Live and Let Live

A BIG ONE HANGING JUST ABOVE THE TRAIL

                        
In 2016 a friend of mine passed away. He was an artist and a joker and after his death some weird events began to happen. I’ll describe one event.

One day, not long after his death, I went outside to feed the birds and that’s when I noticed that somehow the hornets had managed to build a nest. I didn’t remember seeing it the day before.

PRIVATE CEMETARY

It was constructed close to where we sat on our deck. A place where we eat and drink and make merry. I figured I’d have to move it. Maybe smoke them out.

​I didn’t have to, because by the time I got around to doing anything about it the nest had picked up its bed and walked and re-located to the side of the woodshed. This is a place where I also like to sit and imbibe some drink or another. I have five such places outside.

A PHOTO FROM LAST BLOG THAT JUST WON'T STAY OUT OF THIS BLOG

I should mention that I’m not allergic to hornets, so I didn’t have that to worry about. Still, they would only be a wall away from where I sat and I didn’t expect the hornets to  respect my living space.

VINCENT SITTING AT LITTLE PICNIC TABLE IN FRONT OF LITTLE HOUSE

Being a person who worries about the human race’s continuous abuse of and separation from nature, I began to think about setting up an experiment. What if I did nothing about the nest? What if I let them be instead of treating them like we humans seem to treat so many wild creatures and plants? Would they let me be? Could I sit in the woodshed and drink a beer without being attacked, stung and forced out? Would they bring in big machines clear-cut me out so they could get at my Big Spruce Beer?

FRIEND SKETCHING ON RED ISLAND BEACH

So, I let them be and they hardly ever bothered me. Very few even made a sojourn into the woodshed. None bit me or tried to bite me. A few did investigate my drinks and did envy my elixirs. Very un-god like.  

​I gained a respect for how critters like hornets can live and let live and I’ve treated them that way since the summer of 2015.

AVOIDING THE INCOMING TIDE

A few days ago I was thinking about writing this blog when I was surprised by a crashing sound. The rope that held up the bird feeder, suet and hummingbird feeder had snapped. 

I got the ladder, a piece of rope and began to repair the rope. The hummingbird feeder had managed to snag onto a clothespin, so it hadn’t fallen.

SEA-RABBIT IN A TUB

As I removed the hummingbird feeder from the hook I was soon being buzzed by a bunch of confused hornets. They like hummingbird food. They were flying around my face and neck and were putting my hornets’ nest theory to a severe test. 

​However, I thought, wouldn’t we be confused if we were eating at a hamburger joint and all of a sudden the building got wrenched from its foundation and moved to somewhere else?

WALKING ON PORT HOOD BOARD WALK

Anyway, I spliced a new rope to the old rope and ignored the confused hornets. Some were on the grass eating some spilled nectar, some were puzzling over the relocation of their juice joint and some were still trying to decide whether to send the military in against the Jolly White Giant.

The point is, I didn’t get bitten.

On Friday, two or three burly-looking hornets really tested my theory as they continually buzzed around me, landing on the side of my glasses, on my lip, my moustache, my arms and my legs. 

PORT HOOD ISLAND GHOST STORY

Why am I writing this? One reason might be because of the continuous onslaught on our environment. Because, when I hear most politicians discuss problems of the world, they usually mention the environment at the very end of their list of worries. It seems to be low priority and yet it is our ultimate existential problem.

EAGLE LANDING NEAR MABOU

A few days ago, I was sitting on the porch of a small cabin. A hornet buzzed me. I acted nonchalant and in my head I said, “I’m a friend.”

RED ISLAND BEACH

The small hornet landed on my arm and I maintained my friendly demur. He or she walked around on my arm and explored my arm and didn’t bite.

​At some point, I noticed that this visitor was missing a part of his wing. And I felt sad for the wee hornet and I wondered if the hornet had landed on my arm because he was dying and he saw my aura, if hornets see auras, and decided my arm was a friendly zone?

A MALLARD DUCK ??

Am I being silly to think like this, or do we humans have to learn to see, because how we see is what we see.

​“Moses could never have seen burning bushes as the Divine, could never have persevered with so much unknowing, unless he had moved to a higher level of seeing.”
                    Richard Rohr, The Naked Now