Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt – marvelous error! –
That I had a beehive
Here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
Were making white combs
And sweet honey
From my old failures.
- Antonio Machado, translated by Robert Bly

I hate making errors. Especially difficult is receiving negative feedback. It’s so hard to believe that everyone doesn’t love me, and love everything that I do. What can they be thinking? This was a really good week for me in the realm of receiving difficult feedback.
During my years of living at the San Francisco Zen Center the expression used for such occasions was, “it’s good for your practice.” Makes me think of a quote from a card I published at Brush Dance: My life is one learning experience after another. By the end of the week I should be a genius.”