The Transition from Life - Who We Really Are

I have not written here for several weeks. My beloved eternal companion, Bob Field, passed away in the early morning hours of Wednesday, May 9th.

Bob Field 1930 - 2012

           I have kept a journal of all the sacred moments we shared; I also made long lists of all the people in my ward who have comforted me, given service to both Bob and me. They are shining examples of followers of Christ.  In the Book of Mormon, Alma explains to those who desire to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, what is required of them.
SCRIPTURE: "... and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another's burdens, that they may be light;
          "Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life-"
          "Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?"

 -- Mosiah 18: 8-10

The people there clapped their hands for joy and exclaimed "This is the desire of our hearts." The members of my ward family found joy in serving Bob and me during his last weeks on earth. 

PONDERING THE ETERNITIES

          It is during these very poignant times that one ponders Who We Really Are. As I told you on my post of April 28th, I found out who Bob really was during an epiphany experience that I had before we were married in the summer of 1978.

THE EPIPHANY         

          While talking with Bob, whom I’d never met, on our second phone call, the Holy Ghost descended upon me, enabling me to see or know Bob as God knows him. I beheld his eternal nature. I was humbled that this great soul would select me to be his eternal companion…and yes, at that moment I knew that he would indeed ask me to marry him, and we would be sealed together in the temple for time and all eternity. 

            Needless to say, I didn’t apply this vision to myself. I just knew how great Bob was. I’d seen him in the pre-existence, saw how he agreed to the circumstances of this life he was to live here on earth, and then I was privileged to see him in the eternities as God saw him. 

            While our family was living on the island of Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands (1990-1994)

An LDS friend shared with me that she was of the literal seed or descent from Jesus Christ. Whether this was real revelatory knowledge or was stated in her patriarchal blessing, I cannot remember. But it gave her strength to carry on during times of trials and hardships as well as during physical distress or illness. It matters not whether she is indeed literally his heir, because it stands as a symbol of her divine nature and how Christ helps her during trails while here in mortality. The reality is that Christ’s sacrifice helps bring her into at-one-ment with God, both now and after death. Doesn’t this reality apply to all of us?  

HOW THIS RELATES TO ME

           This shared view of her reality suddenly brought into focus what I’d learned about Bob’s eternal nature as it related to me.  I, too, must be endowed with this same nature. Because I had “seen” Bob’s past, present and future knowing that he had selected and agreed with the family and circumstances he was born into because it was for his own good or growth, I then must assume that I also had agreed in the pre-existence to my own life. Since God loved Bob (and I had felt His great love that he had for this son) perfectly and could see everything about him from the beginning to the end, I had to draw the logical conclusion that not only was Bob great, but so was I. Now that thought was a little tougher to swallow.  I couldn’t quite bring myself to accept this totally. In 1999 while living in Guadalajara, Mexico, I came across a perfect description of just exactly what I had experienced in my epiphany in a book called “Spiritual Progression in the Last Days” By Blaine M. Yorgason.[1]

            This is the exact moment in my life that I gained an understanding of my eternal nature and true identity. I want to share these passages from his book with the hope that it will awake in others the knowledge of who they truly are. It is what I was searching for all of my life. This is the knowledge that banishes all fear. Now I quote Yorgason:

            “Unfortunately, based on my own limited experience in discussing the issue of spiritual progression with others, I am forced to conclude that not many will press forward—not because we can’t, mind you, but solely because we won’t. Why? Primarily, I believe, because we fear.

            “We know something of our own carnal natures – the natural man we all inherited at birth – and we fear that we can not put it behind us. And even when we actually overcome the natural man by being born again, we continue to fear like Laman and Lemuel, that the Lord will make no such glorious things known to us as He has promised .”[2]

            “I have pondered long on this, and I believe that such paralyzing fear, while satanically inspired, stems almost wholly from not understanding our eternal natures and identities. I also believe that many of the difficulties we experience in mortality could be avoided or at least made lighter if we could only come to such an eternal understanding more quickly.”

            “As President John Taylor taught: This is the reason why we are here, and kicked and cuffed around, and hated and despised by the world. The reason why we do not live in peace is because we are not prepared for it. We are tempted and tried, driven, mobbed, and robbed; apostates are in our midst, which cause trouble and vexation of spirit, and it is all to keep down our pride and teach us to honor the God of Jacob in all things and to make us appear who we really are.” [3]

            “Even when we hear of those who will inherit the celestial kingdom, we desire to be one of them and have met the requirements to be such, yet many of us continue to say, ‘But that isn’t me God is talking about. It can’t be! I know myself too well, and I’ll never make it that far – at least not in this life.”

IS THIS YOUR THOUGHT? IT WAS MINE          

         Yorgason continues, “If you find yourself entertaining such thoughts, which are more typical than you might imagine, then please consider the following which I have found helpful. On Christmas day in 1844, W.W. Phelps wrote a letter that was published in the Times and Seasons 5:758, wherein he spoke of the meaning of eternity.”

            “Brother Phelps wrote: That eternity (the one during which Christ’s doings have been known), agreeable to the records found in the catacombs of Egypt, has been going on in this system … almost two thousand five hundred and fifty-five million of years.”

            “Elder Bruce R. McConkie, who quotes a small portion of this letter, adds: That is to say, the papyrus from which the Prophet Joseph translated the Book of Abraham, to whom the Lord gave a knowledge of his infinite creations, also contained this expression relative to what apparently is the universe in which we live, which universe has been created by the Father through the instrumentality of the Son.”[4]

            “Thus, Jehovah began His eternal reign some two thousand five hundred fifty-five million years ago, or, said another way, two and a half billion years. That was when. But how, where, and why did Christ’s eternal reign begin?”

