It’s fascinating to consider our perceptual world. How the world we see is but one iteration of trillions based upon our senses and an extra tint of past experience. It turns out, we don’t have to look only to the stars and infinite space to feel the wondrous humility of smallness.

There are creatures so much tinier than us that can see a million more colors, who can read history through their breath, who can slow and speed up our very knowledge of time. Our visually forward world is a minuscule fraction of the possibility of the universe. It is an infinitesimal truth that can never be proven, only given faith and trust and surrender.

Time. They call it man-made and yes, our acceptance of it is a human-made agreement. A subjective concept. Every eye, especially across species, perceives light at different rates. For instance, bees absorb the knowing of light so much faster than we, making us appear to move in slow motion.

On the other hand, to the sea turtle, whose patience of body resembles its receptivity of image, we might move like lightning.

To me, questions have always been more important. Even though, at times, I forget this devotional practice. Inquiry is a dedication to openness. Curiosity, when embodied, makes a better world for everyone.

It is, therefore, even important to consider how we got to this knowing about the eyes of the others. It is important to be a critic of truth, whose detail is an agreement. But before we chase an endless abyss of questions, let’s once again imagine the implications of a vast array of vision.

Do turtles, then, even move slowly? How valid is reference or is reference all we have?

With this all in my mind and on my heart, I once stood in the middle of a swarm. I watched bees hum and flit about, burrowing perfect circles in the earth, excavating little mud snakes. Feet dusted with evidence of a long hike, I thought to myself- if I move slowly, could it be like I am not even here at all?

So I tested my theory. I pulled from the well of cells in me that were once a sea turtle’s ancestor and I walked as slow as I thought they might swim. Shelled in slowness, the bees did not change their rhythm.

I moved through the storm as if beyond time, outside of our familiar organization of existence. By being willing to be received in the way the animals received the world, made me timeless. I became boundless as if rooted in the river of everything. I became resonant with the hum of the universe, something outside myself, through the perceptual bubble of the bees. Amid the music, it placed me beyond fear, for is not time and its result- death- not our greatest one?

Shortly after my submersion, I emerged to watch a bicyclist ride by. Now aware of a disturbance in the field, the swarm flurried and I, through osmosis, became suddenly less acquainted with hurry.

When we begin to attune to the intimate experiences of another, we become patient and curious in a way that is outside of self. When we courageously push the edges of self, we begin to blur separation, taking part in the diffusive rainbow of life, rather than the defined fear of death.

Slowing down in a swarm taught me to slow down in a storm, so that I may receive it. So that it, too, may receive me. The imploring, humble exchange of life force expands what we can hold in this life. It dissolves borders and brings us to beauty with a capital B.

Slow down enough to not disturb the bee and you'll be open to the mystery.