Poem "The Gate of the Year"

"I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year

'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.'

And he replied, 'Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God

That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!..."

The complete version of the poem you can read in the "Pomegrante Seeds" blog.

Minnie Louise Haskins wrote the poem in 1908. She was an American lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science, who wrote as a hobby.

Born on 12 May 1875, she planned to retire in 1939 but was reappointed a year later and continued until 1944.

“The Gate of the Year” was privately printed and circulated in a volume called The Desert. British Elizabeth, the late Queen Mother, loved the poem and showed it to her husband King George VI, who included it in his famous Christmas message broadcast in 1939 at the beginning of the Second World War.

Minnie Haskins was astonished to hear her poem being read by the King.

Having caught public interest, the royalties that were earned from subsequent sales were given to charity.

After the King's death the Queen Mother had it engraved on a bronze plaques on the entrance to the King George VI Memorial Chapel, in Windsor.

And again, ‘The Gate of the Year’, the Queen Mother's favorite poem, was read during her funeral on 9 April 2002 when she was interned next to her husband.

Observe the Time of Their Migration...

Until the end of April, impressive flocks of white and black storks, spoonbills, honey buzzards and even Pelicans can be seen soaring high in Israeli skies. Taking advantage of the updrafts produced when the wind blows over hills and mountain ridges, or making use of rising columns of warm air called ‘thermals’, they preserve precious energy by not having to flap their wings.

The longest of animal migrations are those of birds. Located at the junction of three continents, migrating birds use the little country of Israel on a scale unparalleled anywhere.

The sheer number of migrating birds that pass over Israel give the country a unique situation in the study of the phenomenon, which was, not surprisingly, noticed even in biblical times. The prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 7:8) tells the people that “Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration….”

Studies have shown that about 500 million (!) birds cross Israel’s narrow airspace twice every year on their way to their African winter and European summer nesting grounds.

The magnitude and timing of the spring and autumn migrations of 35 species of medium-and-large sized raptors is just awesome. For some species, like the Lesser Spotted Eagle and Levant Sparrow hawk and the White Pelican, the whole world (!) population passes over Israel during migration, allowing an estimate of the world populations of these species.
Mean arrival dates of most raptors are highly predictable, and usually vary between 1.5 and 5.5 days, depending on the weather.

In the northern Galilee, the Hulah Valley’s newly created Lake Agmon has become a favourite and vital way station to stop, feed and rest on the long and exhausting journey. Each visitor to the Hulah Valley is deeply affected by the birds concentrated here.

Of course not everyone sees these birds in a positive light. When 25,000 cranes out of a population of 75,000 choose to spend their winters in the Hulah Valley, they attacked the fields of the local farmers.
In order to help both the farmers and the cranes, the Jewish National Fund stepped in with their so-called “Crane Project”. The birds were encouraged to feed at specific locations, while being chased from neighbouring crop fields. The program turned out to be such a success, that it became a model for other countries dealing with similar problems, including the US. Experts at the Hulah Valley not only collaborate on research with the US Forestry Service, but 22 additional countries as well.

Not only feeding these millions of birds is a challenge, but their massive migration also creates a safety problem for both the Israeli Air Force and the birds itself. Assisted by a radar and satellite, the Society for Protection of Nature in Israel, in cooperation with the Israel Air Force has been able to reduce the number of accidents by 88%.

During the spring and autumn migrations, bird observation centres are filled to overflowing with bird enthusiasts coming from all over the world.
Because birds don’t know any borders, they connect people from different countries, even those who are perceived to be Israel’s enemies.

When the flocks of storks, spoonbills, honey buzzards and Pelicans know it’s their season, they set out to soar, high in Israeli skies. Awed by the miracle of God’s creation, we may watch as these millions of birds return, year after year after year!

Trees in Honour of Na'il

During Na'il's memorial service on Sunday March 15, 2009 in the Ilanot School, five trees were planted in his honour. Following is additional information about the specific trees.

Elah – Terebinth (Pistacia terebinthus). The tree is also called ‘turpentine tree’, native to the Mediterranean region.
There are two species of ‘terebinth’ in the Middle East: the “Atlantic pistacia” and the “Palestine pistacia”. The Atlantic specie is the larger one and therefore assumed to be the one referred to in the Scriptures. The trees reach a very large size, can live up to one thousand years, and is the largest tree in Israel in recent history. It can reach a height of 12 metres and yield up to 2 kilograms of resin (turpentine). The terebinth develops a very deep and extensive root system and therefore remains green even in years of drought. It often sprouts from the stump after being cut (like Isaiah notes in 6:13).

