Bees Do It… Let’s Fall in Love

by Steph Posted on 19 May 2012

Ever walk directly into the center of a swarm of bees, stand still, and listen to their gentle, sensuous buzzing?

Neither have I, but I’d like to. And I will if I’m fortunate enough to see one coming my way.

A swarm of bees heralds new life. Thousands of warm bodied bees migrate from one colony, in propagation of a new colony. A thrilling sight! They have gorged on honey, they have no nest to protect, and so are disinclined to sting. They attach themselves temporarily to the limb of a tree, the side of a wall, the basket of a bicycle, anything that accommodates snuggling together for warmth, and protection for their queen. Scouts are sent out in search of a new home. When one is discovered the swarm moves on. Admire them. Do not advance on them with a can of Raid.

Swarm of Bees in hedgerow
Swarm of Bees (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Bees sting when their hive is threatened. We prefer super-sized guns for that purpose. Hypersensitivity to bee stings is rare, occurring in 1-2% of the population.

Throughout antiquity bees have been endowed with magical properties. Honey is the golden nectar of the gods. In ancient Egypt and Greece when a swarm settled near a home it was regarded as a prophecy of good fortune. In Celtic myth bees are considered sources of great wisdom. Throughout our western world bees are symbols for the Virgin Mary.

 

The honeycomb is an engineering marvel, mathematically efficient in structure, each cell a perfect hexagon. Bees work in community for the benefit of the colony. A solitary honeybee cannot survive alone. Workers, all female, forage. Drones mate with the queen. Nurse bees secrete from their glands a high protein royal jelly to nourish the babies. I wonder how they feel about the recent hoopla over attachment parenting?

What smells good to us smells good to bees. Following a honeybee as she weaves seductively from one color laden bloom to the next is to witness nature’s perfect construct.

Source: google.com via devon on Pinterest

 

Supermarket produce shelves overflow with the work of the honeybee. Without bees to pollinate our fruits and vegetables we would ultimately starve. I can think of better ways to lose weight. If the bees vanished our kids might be happier, as vegetables would disappear, but so too would strawberries, peaches, and apples.

Honeybees are the canaries in the coal mine. Their crisis is our crisis. And they are in crisis.

For commercial beekeepers renting out their hives has become far more profitable than selling honey.

Consider this: Every February the largest pollination on earth occurs. Three quarters of all commercial bees in the U.S. are enlisted to pollinate 650,000 acres of almond trees in California. Driven by the latest advertised craze in health benefits almonds reputedly offer, they have become obscenely profitable. The Central Valley of California supplies 80% of the world’s almonds. That’s world aka planet – 80%! For three weeks every year millions of bees are shrink-wrapped onto pallets, loaded onto trucks, and transported across the country to accommodate pesticide infused monoculture. Stressed out and disoriented, they die in droves.

 

A fledgling movement is afoot to urge the monoculture industries to plant natural food sources to encourage the return of the wild pollinators who have largely disappeared due to loss of habitat. Monoculture relies on pesticides. Change, which must occur, will be slow.

If you still find yourself frightened when a swarm settles temporarily near your home, or if you’d like to start your own wild bee colony, contact Michael Thiele at gaiabees.com, a biodynamic beekeeper with Melissa Garden. Revel in his language, and soft-spoken, impassioned admiration for the honeybee.

To learn about the marriage flight of the queen, the waggle dance of the foragers and the modern plight of the honeybee, watch Queen of the Sun, and Vanishing of the Bees.

You may want to welcome the wild pollinators into your garden. Plant lavender, mint, rosemary, dahlia, sunflowers, marigold, clematis, geraniums, foxglove…and so many others.

 

Remember, if a honeybee flies into your house, she offers blessings and good fortune. Guide her to the exit with care. Let’s fall in love with bees.

Twitt
Posted in animals, bees, careers, geography, unusual vocation | Tagged , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Horse Play

by Steph Posted on 11 May 2012

Hippotherapy. Does that summon visions of hippopotami in tutus tiptoeing to the music of Dance of the Hours from Disney’s Fantasia? Or am I merely dating myself?

Hippotherapy, of course, has nothing to do with hippopotami in tutus. The words share a root, hippo, Greek for horse. A hippopotamus is a river horse.

Horses as therapy: Hippotherapy

Remember Mr. Ed the talking horse? I continue to date myself, don’t I? What would Wilbur have done without him? He was his confidant, and best friend, who nevertheless got him into trouble on occasion. Who has a dry eye reading the book or watching the film, My Friend Flicka? The horse heals the boy, and the boy returns the favor, nearly dying to save the horse.

Source: google.com via Kathie on Pinterest

The horse is a mirror to the human condition.

I had a horse when I was a kid. His name was Big Red. He responded to me, and my sisters, individually, the three of us who enjoyed horseback riding. He knew what behaviors made us uncomfortable when we climbed onto his back. With me he would toss his head back time and again. He knew that frustrated me. I have many regrets about that horse. I love animals, maybe more than humans. But, as a kid I knew nothing about horses. My father, who was the domineering sort, taught us how to saddle and bridle Big Red. It wasn’t pretty. Knee him in the stomach, he told us, to cinch the saddle around his belly. The knee caused him to suck it in.

