Do bumblebees hold grudges?

Do bumblebees hold grudges?

Late June and the Cotswold brambles are coming into flower. 

attracting our smallest bumblebees, like this Bombus pratorum worker

and our largest, like the White-tailed bumblebees, Bombus lucorum, 

 each lucorum bee seems to linger on the bramble flower to savour every single drop of sweet nectar. Sometimes colliding with bramble thorns as they search for new flowers. Are they intoxicated? Sometimes they seem a little dizzy and poorly coordinated as they fly between the thorns.

I startled one lucorum sunning itself on the grass. It flew up into the brambles and barged a fellow lucorum bumblebee that was gorging on bramble nectar. She was taken unawares and fell like a stone onto the grass. Moments later she reappeared and smacked into the offending bee, causing it to fly off in search of another flower.

Could they be from the same colony? Or were they rivals for the food which seemed plentiful. All around, there were open bramble flowers; why pick on the bee on this one particular flower?

Natural Mindfulness

Natural Mindfulness is 'letting Nature in' 

but what does this mean exactly?

  To me, it means look, listen and feel. It's March so we're used to looking out for the first flowers that appear in spring: lesser celandines:

and Coltsfoot

I can't switch off my thinking but I can direct it to the spontaneous events that are happening all around me while walking in nature. Like the emergence of a Comma butterfly from hibernation.

I find listening especially helpful. So I walk slowly, I pause but not in a self-conscious way; I listen for ten seconds and I'm constantly asking myself: 
    "What's special and different today?"
I can't see them but I can hear nuthatches and jackdaws, a buzzard flies overhead. These are the kind of things that make me glad to be alive.
Seasons change imperceptibly but every day reveals more preparations for the season ahead.
Today I heard fieldfares and song thrushes together. These two members of the thrush family overlap but soon the fieldfares will be migrating back to Norway and Sweden to nest.

  So today I heard woodpeckers drumming, a typical sound that belongs to British springtime:

https://vimeo.com/208677486

That greater spotted woodpecker has found a particularly resonant tree which he's using to announce his presence to females and other males.

Look, listen and feel and it's different every day.

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Communicating mindfully in dementia

Talking to a friend or relative with dementia can be frustrating:

are there any tips that help?

My comments on ideas from the 'a place for mom' website

1. Recognize what you’re up against. Dementia advances gradually, strategies may need to change with time
2. Avoid distractions. If talking is effortful, find a quiet time and place to communicate.
3. Speak clearly and naturally in a warm and calm voice. Avoid patronising tones as if you were talking to a child.
4. Refer to people by their names. Use their name and your own name, be prepared to recap.
5. Talk about one thing at a time. Keep the conversation simple.
6. Use nonverbal cues. Look at the person while you're talking and use gestures if needed.
7. Listen actively. Try not to agree with what they say if you haven't understood; though asking for clarification can be hard.
8. Don’t quibble. Let delusions and missatatments go; constantly challenging can shift the mood.
9. Have patience. Be calm, keep a warm tone when you repeat things.
10. Understand there will be good days and bad days. Tiredness, anxiety and discomfort can all disrupt concentration.

I have sometimes noticed people looking bored or embarrassed when visiting an elderly relative. For that reason, I would add four more rules:

1. Make statements whenever you can: 'You look well today' may be more useful than 'How are you today?' Give the person time to qualify a statement.
2. Leave pauses: the spontaneous words may be much more valuable than responses to questions or statements.
3. Try reading aloud: poems, stories or novels. Even people with incoherent speech may respond.
4. Keep a communication book which any visitors or staff can write in so information is shared.

O, to be in England... Robert Browning

Robert Browning, like Charles Dickens, was in Italy in the spring of 1845 when he wrote this poem

Home-thoughts, from Abroad

In 1845 Robert met the love of his life: Elizabeth Barrett Browning [EBB] 

But he had admired EBB from afar after reading her newly-published poems and had written his first letter to her on 10th January 1845 which began: 

'I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett' 

So he must surely have been thinking of Elizabeth, immobilised as she was by an unexplained illness when he wrote these lines. But he didn't meet EBB until May 1845. You can see how he imagines a person being in England and seeing and hearing the spring developing and growing. His verse in May is loaded with sensual imagery:

O, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the Elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England-now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge-
That's the wise thrush; he sings his song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
-Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Granny's in a muddle: Living well with Dementia

"Granny's in a muddle: Granny needs a cuddle"
A six year old grandson's response to Joy losing the thread due to young onset Alzheimer's dementia. Alzheimer's is a common form of dementia associated with amyloid plaques and nerve fibre tangles. It begins with short term memory difficulties and is associated with wasting of the hippocampus which plays a part in immediate memory. The other common form of dementia is a mixed picture associated with multiple small strokes.
I heard Joy Watson speak recently and thoroughly recommend her approach to living well with dementia. Dementia-friendly design is important and would benefit us all, with fewer accidents and better demarcation of boundaries. 

