Plague Journal, Hope
Yesterday morning I joined my son and the grand kids for a walk to the park and some fishing. Fishing is a grand adventure for a kid. Fishing can be one of life’s most important lessons. One never knows what one will catch, if anything. There are many factors involved in catching a fish. No matter how experienced the fisherman, there is much that one cannot know. Success is not guaranteed.
Our outing was successful. I believe that we caught four Bluegills, which we released back into the edge of the lake. How do you describe the sensation, feeling a fish, unseen beneath the surface pulling too and fro on the fishing line, as it is pulled to the surface? Life is felt before it is seen. Then one must as gently as possible disengage the hook, as you look into the eye of the living fish. The experience is one of mystery and excitement. Other discoveries by the water included a young toad, a snail as big as a fifty cent piece, and a tiny crayfish.
At the end of our fishing expedition I waited for the kids while standing in a patch of clover. I remembered when I was a kid front yards full of clover blossoms. Honey bees love clover blossoms. I recall walking barefoot among the white blossoms and suffering a painful bee sting on occasion. Bees are essential pollinators of our vegetables, fruit trees, and nut bearing trees. Much like us they have a social hierarchy, living in colonies. For some years now bee keeping has been under pressure from colony collapse disease, pesticides, and pathogens. We do not yet understand the cause(s) of colony collapse disease.
I looked at the clover blossoms at my feet hoping to find bees. I looked more closely and there they were. I felt relief. The honey bee is a sign, a fragment of the life of our planet. We are sustained by a myriad of forces, living energies around us which we do not understand, that constitute the well being of Nature. The tomato plants, the cucumber plants laden with blossoms in my garden await visitation by honey bees.
The pleasure of viewing bees at work, — there is hope.
