8 3/4 x 4 1/4 inches
When I found out that bees can communicate to each other through movements that are called a waggle, I was amazed. Scientists have known that forager bees can find food in the wild and tell others in the hive where it is AND how to find the food. How long the dance lasts corresponds with the distance to the food source and the angle of the bee’s dancing body relative to the sun indicates the direction of the source.
There are so many beings communicating on this planet. And in such fantastical ways. I like how science can actually feel mystical. But I think it feels mystical because we tend to be human centered in how we approach the world. Of course, animals communicate with each other. Of course, plants also understand each other!
I used to think about different ways of communicating a lot. When I was in college and then for a short time after college, I worked with nonverbal children. Some were on the autism spectrum, a few were selectively mute, and then others had other disabilities that prevented language development. But still, there was communication through touch, feel, song, movement and also visual means. No matter what, living beings want to communicate. And maybe some dead ones too, but that’s a completely other topic.
I digress. Back to the bees.
Hum by Mary Oliver
What is this dark hum among the roses?
The bees have gone simple, sipping,
that’s all. What did you expect? Sophistication?
They’re small creatures and they are
filling their bodies with sweetness, how could they not
moan in happiness? The little
worker bee lives, I have read, about three weeks.
Is that long? Long enough, I suppose, to understand
that life is a blessing. I have found them — haven’t you? —
stopped in the very cups of the flowers, their wings
a little tattered — so much flying about, to the hive,
then out into the world, then back, and perhaps dancing,
should the task be to be a scout-sweet, dancing bee.
I think there isn’t anything in this world I don’t
admire. If there is, I don’t know what it is. I
haven’t met it yet. Nor expect to. The bee is small,
and since I wear glasses, so I can see the traffic and
read books, I have to
take them off and bend close to study and
understand what is happening. It’s not hard, it’s in fact
as instructive as anything I have ever studied. Plus, too,
it’s love almost too fierce to endure, the bee
nuzzling like that into the blouse
of the rose. And the fragrance, and the honey, and of course
the sun, the purely pure sun, shining, all the while, over
all of us.