Bonnie in the Bee: The Pull of Participation

Bonnie in the Bee
Sometimes I look at our dog Bonnie and feel such an overwhelming love it almost hurts. But what’s stranger—if no less beautiful—is that I sometimes feel her in other animals. A look from a sheep. A glint in a blackbird’s eye. Even, absurdly, the brush of a bee’s wing. For a moment, it’s as if Bonnie’s presence echoes through another form.

I used to think I was just projecting. Now I’m not so sure.

Because along with that echo comes something else—a kind of swelling in the chest, a tenderness so fierce it makes the world shimmer. I begin to feel love for everything—for horses and mice, cows and wrens. Even the occasional spider, if it’s not in the bath. And I wonder:

What if this isn’t me casting my feelings outward, but something larger drawing me inward—into the soul of the world?

It starts with a dog, of course. A specific dog. Bonnie, whose face I know better than my own. The velvet ears, the eyes that hold both mischief and eternity. She is more than companion; she is kin. Guardian. Mirror. Some days I think she may even be my teacher.

But then something happens. A bee lands on the lavender, and for the briefest moment, there’s a flicker. Not resemblance—not a memory—but presence. The same glow I feel around Bonnie shimmers through the bee. It’s ridiculous, and yet it’s undeniable. The pattern repeats. A crow on a fence. A calf in the rain. Even a rat, blinking in the undergrowth. The feeling comes again—this swelling, unbidden love. Fierce, full-bodied, and entirely disproportionate to the size of the creature.

And so I begin to wonder.

What if love is not a private emotion but a form of perception? What if it sharpens the senses, not dulls them? What if, when I see Bonnie in the bee, I’m not mistaking one creature for another, but tuning into a thread of being they both carry? A soul-tone, perhaps. A signature. A rhythm of aliveness that pulses through different forms.

In that moment, I’m not “projecting.” I’m participating.

Noticing becomes a form of prayer. A foxglove, trembling in wind, becomes a kind of scripture. The sheep on the hill, a benediction. Even the spider I usually dread becomes, if not beloved, at least witnessed. The imaginal world begins to glimmer—not as fantasy, but as a second skin to this one.

And in that widening field, something opens.

Not just my heart—but the world itself. Noticing me. Meeting me. Not metaphor, but mutuality.

I don’t need to explain it. I don’t need to be right. All I know is this: when I love fully, without guarding the edge of reason, the world loves back.

And Bonnie is everywhere.