Breasts Like Cups of Nectar

I went to the ROM today and was mesmerized by the bee colony. The kind gentlemen who works there spent probably twenty minutes explaining the inner workings of the colony, and how everything works synchronously, with all the bees doing their own part without being told what to do (don’t you wish humans were like that?!). It seems as though it’s by magic that everyone knows their roles, without being told, bribed, or without any hope of reward. Basically the queen bee runs the show, the worker bees know exactly what to do in their respective roles, and the drones are only needed to fertilize the queens. The feminist part of me loves this – impregnate me and get out of my way. Ha! The drones die soon after mating, or else they are ejected by the worker bees once the food runs out.

I listened with fascination as he told me how some bees may return to the colony drunk off the pollen. These drunk bees are killed because they are useless and can’t work. Bees get bloated with the honey and pollen and when they return to the colony, they regurgitate it to release it and put it into the cells. There are undertaker bees that carry away the dead bees and dispose of them far from the hive (so that animals are not alerted to the presence of the hive). Everyone has their role, their duty, and nothing is out of place. Everything is exactly as it should be.

So fitting because it is similar to what was discussed in my Myth & Meaning class this morning. The teacher is Raj Balkaran who is a gifted storyteller and scholar in comparative mythology. He talked about Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell and the Hero’s Journey. All of us are on a hero’s journey. A part that struck me was when he described his conversation with his friend who was experiencing deep grief, and he said to him “think of when King Dashartha had to part with Rama when he went into the forest for 14 years” and his friend was able to see that his grief was not unique, it was a shared human experience.

The power of narratives and stories is that it sheds light onto human experience, which has lost perspective in the age of reason, where everything is logical and not valued unless scientifically proven. He talked about a subtle reality that exists, where energies align and events occur that appear like coincidences but are actually examples of this synchronicity at work. I’ve experienced this myself quite profoundly over the last 3 years, with the number 69 appearing over and over (God only knows why that is my number!), suddenly tuning into the time at 11:11 over and over, and having thoughts that lead to my questions being answered, or running into the person I was thinking about, or something or someone coming into my life that addresses my very thought or intention.

At the Eastern civilization exhibit, I came across a beautiful picture of a dancing gopi. Gopis are the dancing cowgirls who were all in love with Krishna, and would leap out of their beds and leave whatever they were doing when they heard the enchanting sound of Krishna’s flute. Gopis were in a state of constant ecstacy, because of their complete surrender to Krishna and abandonment of their self-consciousness and wordly obligations. There is nothing that could stand in the way between them and their beloved. Gopis are revered because they exhibit the purest love that only complete devotion can yield. Radha was Krishna’s favourite gopi, and the two of them enjoyed many ‘loving pasttimes’ together (aka sex).

Then I went to visit the dinosaurs. I feel like a little kid in this exhibit, because I cannot believe that there was a time when dinosaurs roamed the earth!!!