In Biblical times this tree served as a site for worship and respected dead were buried under these trees. Elah – comes from the Hebrew “El” – god. The Elah is usually associated with strength and sturdiness, and often is translated in the Bible with ‘oak’. Abraham camped near an Elah, a magnificent symbol of refuge and refreshment. The Terebinth stood as a solitary source of welcome shade under the burning desert sun.

Because of its large size and great age, Terebinths were well-known landmarks and used as memorials for the dead.
Gideon was called by God when he stood by a large Terebinth. (Judges 6:11)
David faced Goliath in the Elah Valley (1 Samuel 17:2). Absalom’s hair caught in the branches of a large Terebinth. (2 Samuel 18:9).

Alon – Oak. Often translated in the Bible as ‘big tree’. Six species are found in Israel, which Hebrew authors have described. The Alon, like the Tabor oak, is a large deciduous tree that dominates its surroundings. This tree was also often associated with ritual and religious customs. Tabor oak forests once covered lager areas of Israel’s northern Coastal Plain, the Lower Galilee, the Hulah Valley and the slopes of the Golan. Most were cut down, to be used for buildings, furniture and boats. The Jewish National Fund is replanting the hills with these trees again, restoring the area to its former glory.

Klil ha Choresh - Judas Tree (Cercis sliquastrum)
The tree got its name because of the myth that Judas Iscariot hanged himself after he betrayed Jesus, and the tree blushed with shame.
Possibly, the name is a corrupted derivation from the French common name Arbre de Judée, tree of Judea, referring to the region where the tree occurred.

This small tree can reach a height of 12 meters and has deep pink flowers, produced when the tree is older than one year. In late spring, the extravagant flowers simply drip from every conceivable point along the branches and trunk. The flowers are hermaphrodite and are pollinated by bees. In Autumn the tree produces a mass of purple pods.

You can read more about it on the “Celebrating a Life” blog. (see blog lists)

The Little Prince

The Little Prince (original French: Le Petit Prince), published in 1943, is French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery's most famous novel. Written in the USA, most version contain the author's own drawings. The book has been translated into more than 180 languages and sold more than 80 million copies. It has been adapted into a movie musical, two different operas, and an animated series and often used as a beginner's book for French language students.

Katherine Woods' 1943 classic English version was later followed by other translations and by 2009, four additional translations have been published. Each of these translators do their best to approach the essence of the original, each with their own style and focuses.

Even though it's a children's book, The Little Prince makes several profound and idealistic points about life and human nature. Saint-Exupéry tells of meeting a young prince in the middle of the Sahara. The essence of the book is contained in the famous lines uttered by the fox to the Little Prince: "On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux." (You can see clearly only with your heart. What is truly important is invisible to the eyes). Other key thematic messages are articulated by the fox, such as: "You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed" and "It is the time you have spent with your rose that makes your rose so important."

The prince symbolizes the hope, love, innocence, and insight of childhood that lie dormant in all of us. The Little Prince characterizes narrow-mindedness as a trait of adults…. He depicts grown-ups as unimaginative, dull, superficial, and stubbornly sure that their limited perspective is the only one possible; however, children are imaginative, open-minded, and aware of and sensitive to the mystery and beauty of the world. … The wandering child restlessly asks questions and is willing to engage the invisible, secret mysteries of the universe. The novel suggests that such inquisitiveness is the key to understanding and to happiness.

The Little Prince shows that what one gives to another is even more important than what that other gives back in return.

The stars in The Little Prince also symbolize the far-off mystery of the heavens, the immensity of the universe, and at the end, the loneliness of the narrator's life. The narrator's final drawing, which accompanies his lament of his loneliness, is of a single star hovering over the desert landscape in which the prince fell. In this one image, the presence of the star both highlights the prince's absence and suggests his lingering presence. The star is also a reminder of the large and densely populated universe beyond Earth that the prince recounted visiting.

The end of the book, in short:
The narrator is dying of thirst, but then he and the Prince find a well. After some thought, the Prince bids an emotional farewell to the narrator, explaining to him that while it will look as though he has died, he has not, but rather that his body is too heavy to take with him to his planet. He tells the narrator that it was wrong of the narrator to come and watch, as it will make him sad. The Prince allows the snake to bite him and the next morning, when the narrator looks for the Prince, he finds the boy's body has disappeared. The story ends with a portrait of the landscape where the meeting of the Prince and the narrator took place and where the snake took the Prince's life.

