A new practice for my writing, is that each morning I think of a topic and keep it in my mind all day until the story forms around it and I write in the evening. Sometimes I have a couple of ideas and during the day it narrows down to one.

I knew today’s topic would be vetch. Vetch is a miraculous perennial vining legume. The variety we planted has beautiful purple flowers. It makes a great ground cover, restores nitrogen to the soil and attracts all kinds of insects – especially bees. We planted it a couple of years ago as a ground cover in some bare spaces – hoping to keep the razor sharp grasses from taking over the back of the garden.  Last year, it returned, and this year it is as beautiful as ever.

The story formed around the vetch as I was sitting in my cubicle today. A co-worker came by to talk to me and a honeybee flew groggily off her shoulder and landed on my desk. It just sat there as people around me scrambled to grab a ruler or paper towel or whatever they could find to kill the little bee.  As if in slow motion, I reached into my drawer and pulled out a little cup sized tea strainer with a cover. I coaxed the bee into the strainer and brought it outside to a flower bed.

Afterwards, my mind was reeling with the story of how I have been studying herbalism and started brewing my own teas at work, the connection we have to the earth and how endangered the bees have become. So there is the story. Small decisions I have made for my life, to make it better – provided a vehicle to save the life of this small insect. I stepped back and saw the parallel of myself disconnected from everything and sitting in a box on the 5th floor, awaiting rescue, and this little bee sitting in the same little box. Both of us out of our element, I knew how to care for him. I took him outside.

Each year we leave a few Milk Weed to grow and last year we saw honeybees in our garden for the first time. Our little vetch patch and “weeds” that often are overlooked are the habitat of these amazing creatures.

My thoughts tonight are with the world and what a very different place it would be if each of us would reach outside ourselves to care for the living beings around us – plants, animals, insects and people. Even the smallest efforts send out ripples through the world as it, and we, are changed.  Even the simple helping of a fellow creature to find its way home.