07 | Bombs, collapse, and the way of the sleeping bumblebees

Finding hope the bees during times of despair.

Yesterday, as I scooped handfuls of dirt to fill the pots on my windowsill and pressed the seeds into the soil, I felt the weight of the world closing in around me.

Everything felt a bit pointless.

The bombs and displaced refugees, the famines and crop failures, the climate destruction and political corruption—everywhere we turn, there is so much mass suffering in the world.

It’s almost too much for one human brain to bear.

I looked down at the seeds with a sense of apathy. Why bother?

The way of the sleeping bumblebee

I learned something quite remarkable recently.

Bumblebees sleep for 5-8 hours a day and have often been observed sleeping inside the blooms of flowers in pairs, curled up together and holding onto each other’s feet to give them a sense of warmth and security.

As I lay awake at 4 am this morning and the weight of the world began to close in around me once more, I thought of the way of the bumblebees.

And with this thought came clarity — things began to make a bit more sense.

But of course, we must continue to plant seeds.

Life must go on. The seeds of our everyday actions must continue—not out of guilt or shame, apathy or despair, but out of love.

When we love this world deeply and our actions come from a place of love, they have the potential to perform wonders, big and small.

And wonders are needed now, today, more than ever.

Illustration by Ed Harrison

“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”

— Henry David Thoreau

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The wealth of issues the world faces also means that, conversely, there is so much potential to plant good seeds in daily life: through random acts of kindness, compassionate listening, using our money wisely, standing in solidarity with the oppressed, creating a piece of art or music, supporting someone with mental health challenges, becoming an environmental advocate, or planting a physical seed in the ground and watching it grow to provide pollen for bees and other insects in the garden.

The challenge is to keep going without letting the weight of the world get us down.

And on those darker days, when it all feels a bit too much, we can gently remind ourselves that somewhere out there is a pair of bees sleeping inside a flower, legs and feet entwined.