Milk and Honey Day 12: Honey Never Spoils

There is almost always honey in my house.

A large jug sits in the pantry and a smaller jar stays on the counter beside the tea kettle because I use it constantly. Part of my evening routine is making tea, adding honey, and slowing down for a few quiet minutes before the day ends. It’s one of those small ordinary rituals that quietly becomes part of the rhythm of your life.

Every winter, the large container starts crystallizing. The honey turns thick and grainy and won’t pour properly anymore, so before I can refill the smaller jar, I have to warm it slowly until it softens and starts flowing again.

I think that image stayed with me because it feels symbolic of people too.

Hard seasons have a way of crystallizing us. Stress, grief, survival mode, disappointment, exhaustion, carrying too much for too long. It changes the way people move through the world. Not necessarily ruining them, but hardening certain places a little. Making them more guarded. More rigid. Less able to flow naturally.

But crystallized honey is still good.

Still nourishing.
Still valuable.
Still sweet.

It just needs warmth again.

Honestly, that idea sits underneath this entire collection.

Milk and Honey has always been rooted in themes of provision, rebuilding, beauty, wilderness seasons, and learning how to create something alive while your own life still feels unresolved in real time. The more I worked on these paintings, the more honey started feeling like one of the clearest symbols inside the entire body of work.

Biblically, honey represents abundance, provision, promise, and flourishing. Scripture repeatedly describes the Promised Land as a land flowing with milk and honey, which was never really about excess or luxury. It represented stability after wandering. Nourishment after dependence. A place where life could finally root deeply enough to flourish instead of merely survive.

And honestly, I think people are starving for that feeling right now.

Not necessarily wealth.
Not perfection.
Just enoughness.

Enough peace to breathe.
Enough beauty to soften them again.
Enough hope to believe life can still become something good.

Honey carries that symbolism naturally because it is sweet, but it is also sustaining. It stores. It preserves. Archaeologists have found pots of honey in ancient Egyptian tombs that were still usable thousands of years later. I love that fact probably more than a normal person should.

Something sweet surviving for thousands of years.

There’s something deeply hopeful about that to me.

Especially because honey is also gold.

Not metaphorically gold. Actual glowing amber gold. Warm translucent light suspended inside something nourishing. The same gold tones keep appearing all through this collection as I move further into oils and begin glazing warmth and atmosphere over the rougher acrylic structure underneath.

The paintings themselves are starting to flow differently now too.

That matters to me because honey flows. Slowly sometimes, but intentionally. It carries movement, warmth, richness, and depth all at once, and honestly, I think my creative process works similarly. I usually begin paintings in a rough, chaotic, structural way. The early layers are messy and uncertain and full of problem solving. Then eventually something shifts. The work softens. Light starts moving through it differently. Atmosphere develops. The painting becomes less rigid and more alive.

The process itself mirrors the symbolism almost accidentally.

Or maybe not accidentally.

A few years ago, one of my favorite Christmas gifts was a honey tasting set with different varieties gathered from different flowers and regions. I remember being fascinated by how dramatically different they tasted from one another. Clover honey tastes different than orange blossom honey. Wildflower honey tastes different than tupelo honey. You can taste where they came from.

That stayed with me too.

Because I think people are like that.

The sweetness we carry in our lives is shaped by what we survived to create it. Joy does not erase the past. Restoration does not erase the wilderness. The final result still carries traces of where we’ve been.

And honestly, I think that is part of what makes both people and art beautiful.

Not perfection.
Not untouched innocence.
Depth.

To me, honey feels like a perfect metaphor for the way God works in people’s lives. Scripture says He works all things together for good, and I think honey reflects that idea beautifully. You can still taste the source in it. The sweetness remains connected to the flowers, the climate, the season, the terrain it passed through to become what it is.

It does not erase the journey.
It transforms it.

That idea lives all through Milk and Honey.

I think that’s part of why I want these paintings to feel warm and atmospheric and alive instead of polished or sterile. I want them to feel gathered. Layered. Human. Like something shaped slowly over time instead of manufactured quickly for consumption.

Because people are carrying so much right now. The world feels loud and sharp and exhausting most days, and I think many people are quietly grieving softness without even realizing that’s what they miss.

Not weakness.
Softness.

There’s a difference.

That’s what honey represents to me inside this collection.

Warmth returning.
Beauty surviving.
Sweetness that endured long enough to become nourishment.
And the reminder that even hardened things can flow again once warmth reaches them.