After a deluge of climate change-fueled rain and hail storms in western Oregon that felt like they just wouldn’t quit, the season is finally upon us when the bees and other pollinators return en masse. Yesterday I sat in my garden and put my head into a flowering bush to listen to the sound of the bees. They are back to do the light work of, you know, keeping all ecosystems and humans alive. And so I celebrate their return every year as someone praying to deities. Not much is guaranteed these days. Thank the baby be-bees-us the pollinators are back.
The fact that the survival of not just the human species, but almost all species on the planet, hinges on pollinators seems to escape a lot of people’s attention. So I’ve been dedicating my time to looking into this more deeply the last seven years or so. And the time is finally here when I’m finishing up my 400 page novel about pollinators and their important role in ecosystem health as told through the braided stories of an unusual and gifted 20-something year old and her 60-something year old mom. My dear agent Bill has given me a final round of notes and I’m sorting through it all, trying my best to put my climate fatigue and seasonal depression into submission enough to power through and put the final polish on. The finish line is visible!
I’ve also been publishing monthly short articles for a local arts and culture publication in my town—CRUSH. Linked here is a piece I wrote about pollinators in the current issue. The idea for it stemmed from a time last summer when our internet was inexplicably down for five days so we ended up putting a chair in our native pollinator meadow and just chilling out (like truly chilling out) for the first time in a long time. I quickly surmised that it was the sound of the bees facilitating our decompression. So I started looking into it and sure enough, bees have a special kind of sound magic currently under scientific study. But I’ll just let you read the article linked below.
And that is my wish for you all this spring, friends and readers. May you buck the AI overlords for a brief moment of calm as you listen to the sound of bees buzzing somewhere out there in your own space, find your own moments of offline stillness. Their hertz is a love song to our very existence.
From CRUSH April 2023: