This week I felt a deep sense of peculiarity in regards to being a human creature in a world where my mind is trained to doubt my place and connection to all other living things. It’s a peculiar thing, to be a creature that thinks about their existence in relation to/separate from everything else. In the garden this week, a bumble bee buzzed behind my head for several minutes. I was in the midst of pondering my existence, which often transports me into a different world where I get lost…and when the buzzing continued and intensified behind my head, I had the fleeting thought that it was a ‘disturbance’ to my self-absorbed-getting-nowhere musings about my existence. After several more minutes of buzzing, I thought: this bumble bee’s buzzing is sleepy and relaxed…I doubt the bumble bee wonders why it’s a bumble bee…why it’s yellow and black, why it’s body is so large compared to its wings, why it isn’t so coordinated or aerodynamic. The bumble bee is just the bumble bee. Alive. Relaxed. Drinking it’s breakfast from the catmint flowers. Utterly unbothered by the details of its existence.
I found the bumble bee quite comforting–what would it be like to simply accept my place where I am, as a human creature, on this earth for a little while, unbothered by questions of why…that would be a relief. So, with that lesson, I ended the week with some time hanging upside down from a tree limb in the garden. The golden, amber wheat-like grass blew in the warm breeze, tickling the top of my head. The arm of the sycamore held me kindly. It’s time to change my perspective, and listen to the sounds of things that do not question.
I like how succinct and profound your post is Mika. To play Devil’s Advocate, how do you know the bee doesn’t ponder it’s own existence? However, you’re most likely right in that it does not, but what if it did? If bees could ponder such questions? I am no bee expert but I too wonder if it really was relaxed since perhaps it could be afraid of creatures much larger than itself or have some other concerns. I find it is the little creatures mulling about in my own life too that lend to gigantic realizations. How long were you upside down for?
This is a wonderful piece. It got me thinking about all the things l have been stressing myself about lately. Its amazing how small insects or animals live unbothered and just take up the day as it is without worrying about whats ahead!
What you said about listening to the sound of things that do not question actually made me think about what are the questions the bumble bee is asking. As it buzzes by your ear, it is wondering if the cavity is some place it can find refuge? Does it think you’re a flower and is looking for pollen….I agree, though, that sometimes just being – without questions of existence – can be enough and we can maybe learn from nature how to do that.
Really neat post — I very much sympathize with the “pondering my existence” sentiment. While meandering through the forest or harvesting snow peas in the garden or really doing ANYTHING, I often catch myself contemplating the fruitlessness of mundane tasks. Especially in comparison to creeping moss and rustling foliage, what ….exactly….. am I doing with this strange, strange thing we call life? It’s hard to not wish I were a dandelion or a speck of dirt or an oblivious aphid basking on a tomato plant beneath a warm sun. What would it be, I wonder to just……be (or shall I say *bee* (ahaha horrible joke my apologies)). But who knows? Perhaps bumblebees are lost in thoughts of their own, and they wonder what it might like to be a human cultivating a garden rather than an insect pollinating it.