No wonder the poor horse didn’t want us on his back, even as lightweight kids. We weren’t very nice to him, even though we loved him. We were told he was a big dumb animal, and to treat him as such.

As I matured and spent more time around animals I realized, of course, this was not at all true. I think about Big Red sometimes, and wish I had it to do over again. All any animal requires is affection, and they return it a hundredfold.

Fran Judd is a physical therapist who started Renaissance Healing and Learning Center to help in the easing of the physical challenges of autism, stroke, and a host of special needs.

Under her tutelage a teenage boy with autism who doesn’t normally touch things with ease, after a couple of sessions, touches a horse’s back. The contact triggers something in him, and he becomes more aware of his surroundings. For the first time he walks unguided.

Source: 27.media.tumblr.com via Adriana on Pinterest

A woman who walked with a limp, and right side weakness, after a stroke sits on a horse and allows her body to move with the animal, and some of what was lost is restored.

Special needs kids have been shown to benefit greatly, both physically and emotionally from contact with these well-trained gentle giants. The rhythmic motion, similar to the human walk, strengthens the natural motion of the pelvis; the interaction between student and horse fosters self-confidence and trust.

Full House Farm, here in my hippie town, talks of a Spacious Intimacy with horses. Maybe a little touchy-feely, but if you watch the two-minute video on the website the convoluted language translates to a beautiful ballet of how attuned horses are to our demeanors.

Have you seen the very moving documentary, Buck? A horseman from Wyoming, Buck overcame an abusive childhood partly by finding refuge in horses. He dispels the ridiculous notion that horses are big, dumb animals. He is the Horse Whisperer extraordinaire. Robert Redford modeled his character in that film after Buck. Over the course of the documentary we learn about the sensitivity of the horse, how they mirror our emotions, how they exhibit an unconditional affection for the affection shown to them.

Buck (film)
Buck (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I highly recommend the film even if you have no particular affinity toward horses. Buck himself will win you over. An appreciation of horse flesh is the bonus.

How do you feel about horses? Have you spent any time around them?

read to be read at yeahwrite.me

Twitt
Posted in animals, extraordinary, family, unusual vocation, women | Tagged , , , , , , | 19 Comments

There’s Something Happening Here…

by Steph Posted on 8 May 2012

Years ago when I was in Lima, Peru I was in the right place at the right time. I’ve made a conscious choice to see it that way. I was wandering the perimeter of the Plaza de Armas, soaking in the sun drenched history, and the pleasant Peruvians as they plodded along the perimeters, sidestepping through their afternoon. I had begun to study the bars and restaurants, considering where I might sample my first Pisco Sour, Peru’s signature cocktail when all at once, with the speed and formation of a swarm of army ants, I was swept up in a sudden, spontaneous uprising. Hundreds of people engulfed the Plaza. It happened so fast I had little time to react.

I won’t forget the feeling: predominantly fear, but spiked with adrenaline. The mood of the crowd swept over me. Carried along in the wavelike motion of the mob, I had no choice but to move in sync with them. What seemed like a very long ten minutes later, I found myself deposited onto a side street as if spit out by the current. There I retreated to the fringes while the crowd surged forward. Later, I would read that the protest hoped to block a plan to nationalize the banks. And later still, when I had returned home, I would read that the protests were successful.

 

The experience is as close as I’ve come to attending a protest march; as close as I’ve come to activism. The spirit of it was mesmerizing. But, as I’m so much the introvert, the experience, though exhilarating, did not prompt me to become an activist, at least not by showing up for a protest march. Though I came to admire those that answer that call.

We all know Rosa Parks, and the brave action she instigated. She quietly pushed for racial equality, carefully planning the action that led to her arrest. More than a symbol, she was an agent of change. We have all heard of Suu Kyi of Myanmar held for decades under house arrest, and winner of the Nobel Prize for peace in 1991. Recently she was elected to office, at long last, a vindication of her long stance against the military junta that has ruled her country for too long.

From the Civil Rights era, though men more often held the stage, women strode steadfastly forward.

Septima Poinsette Clark, a teacher and activist for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the 1940’s and 50’s, was often called the “queen mother” of civil rights. Most well known for establishing “Citizenship Schools,” she taught literacy skills to adults in the Deep South as a means to empower Black communities.

Fannie Lou Hamer, a Mississippi sharecropper, was beaten and jailed in 1962 for attempting to register to vote. She co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and delivered a fiery speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

Source: google.com via Leanne on Pinterest

 

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was borne out of their heroic struggles, demonstrations and boycotts.

During the Vietnam War (known as the American War in Vietnam) the many protest marches surged as the draft conscripted upwards of 30,000 young men per month. The Civil Rights activists coalesced with the Vietnam activists, as the majority of the draftees were young men from poor communities who couldn’t buy their way out.