            “In answer, Joseph Smith spoke of  ‘the head of the Gods’ calling a ‘council of the Gods’ to arrange for the creation and peopling of the earth[5] as well as of ‘the grand council of heaven’ in which those destined ‘to minister to the inhabitants of the world’ were ‘ordained’ to their respective callings.[6] It was one of these councils, held only a little less than 2,555,000,000 years ago, that Jehovah offered himself as the one to go down to earth and bring to pass the Father’s plan of salvation through His own life and death and resurrection.”[7]

WE WERE IN ATTENDANCE AT ONE OF THE COUNCILS IN HEAVEN            
          As Yorgason continues, “What astounds me, is that each of us was also in attendance  at least one of those councils on that long ago date, offering a sustaining vote in our Savior’s behalf, rejecting Lucifer’s counterfeit plan, and being absolutely certain of our own identities as we did so. And once Jehovah had been sustained as God and Christ, we who had thus kept our first estates were foreordained to our own future mortal assignments, and set about learning how to accomplish them. Elder McConkie writes[8] that:  Since men are foreordained to gain exaltation, and since no man can be exalted without the priesthood, it is almost self-evident that worthy brethren were foreordained to receive the priesthood. And so we find Alma teaching that those who held the Melchizedek Priesthood in this

life were ‘called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God.’[9]

            “Remember – the foundation of the world was 2.5 billion years ago. And Joseph Smith said, ‘Every man who has a calling to minister to the inhabitants of the world, and this includes all who held the Melchizedek Priesthood, were ordained to that very purpose in the Grand Council of heaven before this world was. I suppose that I was ordained to this very office in that Grand council.’[10]

YORGASON'S CONCLUSIONS CHANGE HOW I VIEW MY FELLOW MAN            

          “Therefore, I conclude that despite the fairly negative pictures most of us have of ourselves as struggling and usually failing weak mortals (which picture is based on satanically inspired doubts as well as an incredibly brief span of time here on earth that we are allowed to remember), we are all, in reality, ancient beings filled with glory, light and knowledge. And we acquired those godly traits by exercising ‘exceeding faith and good works’[11]over at least two and a half billion years of time.”

            “With that mind-boggling fact before us, consider these questions:

1)                  Since I know that I had an eternal pre-mortal identity separate from what I am today, what do I suppose my name was during that lengthy life we call our first estate?

2)                  Is not that glorious and ancient identity more properly the “true” me than the one I know now, which is at best no more than a few decades old?

3)                  Is two and a half billion years sufficient time for me to have become acquainted not only with Christ and our Father, but also with all the holy angels such as Gabriel, Raphael, and Michael?

4)                  Is it not possible that I not only knew such great beings but also mingled among them as an eternal equal, even with similar assignments? And …

5)                  Since I successfully kept my first estate for at least two and a half billion years, isn’t it foolish and shortsighted for me to doubt my ability to keep my second estate for a mere seventy or eighty years?

            “It is no wonder that the devil, who has an intimate knowledge of our true identities, tries so hard to convince us that we are without spiritual merit. If he can’t, then he knows he has lost, and we will never be miserable like him.”

            “Jesus Christ lives and stands waiting with outstretched arms to ‘take up his abode with us,’ and He will do so as quickly as we are willing to put aside the world and give our hearts and lives wholly to Him.’

NOW IT IS MY TURN TO SEE IF I CAN DO THIS ALONE

          Is the "true" me willing to keep my second estate until the end as did my eternal companion? Yes. I am not really alone. Heavenly Father is intimately aware of me and my needs both large and small. Often he meets these needs through the tender mercies of the members of my ward family. He allows me the comfort in knowing that Bob is serving on the other side of the veil, through impressions that I have have received. And he has given me a daughter, Brianna, who loves me and spends time with me. Her husband Ricky promised Bob that he would look out for his "girls" for him; and he has been doing just that. I feel loved, not lonely.

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[1] “SpiritualProgression in the Last Days” by Blaine M. Yorgason, 1994, Deseret Book, epilogue.

[2] 1 Nephi 15:8-10

[3] John Taylor, Times and Seasons, 6:1, 100-101.

[4] Bruce R. McConkie, The Mortal Messiah, Book 1, 1979, Deseret Book, p. 32-33, footnotes.

[5] See D&C 121:30-32; Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith,  pp 348-349.

[6] Teachings p 365

[7] See Abraham 3:27; Moses 4:1-2; Isaiah 14:13-14; see also The Promised Messiah,  p 48.

[8] Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 3:328.

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[9] Alma 13:1-12.

[10] Teachings, p 365.

[11] Alma 13:3

The Mystery of the Shortbread Cookie Caper Solved

The Mention of Bob's Shortbread Cookie Desire is Answered

          Just hours after I posted my April 27th blog entitled "A Swarm of Service," a mysterious thing happened. It was quite dark out, I was listening to the TV in my room when I heard Bob calling out to me. He said, "Did you hear the doorbell ring?" No, I replied, and got up to go look. I turned on the porch light and there sat a large, red lidded Rubbermaid storage container filled with shortbread cookies sitting upon the mail from our mailbox. But there was no sign of a car or anyone around.

          I delivered the cookies to Bob and WOW were they GOOD. Buttery, perfectly crunchy and not too soft, and large! Each cookie measured about 3 inches across. They were Empress cookies. The best we'd ever eaten. Thus began the search for the Cookie Queen who' bestowed a gift after Bob's request for shortbread cookies.
          It was perfect timing because as he began to spend more time in bed and wake during the night, he could munch a cookie without waking me when he got hungry.

          Of course, I was trying to lose weight, so I was glad they were beyond my sight and reach most of the time  (I actually only ate one from this batch). But alas, he ran out of them. He begged me to find out who had made these fabulous cookies. He made me call Relief Society to help hunt for the Queen of Shortbread Cookies! Everyone that was asked said it wasn't them. It had to be someone who'd read my blog. Although I'd posted a link to that blog on my Facebook page, and posted a link on the Sisters of Picture Rocks Facebook Page (comprised of 57 women in my ward who share non-religious networking tips, ideas, etc.with each other) I never mentioned Bob's Shortbread Cookie desire. Someone had clicked on the Facebook link, saw a need and decided to perform an act of service.

