - it’s all still alive. It’s here to welcome me as I do some weeding and trimming, checking in after a pause away from the garden. Thank you. Your beauty sustains me.
So much is uncertain. Will our relationship with this garden plot continue into the next season and beyond? Will Sarsa apprentice to learn a sacred healing art involving bee venom? Will the Corn make it to harvest, and will we be able to process any of it into blessings of food or offerings to carry our gratitude back to the land?
This morning I could believe that this garden itself - including the work we have done here, our learning and growth - is a gift, an offering to the Bees, to the spirits of these plants, to the land and the ancient ones. May we who walk the Earth embodied be instrumental in the healing that Life is asking of us. Thank you.
8/20/2026
Community Garden Evening: we got three of the swale beds weeded and started working on the pathway. (Rain please, please Rain…) A few drops hit my skin as I worked this morning, lit up like silver as I turned my face toward the sky. Thank you. As if the rain beings were saying, “We hear you.” There’s a chance of rain in the forecast this weekend. May it be so. May it be a soaker. Thank you.
Our income streams also seem to be drying up. Parched in the hot sun, cracks open up in the clay dirt where the wood chip mulch is thin.
Corn, like other grasses, is pollinated by the wind. She doesn’t ensure her pollen has the full spectrum of nutrients needed by the bees. The bees gather corn pollen when there is a shortage or other kinds of pollen available. This is a small patch of organically grown corn among a pretty biodiverse assortment of other plants and flowers. In an industrially-farmed mono crop situation, surrounded by miles and miles of corn, the bees gather Round-Up Ready corn pollen and die. The exact chain of cause and effect is uncertain.
May I walk in harmony upon this land. May I listen for my brothers and sisters. My sisters the bees are buzzing among the corn tassels, gathering pollen. “Corn pollen is still a sacred part of ritual blessings and prayers in many Native American cultures.”* This sacred, life-giving substance symbolizes peace, new life, harmony and a direct connection to the holy beings. It is used in daily prayers and major life-cycle ceremonies. It is used for healing or blessing way ceremonies, weddings, puberty rites, before journeys or spiritual protection in times of hardship.**
We are experiencing times of hardship.
This evening the plants began to appear thirsty. We haul water in buckets from the last or our stored water. We haven’t had the paid time or bandwidth to implement any new rain catchment ideas. I heard it’s usual here to get a scattered handful of days in the upper 90’s. It’s been hot for weeks on end, for most of the summer, after a severely dry winter and spring. This is the worst drought we’ve had here since a long time ago. A mild winter and a late freeze wiped out most of the orchard crops in the valley.
Even the bees are hungry.
In times like this, what does rural resilience look like?
One thing we are doing is working with other local organizations to establish the Nourish Our Farmers Coalition to support farmers with access to food and wellness resources. We are partnering with AgrAbility, an initiative through CSU Extension that offers trainings on behavioral health awareness and suicide prevention (COMET Training) and education around access to lethal means (CALM Training). We aspire to host one of these training sessions quarterly to boost awareness about mental health in our community. Because we need every one of us to thrive for a healthy world.
We recently secured two new grants for 2027: one supporting our behavioral health work in the community, and one from the Colorado Garden Foundation to support the place-based community-centered garden programming that we will continue to offer through 2027. The rain beings seem to be listening… Thank you!
*from Native American Heritage on Facebook
**from AI summary
