2012 Holiday Newsletter
 Sweet Dreams

Imagine Peace                

In this, our 18th Annual Family Newsletter, I want to share one of the founding concepts of Volcano Island Honey Company - one of the goals I have been pursuing.

Thirty seven years ago when I was first introduced to the honey we now call RARE HAWAIIAN ORGANIC WHITE HONEY, I recognized how much I, and most people who tasted it, loved it.  One day, this recognition of the broad appeal of this honey linked up with some ideas that I had been mulling over for a long time.  As a mediator working with, and helping, people in dispute I was always pondering what might be an effective way to help people become more truly peaceful.  

I had observed and realized that the issues about which we humans were continually in dispute came mostly from feelings and concepts deep inside of us and wondered how one might get inside of people and address the root causes of conflict and unhappiness.  As a meditator and a mediator I knew that I was personally employing ancient techniques towards that end.  Then, a few pieces of ancient knowledge merged for me:  1. that honey and honeybees had special significance in most ancient cultures of the world;  2. that honey is hygroscopic and could absorb subtle energy from its surrounding environment, and  3. that what we eat affects who we are.   

We are what we eat 

Then I began to speculate: what if we could handle this honey with a very high level of care and awareness (consciousness if you will)?  Perhaps the honey could absorb the subtle energy of kindness, of the peaceful energy of Aloha and the Magic of this place we call Hawaii. Might not that subtle energy be available in some form inside the person who ingests the honey?

You are what you eat

But not only is there ancient cultural wisdom about the

effect of food on our physical and psychological makeup, there is scientific evidence right in my very own bee colonies that graphically illustrates this same truth - at least in the world of honeybees. 

That is - the only difference between a Queen Bee and a Worker Bee is what they each eat. 

Queen Bee and her Worker Bee attendants

 

If a bee larva is fed only royal jelly it becomes a Queen bee and can lay 2,000 eggs a day, and lives for 2-3 years. The same larva fed royal jelly for only 3 days becomes a non-fertile female bee that does all the non-procreative work in the colony and lives for only about 4-6 weeks. This aspect of the anecdotal phrase "you are what you eat" is undisputed scientific fact. 

 

 

Infusing our honey with Aloha

So I thought, what if our intentions and work environment supported our team at VIHC to consciously be at our best - at least happy, peaceful and compassionate - when we handle the honey.   Then the honey might absorb that subtle peaceful, happy, compassionate energy of Aloha and be available inside the person who ingests the honey.  Then those people could internally experience and then act on that compassion and loving kindness - tilting that individual, and us all, towards a more kind, peaceful, compassionate world.            

 

So yes, our team here at VIHC are sweet dreamers, and we  do our work with that dream in mind, as we have built a business based on social and environmental sensitivity and responsibility. We do our work with as much attentiveness to these subtle energies and these subtle possibilities that we can muster. Our hope is that we can, in our own small way, help us humans create a sweeter, more peaceful and compassionate world.  If it is just a dream, at least it is a dream we here at VIHC are doing our best to live and to model.  And, at the end of the day, we are a happy, peaceful little band of elves turning out a sweet product.  

  

So I leave you to consider our dream and this possibility of peace with the prayer that has accompanied our Holiday/Family Newsletter for the past 18 years: 

 

May this Holiday Season bring peace in your heart, in your family and in the world.

 

  
  Aloha,