The subject of this drawing is overlapping pathways made by two bumblebees visiting a purple salvia plant in my herb garden. The plant is quite large, with flowering stalks that can accommodate many bees at a time.
Each bee visited and revisited most of the dozen or so stalks; the distances between each landing (indicated by the black dots) varied, giving the diagram its rhythm and irregular composition. The tiled circular shape in the “background” is a reminder that this activity occurs in a complex space.
The next drawings will include greater detail of the back and forth between the different stalks, using superimposed diagrams on opaque, transparent, and translucent papers. I hope that layering will create a tiling that expresses the complexity of the space described by their activity.
Some contemporary thinkers wonder whether each individual’s perception of reality expresses not merely a difference of perspective, but a different reality altogether. (It would be easy to see how a bee’s perception of reality is different from a human perception.) In either case, how do differing descriptions of reality increase the potential for people to contribute better aligned actions in the world?
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