THE COOKIE MONSTER

          I never knew I was married to the Cookie Monster! When I was talking to the 2nd Counselor in Relief Society, Ann Bodmer, Bob got on the phone and said, this is serious!!! It's a matter of life and death!!!!! We all laughed but I knew he was a bit serious about it. When Ann called Liz Gary to see if it was her, she posted a request on TSOPR Facebook page to find out who'd made them because now the fame of these absolutely delicious cookies was spreading far and wide. Everyone wanted the recipe. At 2:30pm the next afternoon, two plastic bags of "warm" right-out-the-oven, shortbread cookies arrived again at our door.
          After this delivery the cookies were almost gone in a day. Bob had become a Cookie Monster.

THE SEARCH FOR THE COOKIE QUEEN BEGINS IN EARNEST 

          This time I was nearer the front door when the doorbell rang, but when I got there, the cookies and the mail were there and no one else. I stepped out on the porch peered around the saguaro and then heard a car (hidden by a big ironwood tree at the edge of the driveway) pull out onto the road going West and caught a quick glimpse of a maroon van!!! I only knew two people who had vans. I called the first one...she told me her van was green. THAT ONLY LEFT ONE! The Worl Family. They used to give me rides to church when Bob had early morning ward council meetings. But it had been over a year ago, and they'd added twin boys to their family. But every time Mattie, now age 9, and Caleb, now age 5, would see me at church they'd call out to me and give me big smiles...we'd bonded. So I called Tatiana, their mother, and indeed it was the three of them that baked the cookies and delivered them. It was the kids idea to bring our mail up to the door! Mystery solved.

There is More to the Story

          Tatiana shared with me that they'd never meant it to be secret, but the first time no one answered the bell or knocking on the door so they left. The second time was purposeful; they parked behind our house and made a quick get away! She told me how special it was that the kids were so excited about helping bake and deliver the cookies. When she saw the post, she had to go looking all over for the great shortbread recipe she remembered using in the past and at last found it in a book called "Christmas Cookies."
          She really felt a prompting to do this little act of kindness for Bob. She shared a special story with me about her grandfather who was failing in health having had a series of strokes. His favorite thing to do was to go walking with his dog, but he'd done less and less of this after each health setback. She felt prompted to go over to his home in a mobile home park one Friday and ask if he'd like to go for a walk. The response was YES!!!! They walked all around visiting with neighbors and their dogs, etc. They had a wonderful time. The following Sunday he had a massive stroke, and soon died.
          Brianna had a similar experience with her father, Bob. They went out to lunch at Saffron, an Indian food restaurant in Tucson. The food was fabulous, their conversation covered the many topics they both love and she'd left the kids with G.G. so that they could focus on each other. That is a cherished memory for both of them. Bob is not able to go out like this anymore. He is basically home bound now.
          The lesson learned is NEVER put off those promptings to do little acts of kindness. Tatiana, Bob and I have pondered who benefits the most. Certainly the one being served is grateful (she worried whether he'd be offended at the presumption that he needed to have some service rendered  andI assured her he would never, ever mind shortbread cookies! and as a stressed spouse, I am very, very grateful for every act of kindness to my husband in his last days); or we pondered,whether the one doing the serving is chalking up the "brownie points" or "gold stars" in their crown. We've decided that when the Savior said:
"And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." --Mosiah 2:17; Matthew 25:40
          By his example, the Savior was showing us that it is better to give than receive, but in order for there to be opportunities for this service someone has to be in need. There is a time in life to give service and an other time in life to receive service from others. This includes helping teach our children how to serve others.
"But ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness; ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another." --Mosiah 4:15
          Certainly Tatiana was teaching Mattie and Caleb to love and serve others.
          King Benjamin goes on in verse 16 of Mosiah to tell all of us, "And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; "

Mattie gives Bob a refill of Shortbread Cookies

Tatiana, Caleb and Mattie make a late night delivery

Tatiana shares the recipe here for the most delicious, rich, buttery shortbread cookies we've ever tasted:
HINT: you can NOT substitute margarine, etc. in the following recipe. You must use REAL BUTTER!

Basic Shortbread Cookies

1 cup   butter, softened

½ C     sugar

¼ tspn vanilla extract

2 ½ C  unbleached all-purpose flour

⅛ tspn salt

Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy, gradually add sugar, beating well. Stir in vanilla.

Combine flour and salt, gradually add to butter mixture, beating at low speed until blended. Dough will be crumbly.

Roll dough to ½ inch thickness on a lightly floured surface. Cut in small rectangular cookies ( Bob liked them 3” X 3”) or cut with a 2 ½ inch round cutter or shaped Christmas cookie cutter. Place 2 inches apart on an ungreased baking sheet.

Bake at 275° for 50 minutes or until bottoms begin to brown. Cool 2 minutes on baking sheet, remove to a wired rack to cool completely.

--courtesy of “Christmas Cookies”

HAPPY EATING

Who We Really Are - An Epiphany

Scripture: “We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.” –Article of Faith 1

 I Know Who Bob Really Is

One of life’s great questions is, “Who am I?”  At the end of the summer of 1978, I had a remarkable experience that gave me my first glimmer of an answer to that question. My studies made me more aware of the nature of God, how he works or in other words, “His Ways,” and how this knowledge affects me as His daughter. This experience was literally an epiphany.

The American Heritage Dictionary says that an epiphany is: a revelatory manifestation of a divine being; a sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something; a comprehension or perception of reality by means of a sudden intuitive realization: “I experienced an epiphany, a spiritual flash that would forever change the way I viewed myself.”- Frank Maier.

          While talking with Bob, whom I’d never met, on our second phone call in the summer of 1978, the Holy Ghost descended upon me, enabling me to see or know Bob as God knows him. I beheld his eternal nature. I was humbled that this great soul would select me to be his eternal companion…and yes, at that moment I knew that he would indeed ask me to marry him, and we would be sealed together in the temple for time and all eternity. 

