The Beekeeper's Promise

by Fiona Valpy

‘You know, Abi, we all bring our own baggage along with us. Perhaps that’s what we humans have in common – what binds us together.

Amor Vincit Omnia

The possibility of life or the certainty of death. There was no choice left to be made.

I know how living in a state of fear creates an inertia. It saps your strength and drains your energy, until you become trapped like a fly in a spider’s web. The more you struggle, at first, the tighter the silken threads are woven around you, until finally escape becomes impossible.

I came so close to losing it, my own Self. I thought that it had died inside me. But somehow the spark survived . . . Somehow, at the last moment, just as it was about to be extinguished for good, it flared into life again.

proof that, in the middle of a war filled with fear and hatred, we found love. Let it be a sign to remind anyone who finds their way into this cave in the future that, come what may, to have known love is the most important thing there is.’

‘You smell of honey and sunshine. Even after all that. The darkness of this world can’t dim the light that shines from you, Eliane.’

sobbing screaming throwing up

The body finds a way to close the wounds, to live with the scars. To heal. And, yes, even to grow.