The Bees Looked Out For Me

After having read Mystical Mountain I was reminded about a similar encounter I had years ago when hiking in Oak Creek Canyon near Sedona.

I remember walking down a side trail - and I had never had any problems walking down that trail but suddenly I had a very insistent bee encouraging me I felt, to go elsewhere - and generally speaking when I have such an encounter I am not as afraid of a sting as I am concerned about the surroundings.

So I retraced my steps and when I got back to the main trail the bee hovered - meaning was sort of hanging around the branch trail and was joined by another bee and this was unusual because normally a experience like that ends rather quickly because the bee is either involved - meaning there's something that the bees are doing ahead and they do not wish to be disturbed or the bees are warning me about something.

Often when bees do this kind of thing they are giving warning as they might give to anyone - but bees kept hanging around and I took a couple of steps back on the trail I had been on, the main trail, and the bees kept hovering nearby but they did not approach me.

Finally I took about twenty or thirty steps back and I waited...and while I was waiting the bees left but I stayed where I was and looked around at my surroundings more closely. Off in the distance was a very old cabin in a falling down state of condition.

I don't recall the reason the cabin had been maintained except that I believe it may have been at one time the home of a famous artist or writer - but don't quote me on that - and as I waited I saw something moving in the distance.

I stepped back a little bit further very slowly so that I would have cover. I was about perhaps, maybe two hundred yards away and before I could say Jack Robinson I saw a bear moving about in the bush there.

I continued to, naturally, retrace my steps slowly so as not to arouse concern by the bear until I got well out of the bears sight and then I managed to pick up the pace a bit back to the car ;-) without running.

I got back to the car and I remember that after my initial recollection that this was bear country, though I had not seen one before in that part of the world, I felt a lingering gratitude to my bee friends who had made such an effort to assure my safety.

Goodlife.