As a member of the church I’d received the gift of the Holy Ghost after I was baptized in 1965. But I’d never experienced anything but the subtle influences of that still small voice, until this epiphany. It took place in time for over an hour as I talked on the phone with Bob. This occurred simultaneously; now I realize that this was the way God perceives, everything all at once.

Scripture: “…but there is no God beside me, and all things are present with me, for I know them all.” –Moses 1:6

Needless to say, I didn’t apply this vision to myself for many years. I just knew how great Bob was, and that I was honored that he wanted me for his eternal companion for not only time, but for eternity. As a Latter Day Saint I believe that we are spiritual sons and daughters of Heavenly Father and literally that our spirits were born to heavenly parents. As His children, we lived for many hundreds of thousands of years with them, brothers and sisters in what is called the Pre-existence.

In my epiphany I’d seen Bob in the pre-existence, and I saw how he agreed to the circumstances of the life he was to live here upon earth, and then I was privileged to see him in the eternities as God saw him. 

This has certain parallels with Abraham’s experience as recounted in the Book of Abraham 3:22-26

Scripture: “Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these were many of the noble and great ones;

            “And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born.”

            Everyone who ever has lived upon this earth was with God as spirit children in the pre-existence and when there was a Grand Council held where God told us that we could progress only if we obtained a body and came to an earth just as He once had, we had to decide which plan presented in this council we would follow. Christ presented a plan and Satan presented a plan. The resulting action is often referred to as the war in heaven.

Scripture: “And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell;

            “And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them;”

            This scripture is actually quoted in my patriarchal blessing.  I have made it a focal point in my life to be found doing what Heavenly Father wants me to be doing. Thus this blog.

          Here is a photo of Bob at about five years old and one a little older.

A Swarm of Service

Beekeeping Surprises

          Every Spring bees swarm and this past few weeks have been no exception here in Southern Arizona. The TV news people are telling us what to do with all those swarming bees. Bill Welch, one of my husband's best friends came to visit this morning. I had discovered yesterday through a mutual friend, Roy Lacey, that both were very interested in bees. Turns out Bill had some 80 hives when he was a young man. He's had lots of practical experience with bees. He told me he had a hive under a grapefruit tree and he would go lay out on the ground near the entrance to the hive and just watch them. "They were really docile. Some of them would return to the hive with various colors of pollen." It was a very special time for this beekeeper. I asked him about swarming and he told me it is simply that the hive was too crowded over the winter and the queen had laid several "eggs" in specially built hexagonal chambers that were fed exclusively with royal jelly and had become "large as a peanut." So the queen bee decided it was time to go find a new home. It was simply like splitting a ward in the church; when a congregation reached around 700 they split it into two wards.
          I asked if it was a terrible thing for home owners to kill all the swarms they found near their home if on a branch of a tree, (obviously not in their home) and he said, "Oh that's not good because without the bees our fruit trees would just flower and never bear fruit. More often than not they are just swarming then sending out scouts to find a new place to live." He went on to say that a real beekeeper would take a cardboard box (He actually did this and it was no big thing) and give a sharp tap to the branch and all the bees would fall into the box. He'd then tape it up, carry it home to a prepared hive box, open it up and tip it toward the entrance and they'd all just march in, happy as can be. Well, I'll bee doggone. With the advent of an Africanized strain of bees, however, since Bill retired he only has two hives (they are still a lot of work);  one is an aggressive hive and one is a docile hive. Now he wears protection all of the time; but before he'd let the bees crawl all over him if they wanted to.

We have Been Covered in Service This Past Week        

          A ward in our LDS church is like a hive when it comes to service. When a worker bee finds a source of pollen he returns to the hive and lets everyone know the directions to that source. In a ward, the members let the leadership know where there is a need for service and the Ward Council meets and discusses what can be done to help. This past week Bob and I have been the focus of prayers, phone calls, offers to bring over dinner and lots of other small acts of kindness. I've decided that at this time in my life where my whole focus is on my eternal companion, Bob, that I will blog these last special days of his life. Bill called this a transition stage. To a non-member they wouldn't understand this terminology, but knowing who we are, where we came from, why we are here and where we go after we die is knowledge that provides Joy and Hope rather than fear, despair, anxiety and all the other sad emotions that occur when a loved on is dying or has died. My blog will hopefully reflect our philosophy, be relatively positive, yet realistically record a truly special person's final days on this earth. We all have regrets, felt we are failures in some area of our life and come to realize, when time runs out, that ooops we don't have any time left to do those things that we've either procrastinated or we'd been too scared to do for some reason. There are regrets of omission and regrets of commission. Maybe, Bob, who is very very private will open up and talk about some of these things. I'm the fortunate one because I get to see the love and esteem others have for him, and the kind, little (and sometimes not so little) acts of kindness they bestow on our family.

I'll Present Bob's Life in Photos and Stories

Sometimes in His Own Words Via His Writings, Too

At the end of this blog is a photo of Bob about 1933 on his Tricycle. No, he doesn't have much interest in cowboys, guns and such now, but he did ride a bicycle on Kwajalein, in the Marshall Islands, when we lived there in the early 1990s. He's actually only owned one red plaid flannel shirt in his adult life that I know about, but Brianna our daughter decided that it was hers now.

Bri wears her father, Bob's, Red Flannel Shirt

She also captured an old T-shirt from the 1994 50th Anniversary Commemoration of the Battle of Kwajalein-Roi-Namur. He had thrown it away and she said, "No Way," and hauled it out of the trash and  took it home with her. She said that since she was pregnant, it would come in handy when she'd just want a large, soft T-shirt to wear and this one was just perfect, holes and stains and all.

Bob's Kwaj Tshirt is just the right soft bluejeans color for Bri since she's expecting. She anticipates wearing this large soft Tshirt a lot in the last months of her pregnancy. By the way, it's a boy and her due date is Bob's birthday!

Memories of our parents lives are special and their clothing, toys, books and other possessions become special touchstones to us.

Bob plays cowboy about age 3 riding his greyhound tricycle

Bee's Wings A Mystery!

