“If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.†– Buddha
This quote is extraordinary, especially when we realize that it was coined 500 years before Christ. Without the aid of a microscope, Buddha had very little knowledge about pollination, fertilization, photosynthesis, germination and floral anatomy or physiology. As a seeker, however, he was aware that flowers were inextricably connected to the physical, mental and spiritual health of human beings. We had to wait for Charles Darwin to show us that without the flowering plants, humans would not have evolved on planet Earth. Unfortunately for Darwin, although he discovered some rudimentary factors of evolution, he had no idea of how flowers evolved and was resigned to call them, “an abominable mystery.†Tragically, there are people who feel the same way about themselves and other humans.
For most of the history of education in the US, teachers have been relegated to the lowest level of the professions. There is some justification for this. When 95% of the US population lived on farms, 5% lived in towns and cities, girls typically attended school up to the third or fourth grade. They needed minimal reading, writing and math skills, and were needed to help with farm and domestic chores. Boys typically attended school up to the seventh or eighth grade before they returned to the farm or moved on to work for another farmer. Some of those who did graduate from high school were able to teach elementary school without a lot of formal training. These were almost exclusively women and led to the term “school marm.â€
It is hard to believe, but there are still rural communities where teaching is not regarded as a “socially acceptable†career for males. Coupled with this lack of respect and the three-month summer vacation, rural school boards often feel that if men want to teach, they jolly well should be ready to work summers; bailing hay, picking fruit or doing whatever work that is needed in the community.
This is not ancient history. When I began teaching in 1964, my annual salary was $4,800. My take-home pay was about $300 per month. I taught seven periods each day, which means that I was earning less that $2.00 per hour. Males (pre-female sports) who wanted to coach an after-school sport were paid about .50 cents per hour. So what could this possibly have to do with the theme of this Facebook or Biodesign Out For A Walk ?
In the summer of 1970, I was blessed with a full NSF scholarship to attend Washington State University in Pullman, WA. It was an exciting and challenging program that led to a Master’s degree in teaching biology. Necessarily, all of us were biology teachers and we learned a lot by comparing notes.
One of these teachers was named George, a teacher from Kalispell Montana. He loved teaching, but like most of us, struggled financially. While I worked most summers in construction, George developed a second career as an apiarist (bee keeper). He had several hundred hives on his small farm and scattered around the community. The profit he made from selling bee’s wax and honey was an essential supplement to his teaching income. It was he who shared a wonderful lesson about bees.
In the early summer, when the bees are working in wild flower fields, including various species of clover, they are so docile that he can tend the hives in a tee shirt without risk of being stung. However, there are vast alfalfa fields in Montana that produce the valuable fodder for cattle ranches and dairy farms. George can tell the very day that the alfalfa begins to bloom.
Alfalfa has a tubular flower somewhat like snapdragons. They have evolved to entice honeybees by offering them nectar and pollen. However, unlike flowers with open petals, bees must crawl down into the floral tube to reach the nectar. After gathering the nectar, they must back out the same way they entered. As they do this, their bristle-covered bodies trigger a device that causes the flower to collapse the tube, thus covering the bees with pollen. Apparently this is the plant’s way of ensuring cross-pollination and the result was that the bees returned to his hives “mad as hell.†This made it necessary for him to put on his protective hood, veil, gloves and “bee suit.â€
This begs the question, “What do bees know? Do they have emotions like anger and fear? Do they carry a grudge? We know that they are highly social and communicate with each other; are they “conscious†of this? There are thousands of questions that haven’t been asked yet because we have studied animals to better serve humans and not with the interest to discover what they know.
This opens the major miraculous and mysterious sphere of instinctive behavior and how specific actions can be programmed on DNA molecules. This is why Benjamin Hoff mentioned in, “The Tao Of Pooh,†“Instinct is just another name for something we don’t understand.â€
It is not surprising that children and adults who work closely with animals are frequently convinced that they know far more than scientists are willing to give them credit for. Many describe mysterious, mystical behavior that conjures up feelings or awareness of the connections between animals and God, of which people are generally unaware.
2,500 years later, Buddha’s words still ring true:
“If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.â€
Lowell H. Young, Author: Biodesign Out For A Walk
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