Sumangali.org: In The Spirit Of Serendipity

Continuing the theme of selfless insects…

My mother told me the other day (after watching BBC Springwatch) that if there were suddenly no bees, humans would survive only another 4-6 years.

Yes.

…

It certainly took me a while to recover from that small but gobsmacking addition to my knowledge. How come I never knew that?

What amazed me even more than the fact itself (I can’t find anything in print to support it, but as it came from Auntie Beeb via my Mum there’s a good chance it’s a fact), is that it must have been a fact from the dawn of our species… or any species… anywhere in the world.

This makes the news that bees are struggling to survive all the more alarming. I read an article recently in Celsias about Colony Collapse Disorder, and again in Science Daily.

I’m not about to dwell on the magnitude of these findings (or if I do, I’ll do it on my own time, not yours, and not in this serendipitous blog). Instead I’d rather dwell on that amazing fact: the humble bee continues to save our lives.

A prayer for their well-being (ergo yours and mine) would then perhaps be a more positive approach than alarm. In a small, incomplete, oblique way, this forms a response to Jennifer’s tag at Goodness Graciousness. She postulates: “To heal our world we need a new vision of what is possible.” So in at least partial response, I’m imagining healthy, happy bees (ergo healthy, happy everyone and everything).

Albert Einstein is reported to have said, “The single most important decision any of us will ever have to make is whether or not to believe that the universe is friendly.” Is that not lovely, and true?

Is the Universe friendly? A loaded question perhaps. How can it not be if we owe our survival to these fuzzy little chaps, saving the human race while busying themselves, — for their own good, due to some inherent incomprehensible selflessness, or just for friendliness?

Every day I watch them with fondness, during this, their busiest time of year, pollen trousers weighing them down yet more than their own fur and chubbiness. Now I watch them with nothing short of reverence. I have always loved them, at least ever since Winnie The Pooh, (who has always been, so that’s forever to me). Now I love them more.

More proof that bees (specifically bumblebees) are very special, is that their natural aerodynamics have stumped human engineers.

“The mystery of natural flight has endured for centuries and captured such great minds as Leonardo DaVinci, who designed several “ornithopters,” flying machines that copied birds. Early in the 20th century, engineers came to the conclusion that bumblebees “can’t” fly—at least they shouldn’t be able to, given their ratio of body weight to wingspan. The pronouncement sparked an enduring scientific “urban legend”; there’s even a self-help book out there called Bumblebees Can’t Fly, intended to inspire people to transcend their perceived limitations.”
— Beth Saulnier, from The Truth about Bumblebees and other insects

I really don’t want to know how they do it; the mystery is surely more inspiring than a formula could ever be. On that note, here’s food for thought from my meditation teacher:

“Each thought is a prayer.
Each prayer is a satisfaction.
Each satisfaction
Is God in preparation
For His own Self-transcendence.”
—Sri Chinmoy, from Transcendence-Perfection

Image: Science Daily

This entry was posted on Friday, June 8th, 2007 at 7:53 pm and is filed under nature, positive thinking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.