Every now and then Destiny, Fate has it that one comes across some rare beings...
At first sight, they look totally ordinary, but if one is curious which I am and is open to listening - then one realizes that quite a few ordinary people are not so ordinary and many of them live the ordinary life in an extraordinary way...
The man I encountered tonight is one of those people...A humble, jovial, simple man, he must be in his early 70's or so, but there was something very young about him, it was his curiosity and his passion, more like tender love for what he liked best - botany, ecology, and rearing bees...
When I started out the day, I had absolutely no idea I was going to meet anyone, who will capture my full attention for over 2 hours with one story after another about plants, trees, insects, bees, recycling of waste, solar panels, ...you name it he could talk about it...his love was nature and its conservation...
Just by listening to him I felt re-connected to nature and its principles...I learned so much tonight and for that I am very grateful...
This is how it all started...
L and I met up for a drink at our usual place, she wanted to talk as usual, the same old boring subject - her relation with the male gender - in my opinion she had pretty exhausted the subject, but she went on and on...it was a cul-de-sac, a no-winner as far I was concerned...it was a no-winner because the initial premise from which she operated was faulty to start with...I tried explaining that to her, but L, is the kind of woman that just needs to vent for the sake of venting and is not really interested in change...because she is not interested in learning something new about herself...
So I just let her be...after all it is not my business to change anyone...but it is my business how much time I am willing to invest and spend in listening to the same old broken record...
For me, faulty premises give birth to faulty relations. It's very much like planting...how can one expect anything to grow if the land is infertile to start with ?
So I let her vent, it did not really matter if I listened or not, she was going to talk her way into her old self all over again...
And it is in these moments of desperate boredom that the small miracles happen...and that small tiny miracle was this man who was visiting and who taught me all I needed to know for today about plants, flowers, bees and the rest...
I learned for instance that bees are on their way to near extinction. They have been genetically modified by who else but the bloody Americans - who mixed two different kinds of bee types, thus rendering the new "product" bee vulnerable to all sorts of parasites, hence shortening its life span by nearly half. Today the world bee population has decreased by 60%.
I also learned that it takes about 6'000 to 10'000 bees in one hive to produce 12 layers of honeycomb which in turn produce about half a pot of honey each.
I learned about all the different types of honey - honey made of flowers, honey made of trees, honey made of herbs...I also learned why the wasp's sting could be deadly - the wasp can feed on garbage and carcasses...I also learned all about acacias trees, their origins, their life span, did you know that there are real acacias trees and pseudo-acacias trees ? The real ones give birth to pink and yellow flowers, the pseudo ones bear only white ones...and all acacias trees originated in Yemen...
I learned about solar panels, and the difficulty in recycling them...hence not all green is really green. I learned about the cancerogenic dust particles produced by the friction of car tires and asphalt...and much more...
I listened to this man with eyes wide open...he had so much knowledge about nature, a walking encyclopedia...
So I asked him - I said to him the amount of knowledge you possess is formidable, how did you acquire all of that ?
And in the same simple tone in which he spoke, he replied - I don't have a TV so I read a lot and nature is my passion...
L. was getting restless...this man did not capture her attention not one bit...but for me, he made the whole evening worthwhile...
And as I headed home, I pondered how many people who have honey every morning actually know how it is produced...and I pondered some more and thought all of the things we ingest, use, daily...and we never stop and think about them...
How many hours have gone into their production, what did it take, how was it designed, what is their source, how is it affecting us, them...and I could go on for hours...
All these ordinary things, all these ordinary people that we take for granted....until, a sweet evening opens our eyes....