Details here.
Glass tables and visual illusions on the wall disorientate people with difficulties estimating distance due to poor vision, people who've had a stroke and those of us who walk about with a mobile in our hand.
Wendy Mitchell talks here about her diagnosis with Alzheimer's despite living a healthy life 'nothing can protect you," she says. She's keen to encourage people to contribute to dementia research. You can follow Wendy's twitter feed here:
@WendyPMitchell

The greatest challenge is to create whole communities that are sympathetic to people with dementia. People who 'get in the way' by walking slowly along the pavement may be doing the best they can to stay active.
Regular physical exercise is reported to preserve the hippocampus, a region of the brain which thins in association with Alzheimer's dementia. The Cochrane review is guarded in its summary of the value of exercise in dementia: 

There is promising evidence that exercise programs may improve the ability to perform ADLs [activities of daily living] in people with dementia, although some caution is advised in interpreting these findings. The review revealed no evidence of benefit from exercise on cognition, [thinking] neuropsychiatric symptoms [delusions, hallucinations], or depression. There was little or no evidence regarding the remaining outcomes of interest (i.e., mortality, caregiver burden, caregiver quality of life, caregiver mortality, and use of healthcare services).

Social contact seems the most important factor in helping people with dementia to function at their best. Particularly as people with dementia commonly withdraw and become isolated.  Dementia Action Alliances are springing up all over the country. You can find out your nearest initiative here. 

Mindfulness and remembering to forget

Remembering to forget is an important part of recovery from chronic illness or traumatic experience. 

Any parent knows about the need to remind a young child to use the toilet before going out to avoid 'I need the toilet' interruptions to car journeys. There comes a time, though, when the child responds with 'I already have' or 'I don't need to'. The caring parent has to remember to forget, to trust the growing child's own judgement.
The same is true for people with a chronic illness. Say, for someone who experiences urgency to pass urine. They train themselves to visit the toilet before going out or visiting new places. The fear of 'having an accident' prompts them to make this habit a routine and in the short term the habit works. 
As time passes, things can change. The habit of frequent toileting stops working and the person seeks advice. Maybe their underlying condition improves but the default habit is so deeply ingrained that they cannot see the benefit.
A similar sequence can happen in eczema or psoriasis when the urge to scratch becomes the default position. If the skin condition improves, the scratch-itch cycle stirs it up to increase the discomfort.
It is possible that ruminating on a traumatic experience causes the same unhelpful re-running of the pain and upset.
What's needed here is the ability to 'remember to forget'. But how?
Mindfulness involves a focus on the present moment with acceptance. Some methods require a habit of regular meditation and diary-keeping. 

Natural mindfulness seeks to achieve this through contact with nature, such as while walking in the countryside. The calm, spontaneity and beauty of wild nature can train us to truly accept the present moment, driving away ruminations about the past or dreads about the future. Its role in recovering from trauma and easing skin conditions remains to be discovered.

Mindfulness included in NICE recommended treatment for depression

NICE: the UK National Institue for Health and Care excellence publishes evidence based recommendations for doctors and paramedics to follow

NICE reports are thorough and specialised but largely understandable to the general public. If you visit NICE you can enter any condition in the search box and read the advice which doctors are advised to follow in treating any condition.

The recommendations are hammered out by groups of specialists of all backgrounds and are continually updated to take account of new research findings. The full guidelines are quite overwhelming in scale, so I've provided an excerpt below.

It's interesting to note that mindfulness-based treatments are now included in the section dealing with preventing recurrence of episodes of depression and also for social anxiety disorder. Here is an excerpt from the October 2009 updated guidance about non-drug treatment of depression:

Psychological interventions for relapse prevention

1.9.1.8 People with depression who are considered to be at significant risk of relapse (including those who have relapsed despite antidepressant treatment or who are unable or choose not to continue antidepressant treatment) or who have residual symptoms, should be offered one of the following psychological interventions: 

• individual CBT for people who have relapsed despite antidepressant medication and for people with a significant history of depression and residual symptoms despite treatment
• mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for people who are currently well but have experienced three or more previous episodes of depression.

