the Zen of Beekeeping

[Seimyo]

A couple months ago a Treeleafer brought up beekeeping in our discussions about service opportunities. Besides totally endorsing this practice, I found a recent event that SFZC was hosting that some might find interesting.

Bee Well and Be Well: Michael Thiele Discusses the Spiritual Significance of Bees

Enjoy bug-people.

Gassho.
Seimyo

[Mp]

Seimyō,

Great link, thanks for sharing.

Gassho
Shingen

[Yugen]

Bernd Heinrich of the University of Vermont has written the wonderful and paradigm changing book Bumblebee Economics - he covers many of the topics discussed in the above reference piece from the perspective of a biologist and naturalist. An interesting point of reference in studying animal societies and organizations are the anthropomorphic perspectives / lenses that are used to study these communities - for example, sociologists and economists have critiqued theories of labor specialization using beehives and worker bees as subjects... redistributive economics and free rider theories have also been used to explain bee behavior.

Compare anthropocentrism in viewing the natural world with Dogen's perspective in Genjokoan - the ocean to a human being is a body of water - to a fish it is a palace - in his Mountains and Rivers Sutra mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers - to Dogen our experience of them is independent of their suchness - indeed our perspectives are influenced by our karmic limitations. To paraphrase Anais Nin, we see the world as we are, not as it is... (thanks to Dokan for introducing me to her work)

I wonder what the bees would think of all this? Unfortunately our need as humans to monetize or render productive (in an industrial or commoditized context) natural and animal resources has not turned out well for them...

Deep bows
Yugen

[Daitetsu]

Hi Seimyo,

Thanks a lot for sharing this great article!

Made me remember good old Alan Watts:
“There’s an interdependence between flowers and bees — where there are no flowers there are no bees, and where there are no bees, there are no flowers. They are really one organism. And so in the same way, everything in nature depends on everything else.”

Gassho,

Timo

[Nengyo]

Awesome find! Thanks Seimyo!

[Hans]

Hello,

here is a book I can wholeheartedly recommend in this context:

http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Ancient-Times-Folklore-Anthropology/dp/048643494X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369319965&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Sacred+Bee+in+Ancient+Times+and+Folklore+%28Dover+Books+on+Anthropology+and+Folklore%29

Gassho,

Hans Chudo Mongen

[Seimyo]

Yugen, I enjoyed your response.

Thanks Hans for the other book reference. I'll be checking it out.

Gassho.
Seimyo