Some months ago I was in the Hawk’s Well Theatre in Sligo to hear Martin Shaw, a wonderful mythologist, perform stories from ancient Irish texts. I’m always amazed at how Celtic faith in trees, hawks and crows gradually blended with new narratives of Christ when the Christian monks first arrived in Ireland.
A good example of this blending narrative is found in the story of a monk who was tasked with carrying the body of Christ across Ireland, only to find that it was very heavy.
The monk rested under a tree and, as he slept, a swarm of bees arrived and noted that the dead Christ was in need of a tomb. So they lifted the body in the air and brought it away to a safe place where they made a tomb for the god. And so from that day until this, the body of Christ lies hidden somewhere in the natural world. I couldn’t get the story out of my head all summer. Occasionally the murmuration of birds or the swarming of bees is like a dance in which each individual bird or bee is swallowed up by a greater beauty or consciousness. And despite the bad weather this summer, I spent many mornings with the window open listening to the dawn chorus from the woodland. In the afternoons, when the birds were asleep, I sat on the patio listening to the humming bees.
It’s impossible for me not to feel some affinity with bees and birds and a sense of belonging in the natural world I live in. But the story of the bees constructing a resting place for the dead Christ fascinated me. I picked at it for weeks trying to figure out some hidden meaning. I wondered why the dead Christ was so heavy and why the monk could not carry the body. Perhaps he was in poor health and was not up to the task. Perhaps he was just lazy, and the weight of the Christ irritated him. But certainly the bees were imbued with more divine grace than the monk. They emerge from the narrative as heroes more in tune with the cosmos than any cleric.
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About a week ago I was sitting at the window admiring the yellow leaf on the wild cherry trees and the rusty hue of the beech hedges when I heard an enormous solitary bee bumping against the window pane. For no particular reason I presumed it was female; an old queen that had lingered too long in the mundane world.
Neither alcohol nor the smoke of any luxurious spliff had crossed my lips, yet I had a feeling that the big furry bee was looking at me; until she went away.
I returned to my newspaper only to be disturbed 30 minutes later by a tiny tapping on the glass sliding door of the patio. So I went towards it and found the same bee doing the same thing, as if trying to get my attention.
I am ignorant of the social life of bees but I’m sure any apiologist could easily explain why a solitary bee was hanging around the house in late October. Perhaps the slanting sun confused her. Perhaps she needed sugar or water or a place to hibernate.
But my feeling of connection with such a tiny sentient being was enormous and I even googled images of bees on my laptop until I beheld a complete diagram of the insects complex body on my screen.
Edgar Allen Poe wrote a beautiful poem about a raven which I often whisper to myself. His Raven “upon a midnight dreary” was a shadow of dark divine nostalgia, but the bee in my autumnal day felt no less a harbinger of something mystical.
In fact I was relieved when the buzzing ended and I had no further sight nor sound of the strange messenger.
After a visit to the bathroom and then to the bedroom to find a fresh towel to dry my hands, I noticed that the window was open and suddenly there she was again; hovering in the air just outside.
She hovered a while, and deftly floated up and in through the open window and remained motionless in the air directly before my eyes. As if she were watching me. Until suddenly she moved away, out the window again and off into the woods.
I haven’t seen her since but the memory lingers as I watch the leaves falling. And sometimes I feel that such moments are what makes life really worth living.