My appreciation for the natural world started when I was a child. The natural world was always somewherer that I could turn to for a sense of belonging. By the time I was a teenager, I was very interested in wildlife conservation because of the deep relationships I had built with the natural world. I first learnt about WWF at this time too because my friend adopted a snow leopard in my name. My heart was so full and thankful for this gift because snow leopards are my favorite animal. My hopes for the future of this planet is that we collectively become more ecocentric rather than androcentric. I hope for humanity to reconnect and build a relationship with nature that is defined by gratitude, love, and respect. To me, this is one of the most important things we can do for sustainability and the life of our future generations.
Now, I want to share a story about a creature I recently developed a relationship with because this creature had a profound impact on my life: Two summers ago, I made close friends with a creature I traditionally hated and sometimes even killed out of fear when they got too close. I judged this creature as aggressive, merciless, and mean… This creature is wasp. It all started when wasps started to build a nest in the birdhouse on the balcony and another nest in the wall under my bedroom window. To say the least, I was surrounded by wasps whenever I went outside on the balcony. When I would go outside, I practiced an arm movement I learnt from National Geographic that communicated a boundary to the territorial wasp, and it always worked to get them to leave me alone! Yet, one day as I was sitting outside, a wasp that I thought was a hornet it was so big, started to fly around me. The boundary-setting arm movement did not work. This wasp was persistent. (I later discovered it was the queen). She flew circles around me, and she got so close to my face that I could hear her beating, buzzing wings, and feel their wind on my cheeks. Then, she landed right in the middle of my forehead and crawled around in triangles. It encouraged me to be calm and rendered me very still because it felt quite uncomfortable with the fear of getting stung in the forefront of my mind!! (Literally! haha). Then, as fast as she came, she disappeared into the birdhouse. Curiously, from that day, the other wasps became less aggressive with me. I wondered what happened. I knew that it was my duty to explore and understand what I hated and feared, and wasp was giving me an opportunity to do just that. I had a choice to either call an exterminator or learn how I could live in harmony with this creature. So, I implored myself into shamanic journey with wasp. Wasp revealed a pattern to me. It started with a white triangle on top and a reversed black triangle on the bottom, connecting to make a rhombus. The triangles continued, and lines were revealed, holding the triangles together. Then, circles were made around the triangles and lines. What came from it all was the “flower of life.” Wasp was teaching me about interconnection. Wasp’s way was bridging the light and the dark, the multidimensionality, the linearity, and connecting it all through circular movement. I think this teaching can be applicable to how we can merge and value knowledges to inform the whole picture we are connected to. I felt grateful for the teaching I received and decided I would try to deepen my relationship with wasp through peaceful encounter. I vowed to stop doing the boundary-setting arm movement, risk getting stung, and just BE with wasp. It was an amazing experience to water the flowers, surrounded by so many swarming wasps and not feeling scared. Not a single one bothered me, it seemed as though they were grateful for the water, considering the heat wave/dome we were experiencing together as a result of climate change. They pollinated the flowers, and they worked together, just as hard as bees! One wasp would return to the nest, two more left. Back and forth, they shared jobs of pollinating and stocking up on insect food for the months ahead. Here, they were sharing the teaching of working diligently and cooperating with one another in a way that honors one another’s strengths and weaknesses. Then, I noticed a behavioral pattern that felt profound to me. It seemed that when a wasp was ready to end its life cycle, they would try to make it home. They would die in front of the nest entrance, and after one to two days, the other wasps would pick it up and carry it inside the nest. My guess is that they ate it, considering the many other insect bodies they’ve carried inside. To me, wasp was sharing a teaching about sustainability. I thought, what a beautiful dedication to ensuring the survival and livelihood of its future generations. After wasp slowed down into hibernation, I took extreme care not to let the snow pile up in front of their nest entrance they worked so hard at. I welcomed these friends back the next summer with utmost gratitude and appreciation for all they have shared with me, and with curiosity to learn more. I never ever thought I would say that before this summer experience. A lot of people do not like wasp, and I introspected as we descended into the void of winter, what could wasp have to teach us about hate, anger, fear, murder… and love, appreciation, cooperation, courage, and right action? Since so many people hate wasp, I wonder what could happen if we opened our hearts to wasp, rather than getting stuck in our fear minds. As Marie Curie once said, “we only fear what we don’t understand.” I do not mean welcoming wasps to surround ourselves, but to at least contemplate their existence and our personal relationship with it. I wonder what this could teach us about loving one another and loving all of our relations? It feels so simple yet seems so hard with all the pain and ego survival mechanisms in the way. It seems as if the fear of getting stung is greater than opening our hearts to love what we hate. Maybe we just need to get curious. That queen wasp was curious with me, and she courageously made the first move. Maybe wasp can teach us how to open our hearts to those we hate, and unearth value for the teachings shared that inform our own individual experience of the world. Maybe wasp can open us to find what we hate within ourselves, and thus, present us an opportunity to discover our wholeness. For, whatever is being reflected in front of me, is exactly what I have been trying so hard to reject within myself. So, the sun shines on everyone, leaving no one out. One could say the sun is an expression of unconditional love. Learning to love something that I once hated taught me that love is possible anywhere…
Wasp has also taught me about right-action, so I applied wasp’s teachings with a person in my life whom I have also previously judged as mean and aggressive, and who was thus, a little harder to love. Interestingly, I have also previously judged myself as nice and passive. Me and this person need each other to discover our wholeness. I have spent my life trying hard not to be mean because I was taught that being mean is hurtful, that I would not make friends, that it was not feminine, and that it made my parents angry. This other person has been taught that being nice is for “sissies”, that it is not masculine, and it is not tough. These contemplation’s were my way of bridging what I perceived as light and dark, just as wasp taught me. Discovering this paradox within myself bestowed an opportunity to discover more of my wholeness and unearth acceptance for that which I have been shunning my whole life. It also encouraged me to feel compassion and warmth for the other person and contemplate how he came to his beliefs. Furthermore, this opening has now surprisingly allowed us to cooperate and value one another’s perspectives, rather than constantly fighting over who is right. …It is amazing what can happen when we get curious and open our hearts. The reason I shared my wasp story is because I want to illuminate how sustainability is multidimensional and how nature can teach us many things about wellbeing if we are open to forming a relationship with her. Moreover, work towards wellbeing is also work towards sustainability, whether at the individual, family, group, community, nation, or planet level. Sustainability is not limited to the environment, but to all that we are in relationship with. For instance, discrimination, violence, and inequality do not promote sustainability, nor does constant extraction of earth’s resources to make a profit.
Now, the above story about wasp can be easily disregarded and mocked in a world that is not accustomed to expanding our perspective of what we are connected to other than to humans or that welcomes wasp as a friend. Nonetheless, it is my hopes that sharing this story may still plant a seed. I think if we slow down and take a deep breath, we may start to notice the beauty surrounding us, and we may even start to notice when a creature, tree, flower, breeze, body of water, etc. is trying to share something with us that could potentially change our perspectives, and thus, change our lives. I think if we feel a pull towards a part of nature in our lives, we should listen, because everything is connected.