Honey and dust

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I had picked up a book called Honey and Dust: travels in search of sweetness written by Piers Moore Ede. The book itself is about the author who was living in San Francisco going about his every day life - working in a cafe, meeting a young woman and falling in love and generally enjoying life. Then all of that changed one morning cycling to work where a truck jumped the lights in front of him and his world changed from the moment he was hit.

It was a slow and painful time and during this time depression had set in and as the weeks passed he found that the need to get away to in the hope of how to live in the world again.

This is where his journey with bees (unbeknown at the time) starts as he makes his way to Italy to stay on an organic farm where in exchange for a day's work, workers are fed and given a place to sleep. It all promised to immerse you into the countryside and with the good wholesome food and sufficient work to tire you out, it would allow the mind to rest. On one particular day, the host invited the author to go and see his bees. It was from that moment that the author saw how the bees gave a sense of calm and peace and he burned with the wonder of it all.

This wonderful book takes the author from Italy to the Middle East, Nepal, Sri Lanka and India all in the search for honeys in the world from the terracotta bee jars of the Lebanon to the clay cylinders of Syria as well as hunting with tribes for wild bees leading them to their magic gold. Honey is a great healer and as the book comes to a close, the author himself finds his own salvation and his love of honey that he has had since childhood.