The Mystery of How Fat, Heavy, Pollen-laden Bees can Fly Using those Tiny Wings

          Until the advent of high speed cinematography and robotics,  science could not explain how a large bodied bee could fly, much less explain how it could  hover or carry pollen equal to its weight back to the hive. Using slow motion photography, then reproducing the bee wings actions in a large robotic bee wing, scientists have found some pretty miraculous movements that have little to do with traditional aerodynamics. Bees have two pair of wings, the hind pair being the smaller of the two. In 2005 using the above technology, Michael Dickinson and his Caltech colleagues studied honey bee flight and found the bees wing beat frequency flaps approximately 230 times per second. This is faster than a fruit fly (200 times per second) which is 80 times smaller.

 

Honey Bees on a Cactus Flower

           There is another unique feature besides speed to these wings. Caltech's analysis revealed that sufficient lift was generated by "the unconventional combination of short, choppy wing strokes, a rapid rotation of the wing as it flops over and reverses direction." Add this to the very fast wing-beat frequency and you have lift off with great weight bearing capacity.

Short, Choppy Wing Strokes with Rapid Rotation as it Flops Over and 

Reverses Direction Could be Described as 

The Figure Eight Sideways Symbol of Infinity

This BEE's Burden has Infinite Overtones

          I've had a seriously stressful month, starting off with a case of the Norovirus Flu that I probably caught in a nursing home where I was visiting Mary who had knee surgery. For two weeks, four days each week, two + hours a day I spent visiting teaching her...well, I'd say getting to know her better, being a friend and learning about her life. But, locally this flu had outbreaks in nursing homes. I got sick General Conference Sunday with vomiting and severe diarrhea; My husband, Bob, got it the next Friday, and we had lots of decisions about who would GO where!!!
          My Husband then went into a rapid decline. To bring you up to date (because I don't talk much about personal stuff here; but am rethinking that) he was diagnosed with end stage prostate cancer that had metastasized to his spine last November. He went into hospice at home the first of December and now the cancer has spread lesions into his shoulders, and ribs. The bottom line is that his knees are often very weak and he falls; and the pain is pretty severe. The doctor has increased his pain meds so that is under control but each month there is more "breakthrough" pain. At the end of that first week in April a milestone in this decline process was reached. He was catheterized. This is great because he doesn't have to get up every couple hours, thus is less apt to fall. But, he doesn't go out of the house anymore. This means that I have added responsibilities.

BEE's Wings Strengthened to Carry the Load

          My husband and I are having lots of discussions about death and dying. We've shared some very sweet moments and felt the joy of God's love for us. We see his hand every day in many, many ways as our prayers are answered, needs met and dear friends visit us. Here are a few examples of what I mean.    
         A 13 yr old deacon in our ward, Mikey Seno, heard that my husband wanted a laptop so he could read books from the library and play DVDs in his bed or chair, but that we could not afford one. He came up to me before sacrament meeting and handed me his. He said he was not using it right now. WOW. It turns out a new neighbor (remember we live out on a country road and don't have access to comcast, etc.) has a wireless connection and at Bob's bedroom end of the house there is a connection! Now he has to learn how to use this new lap top. What fun! It's a great excuse for my daughter to have one on one time with her dad.
          Yesterday, Dwayne Rosemore came by to install a shelf on the wall over Bob's bed so that we could attach a light for him to read by, this is also handy for the wireless phone, books being read, and a mug of water. I'd been helping Dwayne with finding and entering family names into NewFamilySearch for them to take to the temple. Last week I mentioned our problem of needing a light on that wall by the bed and he said that he'd found two shelves at Dessert Industries but had only used one of them. It is exactly the right length, the right width and was installed with lots of "man talk" to my husband's delight. Dwayne rehung a painting, added 4X4 blocks of wood so the bed would not be pushed too close to the window air conditioner and new shelf.
          Today Roy Lacey, from our ward, came by to talk "politics" and a myriad of other subjects the two of them enjoy and will return library books and magazines for us. For several months he'd been taking my husband to the library and then go for a chocolate shake at In and Out Burger. Can you tell from this that my husband is a bibliophile? Last week Roy and his wife Karin came over with a couple frozen lasagna's from Costco. I think this was just wonderful, because by the end of the day, I just don't have much energy left to cook dinner. Bob has finally said, "Since I'm dying I guess I don't have to watch my weight anymore, do I? His recent delight has been chocolate bunnies then when they disappeared... Hershey's nuggets. Today, he says, my tastes are changing again...I like some shortbread cookies; you know the really good, buttery, sinful ones. Yep, I know the ones. My biggest challenge is not to eat what he's eating. I tell him to keep them on the shelves of his room. I've lost 35 pounds since this saga began last November, and I don't want to gain any of it back.
          So my burden's are made light by loving friends and family. I am so thankful for the gospel and the eternal perspective that it brings to living and dying. Bob and I have been sealed in the Lord's temple for time and all eternity. In the infinite scheme of things, we know where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going when we die. We pray only that God's will and work will be done through us and that we may be found standing on His right hand. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the restored church that Jesus founded in the meridian of time. The gift of the Holy Ghost is a practical guide and comforter to us in our times of trial and sickness; I see this every day. I know that God lives and that he specifically loves Bob and specifically loves me. He hears my prayers and they are answered. This is my testimony.

Jackpot! Our own Treasure Chest

JACKPOT!!!

             This weekend, some three people or more will win big in the National Lotto Mega Power Ball Jackpot sharing over half a billion dollars. As a Latter-day Saint I do not buy lottery tickets because it is a form of gambling.

            I’ve got my own jackpot, my own treasure and so do we all.. “What?” You say.

As bees go in search of their “treasure” each day, they return to the “treasure house” or “hive” and communicate the source of the pollen to others. Now the other bees in the hive can go directly to that same treasure of pollen. That initial bee returns and reports about the treasure using their God-given gift of quantum physics and angles via its waggle dance upon the hive. We have a treasure to share with others also and it is seen in the grand design of our skies and we are in communication with the Grand Designer just as the bees are.

