080 Take Without Harm
Hey Honeybee, you take a little from a thousand flowers, and not one of them is hurt by your visit.
What would change, if we took the way you do?
What would change if you took the way the bee takes?
In a field of mustard flowers, a honeybee lands, drinks, and flies on.
The flower is still there, as fresh as before, now dusted with pollen from the last one.
What really happens
A honeybee visits many flowers on each trip, collecting a little nectar and pollen from each.
The flowers are not harmed. Many are helped, because the bee carries pollen between them and helps them make seeds and fruit.
How we know: Bee pollination is basic ecology; a large share of the world's food crops benefit from animal pollinators like bees.
The turn
Most taking leaves less behind.
The bee takes in a way that leaves the giver better off.
Three takeaways
- Take only a little from each source.
- Leave the giver better than you found it.
- The best taking is also giving.
Take like the bee.
As the bee collects nectar and departs without injuring the flower, or its colour or scent, so let a sage dwell in his village.