Survival

Like an enforced hibernation, many of the beehives on La Palma in the Canary Islands were buried under volcanic ash after the Cumbre Vieja erupted in late September.

These six hives were situated just 600 meters from the volcano. When they were finally dug out from under a meter of ash on Nov. 6, rescuers – who suffered a sting here and there – found that five of the six hives had survived, with hundreds of thousands of bees undoubtedly happy to see blue skies again.

They had sealed themselves in by creating propolis, a resinous material with which they plugged any gaps, and were able to survive on their food reserves, as the owner had not yet collected the summer honey.

~ The Bee Report by Matt Kelly (https://thebeereport.substack.com/)

“The old soul that dwells at the core of each person has a tolerance for chaos and an instinct for survival. Not in the simple biological terms of survival of the fittest, but a complex involvement with hidden aspects of creation. We can only come to know our soul when the chips are down, when there’s nothing else to do but take on a bigger imagination of the cosmos and of our place within it. The return of cosmic order and cosmic sense always happens at the edge of the abyss, on the brink of disaster where life and beauty and meaning are snatched once again from the teeth of chaos.”

~ Michael Meade, “Awakening the Soul”