Bumblebee and Leaf

While returning to my office at midday I saw a bumblebee flailing and tumbling across the hot pavement.  He was evidently attempting to fly, and with the sun high overhead on a summer’s day, I was certain that the heat of the black-top would be torturous.  I cast about for a way to pick him up that wouldn’t disturb him or result in my being stung. I found a small cottonwood leaf, brown, and laced with holes.  I tried several times to slide it under him, using it like a spatula, and finally succeeded.  I carried him over, as he crawled up the leaf towards me, and placed him in the shade of a small manzanita shrub.  I suspect he was injured and may not survive, but at least he was relieved of the terrible suffering of the hellish tarmac surface and could enjoy resting in the shade if these were his last minutes on earth.

So often survival interests impose their ruthless logic and one cannot afford, or at least feels as if one can’t afford, compassion.  Yet each being is unutterably precious, a soul like one’s self, bound to this earth for its own ineffable purposes, to be valued and loved whenever one can be big enough to do so.  The bee touched me deeply in its struggle, which only made me more acutely aware that s/he was a living creature like me, but at that moment in a very tough spot.  The love I could offer was to spare its suffering as much as possible.  I’m sure it had no awareness of me but as another potential source of suffering or death.  But I knew I had spared it potential anguish and I was happy.