The advice is specific about the duration and frequency of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy.

Delivering psychological interventions for relapse prevention

1.9.1.9 For all people with depression who are having individual CBT for relapse prevention, the duration of treatment should typically be in the range of 16 to 20 sessions over 3 to 4 months. If the duration of treatment needs to be extended to achieve remission it should:

• consist of two sessions per week for the first 2 to 3 weeks of treatment
• include additional follow-up sessions, typically consisting of four to six sessions over the following 6 months. 

1.9.1.10 Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy should normally be delivered in groups of 8 to 15 participants and consist of weekly 2-hour meetings over 8 weeks and four follow-up sessions in the 12 months after the end of treatment.

It's a small, welcome recognition that a range of approaches are needed to prevent people spiralling into depression if they can't tolerate tablets or if the tablets don't help.

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Natural Mindful exercises

'See, hear and feel': the three main ways to   let Nature in 

In a mindful walk next week, we'll be exploring how our senses bring home the enduring freshness of the natural world. We'll visit some of my favourite places to test out a series of exercises in looking, listening and experiencing the natural flow and rhythm of the countryside at the very beginning of spring. 

I'll be interested to hear your ways of sensing the inspiration and spontaneity of Nature and any feedback you can give me on the exercises we try out while walking. Daily walks calm me and inspire me and I'd like to hear about ways that calmness and mindfulness can deepen for you and last throughout the day.

Exercises I'm developing include: 'Colours of the rainbow' and '3D listening'. 

Colours of the rainbow can be used alone or in pairs. The world looks real because it's composed of all the colours of the rainbow. If I search out the seven colours in order while walking: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet in turn, I surprise myself with the astonishing variety of colours in nature. As I continue to walk, that sensitivity to unexpected colours stays with me.

3D listening involves stopping at a convenient point on a hillside such as a green corridor with a view of a valley. I stand and listen with eyes closed for one minute and concentrate on the pitch and loudness of sounds I'm hearing. I try to pinpoint the direction of all the sounds I can hear. The sounds may include machines, planes overhead as well as birdsong and the wind in the trees. I aim to cultivate a non-judgmental acceptance of all I can  hear and I hope that in this way I can become a better listener.

More interesting still is the area of feeling, so I'd welcome your support not exactly in tree-hugging but in experiencing the textures and smells of the plants around us. I find this intriguing because in my experience, sensations quickly bring emotions to the surface.

So I trust we'll share our reactions to practising natural mindfulness while enjoying a convivial walk in beautiful countryside with like-minded people.

Intuition and intent

How much control do I really have over what goes on in my brain?

Cognitive behavioural approaches invite us to think that it is our habitual denigrating thoughts which lead us to ruminate on past mistakes and inadequacies. 

All I need to do is to set aside negative thoughts. And that can be immensely powerful. 

I need a range of responses to my dissenting inner voices: 
Stop        I changed my mind      Tell me later   I'm doing the best I can

I find two difficulties with this approach.

1. My uncosncious is at work. My brain may be presenting past failures to me for a good reason. When I find myself humming a tune, I generally find there is something in the mood of the piece or the wording of the lyrics that is immediately relevant to my predicament at that moment, usually something I've been overlooking. Also my unconscious is immensely clever at sabotaging my intent.
2. In order to be creative and open to intuition I need to let my thoughts flow in their own way. Being present is partly stepping aside to accept the mood I'm in. I might be down among the ghosts and monsters of the lower unconscious, a scary but immensely creative place where innocent trees turn into wild unknown worlds. Instead of looking for the stop tap, I want to marvel at the symphony of brain chemicals that is constantly shifting the way I see, hear and feel. 

I'm not comfortable with analogies of the brain as a computer: [reboot, default mode, delete] or as a business [executive function, CEO] I find the natural world more explanatory: [web of life, evolutionary tree]

My model of the self is like a planet and at any moment I find myself located at a ford where my conscious intent crosses the 'flow of consciousness'. 

My intent may be in a position of power or at the opposite pole of no control. The stream may be deep into sadness, in natural mindfulness, mingling with the people around me or high up at its source, in the safe place remote from the present.

