I spent most of yesterday cooking a thanksgiving-like dinner. My sister and her husband were coming over. They are going to South Africa at the end of September and miss out on thanksgiving (we’re Canadian – it’s in October here) and her birthday. I will miss them at the holiday. She’s been sad lately. A dear friend of hers died two years ago this past weekend. There’s not much I can do to help her or her husband through their grief, which still contains rawness these years later.

When I feel helpless like this, I do what my mom always does, I cook. I cooked her favourite carrots and a roast chicken with stuffing, and I made I pie. I love making pies. I can never make the filling NOT be runny and a big mess on the plate, but I love to make pies.

Yesterday’s pie was Cherry Apple; cherries from the Interior of BC and Apples from my neighbour’s backyard. As I stood in the kitchen peeling the apples I started thinking about how cool it was that these apples were grown so close and picked as fresh as possible. I enjoyed the idea of these apples being “local” and “green”.

Earlier in the Spring I was talking to the same neighbour about Mason Bees. This is my first year having Mason Bees in my yard. He’s had them for years. In the spring when the bees woke up from their cocoons we would see them warming themselves on some dark granite stones I have decorating my deck. They looked so small and fragile, barely noticeable.  Had I not known what they were I would easily have mistaken them for flies, or not seen them at all.

I realized that it would have been those very bees that pollinated the apple blossoms back in the spring. Mason bees busiest times are in the mid spring when fruit blossoms are on the trees. This, of course makes them beneficial to orchard growers.

Mason bees only live for a season, after collect pollen to feed their larva, they die. But in a way they live on in the fruit and berries that grow as a result of their efforts in the world. As I looked at the apples in my hand I felt awe at the way life works here. Without those bees buzzing around I would not have these apples, I would not have a pie. I would not be able to support the grief of my sister.

Mason bees live their life, create a safe home for their offspring and die without every realizing the gifts they have created in the world.

Next year the bees babies will hatch, crawl out of the dark, warm their wings on rocks and then do the same thing all over again; collect pollen for their larva.  In finding food for children they will never know, by accident or design, they pollinate apples, blueberries, currents and pears.  

The simple beauty of it sets me to tears. I can’t imagine a more painfully inspiring example of will and futility.

I ache because I feel part of it. I feel part of cycle that is greater and more profound than i will ever comprehend. This has been missing from my life for a time, this feeling of being connected. I have missed it and longed for its return.

Standing in the kitchen peeling apples brought it back to me, tentative and cautious. Gently, like a bee alighting on the back of my hand, easily shaken off and lost again, but there all the same.  

All because of pie and bees.

 ~~~~~~

About Mason bees:

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Hecate is the ultimate witch. When we picture the Wicked Witch of the West or those nasty halloweeny witch’s with green faces, hooked noses and a giant wart we’re looking at images of the ultimate witch – the archetype witch – pagans and wiccans know her as Hecate. Others now her as pure evil.

Evil? Really? Hecate is a Goddess. A goddess of destruction, chaos and darkness. Those are usually bad things, but sometimes, sometimes they can be useful.

Were we never to have darkness life could not exist. The balance of light and dark on our planet is one of the keys to all life. Darkness isn’t evil.

Within seconds of the Big Bang chaos reigned, which soon became ordered. God, as the creation story goes, discovered life among the chaos. Without chaos we could not have order. It’s a Zen thing, go with it.

Destruction. In the world with war and the rainforests being cut down and global warming keeping us awake at night how can destruction be justified? How can it be seen as anything except evil? Type “Seeds that need fire” in a Google search and you will be bombarded with articles about Redwood Forests, Chaparral and Jack Pines. All of them are trees that require fire to open their cones. Without the destruction of fire these trees cannot propagate.

Fire and destruction are a natural part of our ecosystems. Fire destroys and makes room for new growth as well as adds nutrients to the ground to sustain this new growth.

It is our fear of destruction, fear of chaos, fear of the dark – fear of the unknown that make these things evil. Hecate the archetype of these things is also seen as evil, because she demands we honour them. She reminds us that we have these things inside us.

Things we would hide from our families and friends, pieces of ourselves that are better left in the dark and demonized when brought to the light. We deny what balances us and make scary the witches and demons who would suggest otherwise.

Hecate has the courage to shine a light into the darkness, not to blind us from seeing what is there but to support the realization that what we hid is a part of us. We own it as much as we own our happiness and hopes.

Taking the time to walk with Hecate into our own darkness is a terrifying and usually painful process. But to leave them hidden in the corners allows them to fester and grow, the demons created by our insecurities, losses and fears can consume us. They will devour us if left in that place.

I see Hecate as a being who doesn’t let one hid their garbage in secret. Demands that one owns up and be responsible for the messes they’ve made. She’s a cleaner and a cleanser. It’s an awful process taking a shovel to the rotting wreckage hidden deep in our souls. Not a process one embarks on with much relish.

I certainly fear it, as I sit with it. Staring Hecate in the face as she hands me the shovel.

I’ve come to realize – dun dun duhn – that talking about God is basically useless. I’ve spent the last year studying Philosophy as it pertains to talking about God and the result is that I can spell Mainmonides, understand the difference between post modernism and post post mordernism, and know that for centuries people have been debating about talking about God and no one’s figured it out.

This isn’t really all that surprising, not to me anyway, but now at least I can jusify it with arguements of Verification and Falsification.

We’re human, God or whatever the heck you call the higher power is not. So useing human language to talk about something not human seems to defeat the purpose. So why then do we still do it? Why do some insist they have it right?

Why on earth am i considering taking another course in Philosophy this year?

Really that’s debae here today. Philosophy... I hated it when i started it last year. I think that trying to be logical about something as illogical as religion, well illogical.

Religion is about our souls and about relationships, in my mind. The hardest thing about my studies over the past year was tearing that all apart. Dismantiling religion to seek truth you’re not going to find tore my soul apart.

Yet here I go ready to jump back in the fray – I’m a year about from a diploma in religion and four away from a Bachelors Degree in Divinty.

This year on the docket – Old Testament (in English) floods, pestilance and prophets, oh my! And either Philosophy of Religion or Reformation History... it’s a tought call... one i’m having trouble making...

Hhhmmmm....

PS I don't know why those weird letters are where dashes and other punctuation should be... if anyone knows please let me know PPS I totally kicked ass in my exams this year by the way. I'm all education at stuff now.