            As stated in the Bible Dictionary, the light of Christ fills the "immensity of space" and is the means by which Christ is able to be "in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things." It "giveth life to all things" and is "the law by which all things are governed." It is also "the light that quickeneth" man's understanding.

SCRIPTURE: “Which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space—the light which is in all things…even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things.”

--Doctrine and Covenants 88: 6-13.

THE LIGHT VS THE DARKNESS    

This BEE now lives in the desert near the city of Tucson. When I first moved here, I thought it was really dark at night. There were few streetlights. Was this safe? I started asking around and found the answer. For years, in order to comply with requests of local astronomers and the Kitt Peak Observatory, Tucson's outdoor lighting code has called for the use of lights that are dim compared to the fluorescent bulbs that illuminate some cities. Then there are the areas that have virtually no streetlights at all.

Tucson  located in Southern Arizona is one of the best places to get up close to major observatories, where mountain ranges lift huge telescopes closer to the sky, and the arid climate offers many clear nights.

One of Arizona's best known astronomical sites, more than 60 miles west of the city is Kitt Peak National Observatory, the world's largest collection of research telescopes: 23 optical telescopes, including the world's largest solar telescope, and two radio telescopes.

[National Optical Astronomy Observatory]

Kitt Peak National Observatory, part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, hosts a diverse collection of astronomical observatories for nighttime optical and infrared astronomy and daytime sun studies. Kitt Peak is 56 miles southwest of Tucson in the Schuk Toak District on the Tohono O’odham Reservation

A part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, the site was chosen in the late 1950s, when light pollution from Tucson, with a population of around 200,000, was limited. Now the city has expanded to more than a million people, but astronomers still come from all over the world for Kitt Peak's facilities. For the public, it's one of the most accessible observatories — visitors can drop in any day of the year except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day.

Another nearby location features the observatories on Mount Lemmon. At 9,157 feet, it's the highest peak in the Santa Catalina Mountains, which stretch across the north side of Tucson includes SkyCenter, one of several sites operated by the Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona in Tucson. The SkyCenter complex, formerly an Air Force radar base, now is home to half a dozen large telescopes.

Mount Lemmon SkyCenter

“Unspeakable beauty and unimaginable bedlam can be found together,” in Trifid Nebula, says NASA on its Astronomy Picture of the Day Web site. Mount Lemmon SkyCenter staffer Adam Block took this photo using the 24-inch telescope in the photo at bottom. 

 Two more observatories a few miles away on Mount Bigelow. (The largest, which has a 61-inch mirror, was used to survey the moon for the lunar landings.)

Mount Graham International Observatory

[Photo courtesy of University of Arizona]

Mount Graham International Observatory, northeast of Tucson, is the site of the Large Binocular Telescope, named for its two 8.4-meter mirrors, visible here with the telescope’s housing, about eight stories high, open.

MY LIFE ON KWAJALEIN - PERFECT FOR VIEWING THE STARS

          In the early 1990's my family lived on Kwajalein Island, in the Marshall Islands, where my husband was the head of department overseeing the IT portion of the non-military mission of the US Army base located there. Below is a map showing the location of this tiny island the southern most island of the world's largest atoll, Kwajalein Atoll. The atoll lies in the Ralik Chain, 2,100 nautical miles (3900 km) southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii, at 8°43′N 167°44′E.

Located midway between Japan, Los Angeles and Australia

         The island is only a 1/2 mile wide and just two and a half miles long. The ocean just one mile off the western coast is over two miles deep. It is the perfect place for star gazing because of the clear nights with no nearby light pollution. This is a photo at sunset of some missiles entering the skies north of the Kwaj Atoll where major radar tracking stations are located on many islands. No we weren't in any danger. The atoll is over 100 miles long and it really is not close to anything large just the small islands of Micronesia.

Our "quarters" on the island were located on the lagoon side and just a few hundred feet  from it. We would watch the most gorgeous sunsets I've ever seen. When it was the time of the full moon we could go out the front door walk about twenty feet and look to the right to see it rising and look to the left to see the sun setting. This was because of the long distances involved over the ocean with an unobstructed view. It was always a sacred experience even though I was thousands of miles from the temple.
The Cosmos and the Temple
          In Hugh Nibley's "An Intellectual Autobiography" an introductory chapter from  1978 book "Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless" he shows us the path he has taken among the ancient scrolls and texts that have recently come into our lives. He says that these writings , ancient and forgotten legends and traditions of Abraham match the Joseph Smith version very closely. Other learned divines for 60 generations have argued that the scriptures just don't seem to put it all together...the mysteries of Who we Are and What We are Doing Here. Nibley says this, This is where the Temple comes in. Without the Temple any civilization is an empty shell, a structure of custom and convenience only." ..."For thousands of years the stars have gone on sending us their hints, broadcasting unlimited information if we only knew it; now at least we are reacting to a narrow band on the informational spectrum, putting clues together in a way the Ancients never did. But also we are beginning to suspect that there were times when the Ancients reacted to another band of the spectrum which is completely  lost on us. THE TEMPLE, AS THE VERY NAME PROCLAIMS, IS A PLACE WHERE ONE TAKES ONE'S BEARINGS ON THE UNIVERSE." --page xxvii
          "There was one thing every student of the past has overlooked: here at our doorsteps among the Arizona Indians lies the world's best clue to the spiritual history of the race; nowhere else on earth will one find the old cycle of the Year Rites still observed in full force and unbroken continuity form the beginning." He was referring to the Hopi people who have kept alive a language and culture which preserved the practices and beliefs of our own ancestors from prehistoric times until the nineteenth-century industrialism severed the umbilical cord. Here the clues are both exhilarating and depressing, hopeful and sinister as nowhere else." --page xxv

     The other day on PBS I watched a special on the ancient Anasazi ruins in Chaco Canyon, Arizona.
The amazing conclusions were so perfectly understandable when viewed as a temple oriented experience that it took my breath away. The intimate and exact alignment to the sun at the equinox, and the various stages of the moon's path were reflected in the concrete structures and walls of many buildings over many miles.

