Failing REALLY well!

In a weekly meditation group that I go to we are reading Pema Chodron’s slim but potent volume called Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better, a wonderful and humbling experience.

While gathering early holiday gifts I decided to make bees wax candles.  A combined gift from the bees and from me.  This has been a very long process.

It began last spring when I discovered that my bees hadn’t make it through the winter.  Very sad, but true of many a novice bee keeper. Slowly I worked through the failure to bring my very first bees through a very long cold winter.

Cleaning the winter debris I re-connected with compassion, recognizing that I am on a steep learning curve.  I got sturdier hives with water-tight roofs.  New colonies of bees arrived by early summer.  And we set about making friends.

I harvested the honey and wax that that last year’s bees hadn’t used.  Always look for that silver lining.

The new bees also gave me some honey and a bit of wax.  I combined all the wax and learned to render it.

On a warm sunny day in late summer I set up on the back deck and after a very concentrated while had a beautiful disk of pure beeswax.  I repeated the process with increasing thicknesses of cheesecloth to remove ‘impurities’ like pollen, propolis (the ‘glue’ that bees exude to up the ante when bee keepers come to steal – er, harvest- their honey and of course to keep things together in the hive).

I felt proud of my beautiful disk of bees wax.  It was just the right color of honey gold.  It smelled like heaven and of bees.  And there looked to be enough to make a few candles.  I beamed.  For weeks I showed it off to anyone who would listen and smell.

Then it became time to take the plunge.  I researched and studied the many ways of making bees wax candles with hope in my heart.  I didn’t have the ideal silicon molds or the special non-stick spray advertised on various websites, but I am an inventive person.  And determined.  I can create an alternative. 

I had collected small tins, punched a hole in the bottoms and fed through the wicks which I secured on the other end tied to chopsticks. 

I tapes the holes around the wicks shut.  And lined each tin with waxed paper, just like that ‘alternative’ suggested on my favorite websites.

I melted my precious disk of summer smelling beeswax, grinning in anticipation all the way.

With hope in my heart, and confidence, I filled 1 of my prepared molds to do a test run.

The wax immediately seeped through the taped seal on the bottom of the tin.

The waxed paper lining curled up into the quickly cooling liquid wax.

It was a mess.

My precious beeswax seemed wasted.

My hoped for candles at the end of my journey.

And I felt devastated.

For some time I mourned the seeming loss of beeswax and my comnfidence. Including some choice internal conversations about my competence.

And then I remembered, I can Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better and realized that I had failed REALLY well.  I recognized that I had taken the risk of using my precious beeswax and although it hadn’t worked out as I hoped I could indeed rescue most of it. 

And start over again.  With the correct materials.

This is to say that my internal dialogue went from harsh to hopeful; from condemnation to curiosity; from disappointment to next steps.

And isn’t this the way of our spiritual journeys?  Surviving our disappointments to rise like the phoenix for another try at living well.