World Peace and Harmony

Yellow Jackets Leaving their Nest

Okay, I confess.  How we expect to live in peace and harmony with the world when I cannot even find a way to live with Yellow Jackets?  Who does not recall getting into a nest of these little devils in the fall and finding them so aggressive?  Not all seasons--just the fall when food is scarce, winter is coming, and they lead with their stingers.  That's what happened to me out on the trail.  I was moving some sticks around to line my newly cut trail when WHAM! out of nowhere came the stings in my shirt, which I promptly slapped and got stung again.  There they were...right by the side of MY trail which the neighbors had started using.  Do I cut a new trail around them? Or is their something very human in us that hits back instead of lifting the shirt for the bees to fly away? Are you kidding?  Of course we slap at them--it's instinct that we hit back at what hurts.  So late at night, I poured the toxin down the hole, covered it--and presto, no more bees! 

Think about it.  If I cannot overcome my hurt to lift the shirt to let them go--why on earth not build the trail around them?  The Buddhist would tell me that the violence I perpetrate on the earth does me equal harm, and opportunity for me to live in peace.  The Golden Rule could be elevated for the natural world as well--in which we all have equal claim to the planet. 

Then again, those yellow jackets are little devils, aren't they!