Welcome to the Pollination Party! Celebrating Pollinator People on Re-Enchantment Day

“Among the humble-bees, for instance, the workers
do not dream of renouncing love.”
~Maurice Maeterlinck, The Life of the Bee

Welcome to the Pollination Party! My practice this week was simply to notice: who are the flitting, flirting, flapping, crawling, buzzing, whirring, partying pollinators around me?

I was surprised at the first to show: a hummingbird, flashing their ruby in all the right places. Who turn out to be one of the birds known for prolific pollinating (more than 8000 species!). Then among the newly emerging blooms of the meadow, wild western honey bees methodically exploring spring-scented ceanothus, frenetic smaller sweat bees and flies of various kinds among the salal and huckelberry bell blossoms, and slower and lower bumblebees amidst the ox-eyed daises and purple thistle.

On the warmest day, the low hum of the Pollinational Party could be heard (in between the high hum of the jets above). I learned that plants produce more nectar when they hear bees buzzing (often matching the musical note D). It made me wonder what other soundscape surprises are always there waiting, should we be quiet enough to listen.

Pollinators are this this month’s Re-enchantment and Gratitude Day guest, and like last month’s Birds and February’s Moon, we encounter kin with countless forms and wisdoms. We typically think of bees and butterflies, but the Pollination Party is large and diverse: beetles, bats, birds, moths, flies, waasps–and yes mosquitoes–all get in on the celebration. Some are generalists and some are specialists, like the Yucca Moth that pollinates the Joshua Tree.

Apart from being intriguing, beautiful, and mysterious in their own right, they are absolutely critical for ecosystems. About 80% of flowering plants and 80+ major food crops depend on flying insect pollinators for reproduction..As renowned biologist E.O. Wilson remarked, “If all humanity were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”

Re-Enchantment and Gratitude Days are about participating in the movement during this Great Turning for the re-enchantment of our lives, re-belonging ourselves to the animate web of life with our gratitude and awe.

The invitation is to participate by celebrate the Pollination Party through words, intention, art, learning, ceremony, altars, song, or deep listening in your own landscape, at your own pace. See below for different invitations to celebrate Re-Enchantment & Gratitude Day:

POLLINATOR GRATITUDE BLESSING

POLLINATOR – PRACTICES

POLLINATOR – POEMS AND SONGS

POLLINATOR – RESOURCES

Pollination is the bridge between possibility and reality.

I’d love to hear about your experience and unique ways of connecting with Pollinators in intentional way.

Wishing you all the buzzing and nectar you need right now,

Wild Nature Heart Director of Creative Earthiness,
Ryan

Re-Enchantment & Gratitude Days are the first Saturday every month, and offer invitations for blessings, practices, and poetry honoring a being or aspect of nature. Next month, May 2, we tune into what’s beneath our feet: SOIL.