It was on one of these pauses, though I don't know how, that the idea of a nap occurred to me. The new bed I was digging is conveniently located next to my beehives which sit amongst some tall grass and wildflowers. It's an inviting spot. I stretched out in front of a hive and watched the bees work for a while as I let the early May sun and the sound of their wings drift me off for a few minutes. As the breeze came and went I caught the occasional scent of new honey being put up inside the hive. Though brief, it might have been the best nap I've ever had.
It was back to digging before long. The day cooled off and the bees took their own turn to give it a rest. Soon traffic in and out of the hive all but ceased as the last of the field bees brought in their sweet findings. I finished my work in turn and squatted down to peer into the hive entrance again before I called it a day. There just inside the door fanner bees line the hive entrance, butts pointed out, wings beating to push air out of the hive. My bees are gentle, so I put my hand first and then my face right up within a couple inches of their front door.
I'm sure I went slack-jawed and let out a whooowheee next. These fanner bees and probably thousands like them working in unison in the dark interior of the hive, all aligned heads up and tails down, were driving a steady, warm, sweet breeze out past me into the cool evening air. The smell was irresistible, a mix of beeswax, springtime, and evaporating nectar.
People see the Virgin Mary in pieces of burnt toast. Jesus pops up now and again in drywall stains, Cheetos, and pancakes. Elvis is seen so regularly that someone awakening from a VanWinkle duration nap might be be sincerely doubtful of The King ever passing in the first place.
All of these miracles invariably end up on YouTube set to incredible music. Though it's probably a failure of imagination, I can't really think of how I could have posted my bee breeze on YouTube. It did cross my mind.
YouTube or not, my competitive side tells me that this bee breeze qualifies in every possible way as a miracle of the same rank and order as Elvis at The Mall, Holy Mother Toast, Jesus Mold, or any of the rest.
My evidence is mostly circumstantial, but I'm virtually certain that Elvis, Mary, and Jesus would all enthusiastically endorse the miraculous nature of my bee breeze. Proverbs 6:6, for example, tells us pretty clearly where to look, "Go to the bee, sluggard, and consider her ways and be wise!"
I take this advice personally and am hoping that snoozing in tall grass in front of the hive at least counts for something.
Elvis, before he took his own long nap, the one fueled by years of too much of pretty much everything, gave us his own confession of...well, if not faith, then at least some indication of the powers of the universe that brought him to his knees in his eponymous 1957 hit Too Much which starts out, "Honey, I love you too much..."
If you think these are long shots, I have more evidence in support of Bee Breeze as Miraculous.
As everyone knows, real miracles have to go against the flow in some important way. If every burnt bagel looked like Mary, we wouldn't run to YouTube so often. Defiance of expectations needs to be a part of it. So let's consider Bee Breeze for a moment. Quite a while ago, Bill Nye the Science Guy discovered (on TV) that, normally, warm air rises. Today, thanks to PBS, everyone except Sarah Palin knows this. But, here's the thing: warm bee breeze flows down through the hive out the bottom, against the natural direction of convective circulation. Supernatural air flow at its finest. If this isn't something to blog about, I don't know what is.
(As a point of factoid, bees tend to keep the air in their hives at about 92 degrees as a means of facilitating the raising of young and the production and manipulation of wax. Those are just factoids, however, and not real miracles. It's the hot air going down thing that makes all of this a miracle.)
Finally, I'll put my bee breeze up against the canon of official miracles any day of week simply on account of reliability. The Faithful have been traipsing to Lourdes for centuries now, by all signs mostly in support of the shoe leather industry, but have only 67 recorded official miracles to show for all of those millions of visits.
My hives, by contrast, yield their fair breezes on any night of the week I'm willing kneel down before them to take in the vapors. It's a sure thing.
So, when I do feel like betting, I bet with Walt Whitman when it comes to miracles.
Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.
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