Cambridge Council has left areas in the parks to grow wild, aided by sowing wildflower seeds. But in years and years of seeing yarrow, I have never seen the deep colours of these.
Because there are so many species and cultivars, yarrow comes in many different colours. So, while yarrow does exist in these colours in the wild, my guess is that the Council has bought in a selection of seeds that are not exactly ‘UK’ wild.
That said, they do the job and the area is teaming with bees and hoverflies. It is testament to the regenerative power of leaving things alone.
The Bee
There was a bee on a purple flower spike, an arrangement of many small flowers on a tall stem. I forget which species of flower it was, but the bee moved quickly up the stem from one little flower to another. One quick sip, and on to the next flower. It did not dither; it took a sip and then a tiny distance upwards to the next flower. It was like the bee was going up in a lift (elevator), higher and higher on the flower spike.
It made me think how we humans see the bees sipping nectar and think how lovely it is to watch nature moving in its own time.
This is attributed to Lao Tzu:
Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
Today though I was thinking about the mind of the bee, and the task it had before it. Sipping at each flower, on and on all day. It is like piecework, where the worker is paid for how many of a thing he or she can turn out in a day. For the bee it means it gets a living only so long as it keeps sipping. Is it fun, or is it a hard day’s work?
Come to think of it, do bees have downtime when the jobs are done, and it there is time to laze around and contemplate the whole cycle of nature?
Some animals plainly have downtime. Lions after they have eaten, for instance.
Or an orangutan at rest, sitting on a branch of a tree, lazing back against the trunk, idly prodding something that interests it.
Tamara is amazed that cows keep going, munching grass. She wonders what they think. She wonders whether they look at the next clump, and say to themselves ‘Oooh, grass!” Looked at that way, life is a never-ending delight. Perhaps it is that way for the bee.
Tamara and I once saw a moorhen couple getting ready to raise young. The male looked frantic, dashing about finding sticks, bringing them back and then off again. Its little legs were moving as fast as moorhen legs could go to bring back another twig.
Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
Ah, Lao Tzu is talking about the closed system of nature. Every variety of experience is in there. It is constantly moving and changing. Its rhythm is perfect, beating to the tune of the universe.
Man is an odd fish.
Slowly we are getting used to the idea that we do not stand outside of nature, but we are still a million miles away from knowing how to get out of our present predicament.
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