Anasazi Pueblo Bonito ruins at Chaco Canyon

Several nights ago I watched another documentary on the observatories of the ancient Mayan people in the Yucatan. Orientation to the skies and to the stars is found in the ruins of temples in Egypt, Machu Pichu in CuscoPeru pictured below:

(The Intihuatana stone is one of many ritual stones in South America. These stones are arranged to point directly at the sun during the winter solstic) 

Stonehenge and other stone circles in England also telling the story of  the sun and moon and other planets in our universe. These remnants of temple ruins and annual year stories are found all over the world. 

Abraham learns about the sun, moon, and stars in Chapter 3 of the Book of Abraham in our Pearl of Great Price.

SCRIPTURE: "It is given unto thee to know the set time of all the stars that are set to give light, until thou come near unto the throne of God." --Abraham 3:10 

          Then God tells the story of His plan of Creation to Abraham in Chapter 4 with the explanation of man's part in it. This is such a treasure for the understanding of our place in the universe.

SCRIPTURE: "And the Gods organized the lights in the expanse of the heaven and caused them to divide the day from the night; and organized them to be for signs and for seasons, and for days and for years; And organized them to be for lights in the expanse of the heaven to give light upon the earth; and it was so."

--Abraham 4:14-15

          We have been promised that in the latter days that all things will be restored and hidden things will be revealed. The prophets have all focused on the temple and the message that they specifically were supposed to impart as part of their earthly mission. They wrote these things down and we have them as our scriptures. They have hidden treasures of knowledge within them, but we must dig for these treasures. We must desire that God will open the understanding of our minds with the Light of Christ.

          This BEE is returning to the important book of Isaiah as a genealogist to report where you can look to find the hidden treasures in his writing that I have found. I hope you can stay with me as we wander from one pollen laden flower to another in search of the light and truth there. I will dance my heart out at the hive to communicate where the sources of this treasure are buried within the scriptures.

Cross Pollination - Bee and Quantum Physics; BEE and Isaiah

What is Cross Pollination?

          There seems to be little difference in the definitions of "pollination" and "cross pollination" defined as the transfer of pollen from the anther of one flower to the stigma of another, as by the action of the wind or insects; the genetic exchange of information in two different plants to reproduce more members of the same species, or a cross of the two.

          In my life I have seen the cross pollination that can occur to produce amazingly beautiful roses that are sensitive to the sun and change color as they open from a pale yellow bud to a brilliant fluorescent orange flower. I've seen it in life where two widely divergent specialists begin to talk and collaborate. Their talks and research help look at a subject in a new or different way. Pollinators whether people or wind or animals perform a necessary act of creativity in our lives. Fruit is the natural result and totally new concepts are another.

          The United States Post Office honored Pollinators with a beautiful series of stamps that show four different important pollinators. The wind and man were not included here, mind you. 

Butterflies, bats, birds and bees are featured here. All "B"s. 

The Story of Bees and Quantum Physics Parallel my Studies of Art during College

          In the November 1997 issue of "Discover Magazine" Adam Frank tells a story of the amazing story of Barbara Shipman, a mathematician at the University of Rochester. She tells of how her father, a bee researcher for the Department of Agriculture, used to keep his books on honeybees on a shelf in her room. "It may have just been a convenient space. I remember looking at a lot of these books, especially the one by Karl von Frisch." She and her brothers learned all about the honeybee's dance when she was about nine years old.

          Although Von Frisch's Dance Language and Orientation of Bees took over 40 years before being publishing in 1965, beekeepers and entomologists all over the world had been intrigued and frustrated by his findings. Adam Frank goes on to describe the dance saying "It is easy to see why this beautiful and mysterious phenomenon captured Shipman's young and mathematically inclined imagination." He describes the way this choreography coveys the direction of a food source by varying the angle the waggling run makes with an imaginary line running straight up and down. This line connecting the beehive to the food source, and another line connecting the hive and the spot on the horizon just beneath the sun turns out to be the same as the angle of the waggling run to the imaginary vertical line. Frank says, "The bees, it appears, are able to triangulate as well as a civil engineer.

        It turns out, however, that even when the shape or geometry of the dance changes as the distance to the food source changes, it gets very weird if the food source is closer than a particular critical distance! The bee stops doing the waggle dance and switches into the round dance, running in a small circle, reversing and going in the opposite directions after one or two turns or sometimes after only half a turn. Surprisingly, there are a number of variations between species. Wow, dialects in bee communications. I wonder what happens when a European honeybee mates with the aggressive Africanized bee. 

Quantum Bees

          Barbara Shipman entered college as a biochemistry major and studied the blood (hemolymph) of honeybee larvae, but became much more attracted to the beauty of mathematics and switched majors. She began working on a set of geometric problems associated with an esoteric mathematical concept known as a flag manifold (manifold means space) in graduate school while working on her doctoral thesis." This obscure type of mathematics is known only to a small coterie of researchers well-versed in the minutiae of geometry," Frank explains., "she stumbled across what just might be the key to the secrets of the bee's dance."

          The article by Frank is absolutely fascinating...to a mathematician. He does write so that a lay person can understand a very, very complex subject matter. It turns out that Shipman saw by viewing a three dimensional experience using up to ten or a hundred dimensions, how mathematicians can see "shadows" of a different reality. Shipman was busy projecting the six-dimensional residents of the flag manifold onto two dimensions and it made a hexagon, the shape of a bee's honeycomb. Then she found a group of objects in the flag manifold that when projected onto a two-dimensional hexagon, formed curves that reminded her of the bee's dance. The more she explored the manifold the more she found it precisely matched the bee's dance. "I wasn't looking for a connection between bees and the flag manifold," she says, "I was just doing my research. The curves were nothing special in themselves, except that the dance patterns kept emerging."

