It’s a frustration of mine that, quite often, wonderful things are spoilt by an adverse twist that taints perfection with a stained thought. On this occasion, a quite beautiful experience of peace and inspiration was ended with slight pain and suffering. I was stung by a bee. It got caught inside my trouser leg and obviously feared for its own safety. It should have been insignificant to me, but following my relaxed state, a 2 hour drive which vibrated across the sting, and a brisk walk up 4 flights of stairs, a reaction took place and illness set in. The pain of the aftermath so far away from home, changed plans and caused some distress. Not a major illness, you understand, but enough to tarnish the memory of the previous days.
This has happened before. Well, not the bee sting, (this was new) but the ‘sting’ of something at the end of beauty. And I know that it has happened to friends in the same way. There is a saying that with childbirth, a woman never remembers the pain, only the glorious emotion of the baby that follows. Otherwise, why would any woman ever choose to have subsequent children? This theory I concur with. The wonder and happiness (and busy-ness) of what follows wipes clean the slate and allows the mother to bond with the baby – who has caused the pain through no fault of their own – an innocent thrust into a circumstance with no intention to harm. It was not the bee’s ‘fault’ – it was trying to save itself. This should therefore mean that the bad memories dissipate, leaving only the good ones... and will probably be so, but here, in the lee of the event (and still feeling washed out by the experience) I have almost forgotten the good.
I tend to arrange these memories as separate ones. The beauty is not altered, and on a different page there is the learning – and soon to be forgotten pain – of what happened afterwards. It is this compartmentalisation that helps me to sustain life and hope. I can look at these events as mutually exclusive. One did not lead to another – even when one was in fact caused during another – I would not have been stung had I not been where I was (32 beehives perhaps held high risk of someone falling foul of the occupants) – they were incidentally connected and therefore should be only considered in that light.
Perhaps this is rather functional. Could it be thought too sterile? After all, life is a series of interrelated events. They often link to each other, as experience shared in one area will no doubt influence the actions and outcomes of another moment in time. We grow by our experiences. We germinate ideas based on pain: a spark of magic from moments of distress. Out of need comes great learning. The important thing is to form that learning – not to forget any lesson, and not to read evil into the simplest of actualities.
The bee is a conundrum. Unlike the garish wasp, the gentle honeybee dies after stinging. It only stings once, in great need. Does the bee know that it will die? In this case it felt it was in peril – but did it have a sense of how serious a scenario was playing out? Has it spent its life stopping the anger in other circumstances so that it could live longer? I know nothing of the consciousness of bees, but in human terms it would be of great help to mankind’s evolution if killing was based on certain knowledge that death of the self would follow harm of another. It would inform human actions greatly. Admittedly some would not care. Others would be deterred. Of course this might lead to overpopulation on an even grander scale than is currently so: I don’t propose it as a solution to the world’s ills. But it would make mankind a different beast.
If the bee does not know it will die, and it is a simple biological and automatic response to life threatening danger, then is there a sadness about its loss? Perhaps, or perhaps not. We tend to personify inanimate objects with human traits and put our own suffering onto them. We also give living creatures the powers of humans – and subsequently some develop the sensitivity to eating/killing them. Thirty-two hives full of bees – do they miss their fallen compatriot? Or just not notice its loss. Even in human communities, 32 times the size of a hive – the loss of a fellow town member for example would not – could not – always cause grief.
But as usual, I digress. I will move forward and remember separately the idyll of solitary creation. The retreat; the sabbatical from life; the chance to reflect. I should focus on those reflections, and take their meaning: but in reality the peace was one where I shut down from the trials of conscience of the past months. Simply shut them out, like my network shutting me off for being out of its distant environs. And the feeling on my return, is that I have changed nothing, and perhaps need to change nothing. I do not run away to make any decision, I am happy that I feel the way I do, complex though it may be. The simple answer is that there is no answer. Changing one thing would change many others, some good, some bad. The more complex answer is that I still hope not to have to change anything. Just enjoy effortless pleasures when they arise.
To allow myself a moment of sentimentality, the poor bee is no more. I suffered a few days of sharp but minor pain in mourning for her death. If I need to take any more learning from the experience, there are two elements. Firstly, when I am relaxed, I am susceptible. Second, I am also strong. I made decisions, and got myself home in spite of my weakened and distressed state. And the learning is that I did not have to rely on anyone else to solve the problem. So the future is a subtle and rainbow striped horizon. There will be wonder, and there will be pain. But I have confidence in my ability to plough through the field, and grow more of the best things in life.
I just had a lovely dream, of dancing in a meadow, and am filled with hope and light and potential. Rich green grass under my feet, and we danced as one. There was a sense of freedom, of a journey, and one that I was not frightened of taking. Time to book another exploration then. Little bee, you are one of billions, but you will not be forgotten.