Though it was a long slog as the protests continued and intensified, the draft was abolished in 1973. With the passage of the 26th Amendment all those 18-year old young men we sent off to fight, and be killed for their country, earned the right to vote.

Crowds surrounding the Reflecting Pool, during...
Crowds surrounding the Reflecting Pool, during the 1963 March on Washington. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now taking center stage is Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring, Europeans against imposed austerity measures, and like the Tiananmen Square activists that came before him, Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese human rights activist recently sequestered in the American embassy in Beijing.

Mr. Guangcheng, for the last seven years, has either been imprisoned or under house arrest for his exposure of forced sterilizations and abortions carried out as part of China’s one-child policy. What will happen to him, and to his cause, we don’t yet know.

Injustice, large and small, will always be with us, and so fortunately, will the activists, from the single voice to the many, ready to fight it.

To my way of thinking this is one of the greatest songs about protest ever written. The lyrics are timeless. Listen.

Is there anyone you admire for taking a stand? Or a piece of music?

Twitt
Posted in civil rights, journalists, travel, unusual vocation, volunteer, yeahwrite | Tagged , , , , , , , | 40 Comments

Don’t Know Much About Geography..

by Steph Posted on 5 May 2012

I’ve written before of my addiction to the game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. My true addiction is to games of trivia. Jeopardy sits at the top of the food chain, all others pale in comparison. But, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire offers a unique glimpse into American society. For a glimpse into yet another segment of American society watch Repo Games, and weep.

To qualify for Millionaire the contestant has 15 minutes to complete, and pass a general knowledge test of 30 questions. Eighty percent or more do not pass. It seems fair to surmise that the test is difficult. Yet, watching the show you would not be faulted for believing no test was required, and that one need only audition and be perky. And, if you are a woman over 5’3” you need not apply. Apparently no woman may be taller than Meredith Vieira.

This illustration was crafted by my friend, Susan, over at superearthling.blogspot.com. Sometimes watching Millionaire gets me to thinking along these lines.

 

Without exception Geography stumps everyone. U.S. and international geography send the contestants into paroxysms of panic, the EXIT sign lights up! What river forms the border between the U.S. and Mexico? Where is Mammoth Cave? Vail, Colorado resides in what mountain range? On what continent do you find Senegal? How many continents are there?

Less than 30% of Americans hold passports. That number climbed only recently due to stricter rules for reentering the U.S. from Canada and Mexico. Our xenophobia knows no bounds these days. Compare that to 75% of citizens who hold passports in Germany and Britain.

Europeans, of course, have the luxury of boarding a train in one country and disembarking two hours later in a new country. Flights are long and sometimes cost prohibitive from the U.S. to Europe, Australia and Asia. Americans are entitled to an absurdly short vacation span. Are these valid excuses for our lack of geographical knowledge? Globalization has become a buzzword, and we have difficulty locating Minnesota on a map.

Source: Uploaded by user via Paz on Pinterest

 

The other day in a restaurant I overhead (oh yes, eavesdropping is my forte) a young woman tell a friend she was being sent to Spain for work. She inquired of her friend, “Do you know where Spain is?”  Her friend, to her credit, was incredulous. “You don’t know where Spain is?” Now embarrassed, as she should be, the young woman admitted that she did not. “Somewhere in Europe?”

 

Schools focus on their students passing tests in science, math, and reading. Social studies, geography, and foreign language get shelved. Literacy programs are slashed under the guise of reducing the deficit. Conspiracy theorists might believe our government has visions of dumbed down complacent citizens. Non-conspiracy theorists might believe in our government’s shortsightedness, and intent on gridlock. Either way we lose.

Meg Healy graduated with top honors from the academically rigorous International Baccalaureate program at her high school. Her curriculum focused on a global perspective.

She says, “I felt like I had been learning about the world for four years, but hadn’t been in it.”

She signed on with Global Citizen Year, a San Francisco based organization that places high school graduates in developing countries for their “gap year” between high school graduation and college. The students are linked up with a host family and provided meals, but are not paid.

Meg took up residence with a single mom and her two kids in Salvador, Brazil. She lived in one of the poverty-stricken neighborhoods, referred to as “favelas,” where homes, more like shacks, are jammed up against each other. Meg admits it took a little getting used to.

But, get used to it she did. She helped establish a library, helped the kids with their homework, and tutored a group of neighborhood kids in English.

Travel changes lives. Our perspective is forever altered. Maybe travel is out of reach. Did you know that learning a new language increases our brain’s capacity for critical thinking, and helps us focus?

I contribute to a training program for the betterment of a woman in Nigeria. I’ve never traveled to Nigeria, but I can locate it on a map. Among other things, I learned that the country is located on the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa. In this way I acquired a smidgeon of knowledge of a country and its culture. It’s a big world out there.

 There are no foreign lands.
 It is the traveler only who is foreign.  
-Robert Louis Stevenson-

Is there a country you feel drawn to?

Thanks for listening!

 

 

 

Twitt
Posted in geography, travel, women | Tagged , , , , , | 17 Comments