     Shipman's research captures both the waggle and circle dance characteristics and shows the relationship that includes those really close distances to a food source. "When you have a physical phenomenon like the honeybee dance, and it follows a mathematical structure, you have to ask what are the physical laws that are causing it to happen." Frank says, "She doesn't believe the manifold's presence both in the mathematics of quarks and in the dance of honeybees is a coincidence. She suspects that the bees are somehow sensitive to what's going on in the quantum world of quarks, that quantum mechanics is as important to their perception of the world as sight, sound, and smell."     

SCRIPTURE: "And it came to pass, as the voice was still speaking, Moses cast his eyes and beheld the earth, yea, even all of it; and there was not a particle of it which he did not behold discerning it by the spirit of God." --Moses 1:27

SCRIPTURE: "...but there is no God beside me, and all things are present with me, for I know them all." --Moses 1:6

          Moses saw the earth as God saw the earth, every particle of it; he saw as God sees everything present all at once, from the beginning to the eternities. Obviously this is how revelation can take place as God allows his prophets to see as He sees.

          Hugh Nibley (from my notes many years ago thus source not correctly annotated that said, p154 only) "Moses cast his eyes and beheld the earth, yea even all of it." That he could see, all of it, every particle. Notice we are dealing with particles, particle physics is is very important today...He saw quarks; he saw protons; he saw neutrons. If he knew all the particles, then he knew of what the earth was composed. "And there was not a particle of it which he did not behold, discerning it by the spirit of God."  

          "In the books of Enoch and the books of Abraham (not just ours, but the newly discovered ones also) the special knowledge was passed to Seth and from him to Noah; hence from Abraham to the Egyptians, it was the secret of mathematics and astronomy, according to Jewish tradition accepted by the doctors of the Middle Ages right down to Thomas Hood in modern times."

          Nibley goes on to say "In particle physics a professor told about how to account for the action of certain particles, it must be assumed that there is a force that moves with eight times the speed of light. Until now C, the constant, has always been 186,300 miles a second. That sets the boundaries, the limits beyond which we can't go. Now it seems there must be forces to account for reverses especially in certain mirror effects and the "arrow of time" and the like, that must go much faster than light. We see things in terms of the earth." We don't see things from above or with the eye of God that embraces all things at once."

QUOTATION:  by Hugh Nibley from my notes many years ago (source not correctly annotated that said, p39, Treasures in Heavens, pp 82-83) ""Reduced to its simplest form, creation is the action of light upon matter. Matter itself has no power, being burnt out energy, but light reactivates it. Matter is incapable of changing itself--it has no desire to, and so light forces it into the recycling process where it can again work upon it--for light is an organizing principle.

BEE and an Electromagnetic Theory of Viewing Nature

        I have always had a fascination with light and science. My original course of study during my Junior year was to become a scientific illustrator, combing my two interests. However, my inability to memorize was my downfall. Actually learning to draw scientifically correct came in a special studies class with my biology professor. It was also here that I learned that the stress of meeting the deadlines and that most of the work was graphs and calligraphy or printing in scientific illustration. I I didn't like this so I switched completely to a painting and drawing emphasis in fine art for my Bachelor's degree. My love of science didn't go away. When I began my M.A. project and thesis it started something like this: To produce a series of paintings using a newly emerging electromagnetic theory of viewing nature. My professor's didn't quite understand what I meant so I used the words "vibrational" motif and talked about the halo in ancient religious art. It turned out to be a bit prophetic because within the following year, vibrations were all around everything in the psychedelic art of the late 60's and early 70's.

          My fascination with light and art has continued through the years, especially as it relates to the gospel of Jesus Christ, who said, "I am the light of the world."--John 8:12.  In the Bible Dictionary it says that the Light of Christ comes upon mankind because of Jesus Christ. For instance, Christ is "the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (D & C 93:2; John 1:9). The light of Christ fills the "immensity of space" and is the means by which Christ is able to be "in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things." It "giveth life to all things" and is "the law by which all things are governed." It is also "the light that quickeneth" man's understanding. (This is not to be confused with the Holy Ghost.)

SCRIPTURE: "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall hiss (signal, call for) the ...bee that is in the land of Assyria." --Isaiah 7:18

          I've never been particularly interested in the fly so that's left out of the verse above (maybe a study for another day) and I'll just ponder all that I've learned about the bee. Shipman concluded back in 2007 that "I think the physics of the bees' bodies, their physiology, must be constructed such that they're sensitive to quantum fields--that is, the bee perceives these fields through quantum mechanical interactions between the fields and the atoms in the membranes of certain cells."  

          Shipman's ideas and my own college experience converge as Frank tries to explain that bees have a sensitivity to an effect known as nuclear magnetic resonance, or nmr, when an electromagnetic wave impinges on the nuclei of atoms and flips their orientation. nmr is considered a quantum mechanical effect because it takes place only if each atom absorbs a particular size packet, or quantum, of electromagnetic energy. My thesis was to show the "life force" or light that all living things emit. We can communicate subtly with each other as one spirit to another. When this spirit is removed, our body dies. I suspect that a bee has this same type of light or spirit within their bodies. If this is how God communicates with the bee or a rock or a fly and it obeys, maybe we should also. 

          I think we as humans also have the ability to "see as God sees" because of the "light which is in all things, and through all things and around all things." If we desire for this ability, pray for this gift, live worthy of this gift, and it's God's will and desire for our lives to be enhanced as well as for the benefit of the world and help build His kingdom upon the earth, then we will receive it. 

          The bee is in communication with the same "light" and "quantum mechanics" that we are, so that if the Lord hisses or signals for them to come, they will. Shouldn't we be found in that same position? If God asks us to do something, shouldn't we DO IT? Isaiah warns us over and over again, not to become too involved in our idols, but to do what God asks us to do. Are we busy searching and understanding Isaiah, then applying our own backgrounds, interests, hobbies and experiences to understand our part in building the kingdom of God upon the earth. That is why I am blogging about "A Genealogist Looks at Isaiah."