Following is an excerpt of the book, part of it was read by Noah during Na’il’s Memorial service at the Ilanot School.

…"I, too, am going back home today..." Then, sadly-- "It is much farther... it is much more difficult..."
I realised clearly that something extraordinary was happening. I was holding him close in my arms as if he were a little child; and yet it seemed to me that he was rushing headlong toward an abyss from which I could do nothing to restrain him... His look was very serious, like some one lost far away.
"I have your sheep. And I have the sheep's box. And I have the muzzle..." And he gave me a sad smile.
I waited a long time. I could see that he was reviving little by little. "Dear little man," I said to him, "you are afraid..."
He was afraid, there was no doubt about that. But he laughed lightly. "I shall be much more afraid this evening..."
Once again I felt myself frozen by the sense of something irreparable. And I knew that I could not bear the thought of never hearing that laughter any more. For me, it was like a spring of fresh water in the desert. "Little man," I said, "I want to hear you laugh again."
But he said to me: "Tonight, it will be a year... my star, then, can be found right above the place where I came to the Earth, a year ago..."
"Little man," I said, "tell me that it is only a bad dream-- this affair of the snake, and the meeting-place, and the star..." But he did not answer my plea. He said to me, instead: "The thing that is important is the thing that is not seen..."
"Yes, I know..."
...
"And at night you will look up at the stars. Where I live everything is so small that I cannot show you where my star is to be found. It is better, like that. My star will just be one of the stars, for you. And so you will love to watch all the stars in the heavens... they will all be your friends...."
...
"All men have the stars," he answered, "but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems. For my businessman they were wealth. But all these stars are silent. You-- you alone-- will have the stars as no one else has them--"
"What are you trying to say?"
"In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night... you-- only you-- will have stars that can laugh!" And he laughed again. "And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure... and your friends will be properly astonished to see you laughing as you look up at the sky! Then you will say to them, 'Yes, the stars always make me laugh!' And they will think you are crazy...."
And he laughed again. "It will be as if, in place of the stars, I had given you a great number of little bells that knew how to laugh..." And he laughed again. Then he quickly became serious:
"Tonight-- you know... do not come," said the little prince.
"I shall not leave you," I said.
"I shall look as if I were suffering. I shall look a little as if I were dying. It is like that. Do not come to see that. It is not worth the trouble..."
"I shall not leave you."
…
"It was wrong of you to come. You will suffer. I shall look as if I were dead; and that will not be true..."
I said nothing.
"You understand... it is too far. I cannot carry this body with me. It is too heavy."
I said nothing.
"But it will be like an old abandoned shell. There is nothing sad about old shells..."
…
"Here it is. Let me go on by myself."
And he sat down, because he was afraid. …

…
I too sat down, because I was not able to stand up any longer.
"There now-- that is all..."
He still hesitated a little; then he got up. He took one step. I could not move.

There was nothing but a flash of yellow close to his ankle. He remained motionless for an instant. He did not cry out. He fell as gently as a tree falls. There was not even any sound, because of the sand.

…

This is, to me, the loveliest and saddest landscape in the world.

It is the same as that on the preceding page, but I have drawn it again to impress it on your memory.

It is here that the little prince appeared on Earth, and disappeared....

"One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes."
Na’il had the capacity to sense essential things in people that we most of the time missed. That was because he saw with his heart!
You can read more about this special boy in my “Celebrating a Life” blog. (see blog lists)

Sources:
http://www.lepetitprince.com/en/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Prince
whole book: http://home.pacific.net.hk/~rebylee/text/prince/contents.html
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/littleprince/themes.html

Bumblebee Activities

Bumblebee colonies have a yearly cycle, except for tropical species, where year-round colonies are known to survive for more than one year, due to the fact that there are year-round flowers available.

Mated queens hibernate, usually in the soil, in a place that can’t be warmed up too early in the year by the sun. This prevents premature emerging, with disastrous results when there are no flowers around yet. If the temperature falls below a certain point, the queen’s body automatically produces glycerol (anti-freeze).

In Spring she emerges, in dire need to replenish her stomach’s honey store, which she used up during the hibernation. After she has found a suitable nest, e.g. a deserted small rodent’s nest, she builds a wax honey pot and fills it with regurgitated nectar (honey). Not only she eats from her pollen store but turns it into ‘bee-bread’ ~ balls moistened with nectar. This way, even with bad weather the queen can survive a day or two.

