Do what you love. It seems like a simple enough statement, and sometimes it is just that. I am thinking foremost of those people who wondered at bugs as children and study them professionally as adults. How I admire those of single-mindedness, especially in those moments when the world darkens with uncertainty, the raincloud never raining but always threatening. Nothing is clear; the world gets very lonely. In those times I find it instructive to remember what you love: you love what you are. In my self-identification, this is most often family, friends, and a soulmate. Their happiness is an illumination in the dark, as reflecting off water, a mirror to help me see clearly. Then it is just me; doubts and other divisive forces are invisible and have no hold. I can see clearly what I am. Uncertainty dissipates; light is ubiquitous so we may forget it is all around us, and we have no need of mirrors. Our work becomes natural; it becomes what we are, inevitable and in constant motion.

∞

The leaf-cutting bees featured in this post were photographed in Florida. They are solitary bees making single nests unlike the hives and honeycombs of social bees. They also accomplish their business of collecting pollen through different mechanisms. The common honey bee uses a corbicula, or “pollen basket”, found on the leg, while the leafcutter collects it on the hairs of the underside of its abdomen, as seen in some of the above photos.