Well, I'm sure some of you reading this are thinking mumbletypeg has gone over the edge. I've never engaged in a protracted OS skirmish with anyone. It's pointless, I know. But there's something about this one that irks me more than usual, and I'm quite sure that it's because it issues from my beloved Vermont, and offends me beyond rational thinking. A similar writer in Wyoming wouldn't bother me nearly as much (my apologies to Wyoming).
I love bees. I have gigantic flowering locust trees that hum with bumblebees to a near roar in June. I have four acres of goldenrod that keep the honeybees from the hives in the next field over occupied for many weeks in August. I feel privileged to have the resources to feed them. Albert Einstein supposedly said something along the lines that the extinction of bees would mean the extinction of mankind within a matter of a few years. Whether he said it or not, it's probably true. Bees are very precious.
LK Walker, she of the
“With my grief, I was transforming death. I somehow knew instinctively that I had to praise too. That praise was the resurrection of grief. So as I massaged, I praised the rabbit for what a perfect life he had led. I praised him for his beauty, for his simplicity and elegance. I praised him for running through the fields, and through the snow. I apologized for killing him, for taking him from his beautiful world. I told him I hoped his death had been quick and painless. I sank to my knees in the living room, and prayed over this one dead creature so fervently and for so long, it was impossible not to work. With my praise, I was creating life. Not his life, mine.
When the torrent of tears was done. When the hide was soft, and warm, and dry, I sat very still and held it to my heart. I could feel my heart beat, and in the stillness I could feel a very tiny and soft whisper of joy.
That whisper said to me that I had found my path through the mourning. I had found my understanding of what it means to die, what it means to grieve, what it means to praise. And at last, what it means to live. This was what I had to do to find my own thread of life again. In order to live fully, I had to die fully. And in order to die fully, I had to kill something. That something was not a marten or a muskrat or a squirrel. That something was the fear in myself that life held no meaning. And through the ritual honoring of the dead bodies that I found myself in possession of, I was able to face that fear and transform it. I was the chevra kaddisha for the animals that I killed. It was a strange role, I admit, because I was the person who killed these animals. On some level, it made no sense at all. I couldn’t explain it if I tried. But on the deepest level, it made perfect sense. The work of a chevra kaddisha is referred to as - chesed shel emet – a good deed of truth.
This is what I learned.
These animals would die, whether by my hand, or by another. Every person I loved would die, whether by my hand, or by another. All I could do, to make sense of my world, was a good deed of truth. I would grieve, and I would praise. I would spend my time with death, so that I could spend my time with life, truly alive.” [quote from the deleted EP cover post of September 22, 2011]
has taken up beekeeping. She's a busy girl, what with yoga and play-writing and daily trapping and, apparently, livestock keeping. But her world of influence is too small. She must keep conquering new territory. So now she's going after the bees.
“I didn’t research the bees at all before I got them. Not like I researched the chickens. Or the sheep, the cow and the horse, which I’m still researching. The bees I just bought. Two hives of Russians from an apiary near Lake Champlain, about halfway down the Vermont coast. Too late in the season, according to some beekeepers in the know.
But I was not in the know. I wanted bees. I wanted honey. And I didn’t want to wait.”
Of course not! Because when you're god, every living thing “beneath” you is at your beck and call. God knows best. And if she doesn't, what the hell. It's only bees. So she's experimenting, disregarding the advice of experienced beekeepers, because – she's god! She deals in life and death as she sees fit.
[I suppose Emily thought this was a really cute account of picturesque rural life. It certainly has gotten a lot of views, but I expect that's because of the original psychopathic trapping post, which was riveting in that trainwreck kind of way]
“I hate to write this here, as my organic mentor and staunch non-interventionist is likely to read this and be disappointed in me. But I took my three different answers to my one question, and decided to feed my bees.
I reasoned that I’d rather add a little non-traditional food supply, than come to my hive in February to a starvation death annihilation of my hives.
So I mixed up a batch of organic sugar water and put it out. Within a week I noticed a marked increase in bee activity. I finally put on my first ‘super.’ And then I found that mite.
Now it’s October. I’ve found a handful of dead bees. Lots of earwigs and ants. I’m told that the bees will kill them and remove them from the hive and that takes more energy.
In the old days, beekeepers would wrap their hives in tarpaper, or put them in the basement for the winter. But I’m simply going to insulate the cover and let them stay outside.”
Yeah, really, why pay attention to advice from people more knowledgeable than you? Because you're god! And what's the loss of a few hives nowadays, anyway? I wish your bees luck, not for your sake, but for theirs.My favorite quote from LKWalker's post:
“Bees are the only creature that actually improves their environment.”
Okay, aside from the execrable grammar, she's partially right (she's forgotten earthworms, and I don't know what else, but she's god, so accept her badly written statement). Now, LKWalker, if only you'd meditate on the meaning of that. And move to New Hampshire, if Alaska is too far.
(And as I pointed out in my comment you deleted, you can delete all you like. The OS population has a long memory)