Stimulated by the pollen the ovaries produce eggs, which she lays in batches of 4-16 on the ‘pollen-ball’ she then covers with wax. At this stage all the eggs are fertilized, for the queen needs female workers; queens are usually only produced at a later stage in the life of the colony. While the bumblebee queen broods the eggs like a bird, she replenishes her energy by drinking from the nearby honey pot. Through the bare patch on her abdomen she passes her body heat to the clump of wax-covered eggs. The larvae (who look like maggots) are eating machines.

Another batch of eggs is usually laid when the first batch is in the larval stage, and it takes 4-5 weeks to produce adult bumblebees. Depending on the species, of which there are about 250, worldwide, a colony can contain between 30 – 400 bumblebees.

When a female worker bumblebee emerges into the light for the first time, she memorizes the landmarks by making a zigzag flight, which enables her to recognize the nest entrance. She navigates by the sun and has an inbuilt clock to compensate for the rotation of the earth.
Most workers have foraging preference ~ particular species, shape or color of flowers.

It takes time before she learns how to get into the flowers to get her reward ~ the pollen. Monkshood e.g. is a ‘difficult’ flower, which can only be pollinated by bumblebees. Only they have the weight, strength and know-how to get inside.
Because it takes time to learn, each bumblebee usually specializes on one or two types of flower at the time, also depending on the availability. The first time a bee enters a flower, she has to take a leap of faith and the moment the top petal falls down behind her, she is locked in into the flower. In reaching for the nectary down at the bottom, she receives her reward, and with the pollen, rubbed on her body, she pollinates the next flowers she’s visiting. An experienced forager doesn’t hesitate to enter a flower: by using her weight she squeezes her way down, drinks the nectar and comes out rear first. Novice bumblebees turn around inside the flower and emerge head-first.

After each foraging trip, the worker performs a figure-of-eight dance on the combs in the nest to tell her workmates where to find good food.
After visiting a flower, the bumblebee leaves a scent mark, telling the other workers not to bother with that flower, thereby reducing their time probing unprofitable flowers.
With an average of 10 foraging trips bumblebees can provide the nest with 3 ml. honey a day. The collected pollen are stored in the pollen basket, used to feed the larvae. For a bumblebee, time is honey!

At night most workers return to the nest, unless they are surprised by a change in weather. Then they hide under or in a flower.
Only queens and female workers have stings, which is not barbed like a honeybee (which dies afterwards). She will only use it to defend the nest against intruders.

A bumblebee cannot fly if its wing-muscle temperature falls below 30◦C. Powered by the sugars from the flower’s nectar, in flight the muscle temperature stays between 30-44◦C.

Male bumblebee production means the beginning of the end of the nest. Males drink from the honey pot, but don’t do anything to replace it. Some males help inside the nest by incubating the young, but for the rest their sole purpose in life is to mate with a queen.

Once they leave the nest, male bumblebees spend the rest of their lives outside in the open, at night sheltered under flowers or inside of them.

A grounded bumblebee can be a lethargic male who needs his first nectar shot to wake and warm up. At the start of the summer, it may be a queen caught out in a sudden shower or a cold spell. She will revive as soon as she gets her nectar. However, when the bumblebee is found at the end of summer, it might be an old queen or worker, reaching the end of her short but very productive life ~ a worker lives only 4 weeks.

This is the way our Creator God made them:
A bumblebee queen emerges from hibernation, starts a colony, later helped by her female workers. In the course of summer unfertilized eggs (males) are laid and under the influence of hormones, the female worker larvae develop into new queens.

During the next phase, males and new queens mate, the colony disintegrates, all the old bumblebees die, while the new queen hibernates. And with the next spring, the whole cycle begins anew ~ creating a new generation of bumblebees, needed to pollinate flowers and crops.
What an awesome God we serve!

“Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.”
~ James Russell Lowell

Helpful website: www.bumblebee.org/

The Amazing Bumblebee

“Two-legged creatures we are supposed to love as we love ourselves. The four-legged, also, can come to seem pretty important. But six legs (like the Bumblebee) are too many from the human standpoint.” ~ Joseph W. Krutch

The bumblebee got its name from an old English word ~ “bomblen” ~ to boom; the dictionary describes it as a clumsy, unsteady or incompetent way; or to make a low humming or droning sound.

The bumblebee is a large, hairy insect, who trundles around the garden with a lazy buzz in a clumsy, bumbling flight. This black with yellow, sometimes orange striped insect is so important for glasshouse pollinating, that they are even sold for this purpose. Scientific trials have shown that with a Bumblebee hive of 400 workers, and a honeybee hive with 10,000 – 20,000 bees, it was the bumblebees who worked more hours per day, visited more flowers per minute and therefore pollinated more flowers.

Some interesting facts:

* The antenna (feelers) are like a nose and used for touching. Both front legs have a kind of notch, in which the antenna can be inserted, then pulled through – voila: inbuilt antenna cleaner! * Two pair of wings, operating together, work like a helicopter rotor: “reverse-pitch semi-rotary blades”. Enabled by a nerve impulse that twangs the muscle (like plucking a guitar string), bumblebees move their wings about 200 beats per second.
* Wings are connected to the thorax, which is like a box of muscles; the biggest, the flight muscles, take up almost the whole thorax volume.
* Three pair of legs ~ hairy with claws; only queen and worker’s legs have special baskets to collect pollen.
* 2 compound eyes and 3 ‘primitive’ eyes.
* The abdomen contains a honey stomach for storing nectar, which fuels them during the foraging flights. Some bumblebees fly back carrying as much as 75% or more of their bodyweight. Wax is secreted from between plates covering the abdomen. The fat body also functions as the nutritional store during the queen’s hibernation.
* Breathing: through spiracles (paired holes) at the down side of the body, that also has air sacs.
* The tongue, specialized to suck up nectar, is kept inside a sheath and folded under the head and thorax when flying or resting.
* The bumblebee is probably deaf but can feel vibrations of sounds.
* he heart runs down the entire body, where the blood sloshes freely, without veins or arteries.
* After mating, the queen stores the sperm inside her body; before she lays an egg she’ll decide either to fertilize it with sperm or not. Non-fertilized eggs became males; fertilized ones either queens or female workers. The females have suppressed hormonal activity for as long as the queen remains dominant. Only when the queen dies, the worker’s ovaries are stimulated, and new queens appear.
* Salivary glands produce saliva, which is mixed with nectar and pollen. It’s also used to soften the nest material.


”The pedigree of honey does not concern the bee, a clover, anytime, to him, is aristocracy.” ~ Emily Dickinson

The Seven Days of Mourning

In my historical novel “FIRST FRUITS IN JERUSALEM”, (presently at a British Publisher to be read) I describe the practice of the so-called Shiva, the seven days of mourning. In the story, because of the suicide, the parents are not allowed to mourn for the dead.
Mourning is the act of grieving over the death of a loved one. Jewish law and traditions provide a specific framework to guide mourners through their grief.
Judaism has a strong element of the acceptance of death and the seven days of mourning – Shiva – is a helpful tool by which people are not left alone in their grief, but surrounded by family and friends.

Jewish laws of mourning balance emotionalism and philosophic wisdom. Mourners are expected to cry, tear their garments and participate in the burial ceremony. However, they are not to mourn too much, nor for too long. The emphasis of the mourning period is to recover from the loss and to focus on the business of living.

In a Jewish family, after the burial the mourners return to the home where the shiva takes place and eat a meal consisting of bread and a hard boiled egg which is provided by others, as a sign of compassion and communal concern. In Orthodox families mourners sit on the floor on low cushions or benches. They won’t shave, bathe, go to work, or wear freshly laundered clothes. Some people cover the mirrors in the house of mourning.

In Sephardic communities visitors bring prepared food for the mourners, and offer consolation. In Ashkenazi communities bringing food is considered improper.
Visitors don’t greet the mourners, but speak in quiet, consoling words.

During Shabbat, a house in mourning won’t receive any visitors, as the Shabbat is seen as the Queen, and a day of rejoicing.

The Shiva ends on the morning of the seventh day, but the mourning continues in a lesser content through the 30the day, called the Shloshim.
Religious Jews don’t cut their hair during this time, nor shave, wear new clothes or attend parties.
The custom of marking the anniversary of the death is called the Yahrzeit.

Excerpt from the Encyclopedia of Judaism.

General Update

This is so exciting! I've been working hard to update the website and also found out how to give the blogs a 'new look'. I'm very pleased with the results!
Also, they're now out in the 'open' for everyone to find, a bit scary, but we'll see what happens.
Hope you enjoy the changes, and make sure to visit the links on the right side. More blogs have been birthed.