All I can do is seek a path through the woods which reminds me of the wonder of life in all its forms, of patterns and healing and recovery.

I hold onto is this conflict between intent and intuition which you could call the battle between will and love.

Being happy

There's no science to being happy however we measure it

Boyd Tonkin writes in Saturday's Independent newspaper

here

Among the authors he quotes is Daniel M Haybron

Associate Professor of Philosophy at St Louis University

 whose acronym: SOARS is designed to summarise thinking about the philosophy and sociology of happiness:
It stands for 

Security [not necessarily wealth, a strong sense of sufficinecy and protection]

Outlook [hopeful and altruistic, not fearful and selfish]

Autonomy [free to set your own goals, not multiple consumer choice]

Relationships [not exclusively close family and friends, a network of trusted social contacts]

Skilled and meaningful activity [tasks that reinforce self-esteem and make sense of your world, whether paid or not]

Interestingly, Haybron suggests we might add: 'contact with the Natural world' to the list [SNOARS?]

From the article, I conclude that international comparisons of happiness levels and charts of the unhappiest towns in Britain are a waste of time. 

I'm not sure that I can do very much about optimising security, outlook, autonomy and relationships. My numbers of friends, ambition and sense of freedom were probably all laid down very early, based on reacting to my parents, teachers and carers.

But I suppose I could take up more skilled and meaningful activity; does that rule out computer games? What about the allotment? Hardly skilled and not very productive.
Of course I can get out into Nature more, so maybe that's the one I should concentrate on.

Natural Mindful Mini safari

In   February  it can be worthwhile exploring nature with the eyes of a bumblebee 

If you use a lens or loupe to explore the smallest plants and creatures you may find strong textures in the slanting evening light. 

The tiniest natural structures are often the most beautiful. 

The mindful part comes in slowing down and focussing down on the smallest scale imaginable. Mosses are well seen in winter:

Some mosses growing on fence posts have fruiting bodies in winter.

There are at least three different lichens fruiting on this tree bark, all sharply demarcated and fighting for light and nutrients.

The orange leafy lichen in the centre has the wonderful name of Xanthoria parietana [xanthus yellow, parietal: on walls] while there are a few chocolate-coloured fruiting bodies of creamy white Lecanora chlarotera. This species colonises recently planted semi-urban trees for instance in supermarket car parks. These two lichens grow well with nutrients, such as bird droppings, implying that birds roost or perch nearby. The black dots are fruiting bodies of the green Lecidella elaeochroma   which is often surrounded by an irregular black edge.

Meanwhile this little treat is the scarlet elf cup fungus Sarcoscypha coccinea which fruits in winter and grows on twigs among leaf litter.

All identification is provisional based on appearance, correct me if I'm wrong

pop-up animation studio

I'm fascinated by film-making and I'd like to share my interest.

   It's a lie that playing video games is active; it's simply passive consumption of someone else's imagined world. 

All modern forms of entertainment: video games, cinema, TV and internet are essentially passive. 

As a result we spend hours every day staring at screens and tapping out keys. I'm no exception. It's unhealthy and to cap it all we're bombarded with commercials to use more and more of our time in a passive way. No wonder there's so much obesity. 

The pop-up animation studio

And yet Britain leads the way in innovating ever more ingenious games and series.

   Why let someone else have all the creative fun of making something new and original?

People need to discover how easy it is to create original images and to animate them into a film and tell a story visually. [in my humble opinion] Paintings can move.

There is nothing so creative as making your own images and seeing them move

It's possible to make a film in a day. It may not win an Oscar but it shows you how quickly modern software can composit a film out of a hundred stop motion photos. 

And with attention to a storyboard, characters and lighting it can be a film worth watching.

  So I've come up with the idea of a pop-up animation studio: a tripod, camera and laptop and craft materials, such as card and paper. It's small enough to fbe easily transportable by car or train so I can facilitate workshops around the country.

  It's useful to have several copies of animation characters so I now use a template for a male and female character printed out on card in advance. They fit together with brads, little black fasteners. If I use black card the brads will be almost invisible. They're black so you can alter them and colour them in on the day. 

So there it is and my next workshop on February 6th in Birmingham will show how robust the idea is.

Popular science: Five clues to common overstatements

Lazy interpretation creeps in when science is popularised.

Here are some clues to help to detect overstatements:

1. "Because" 

any article that uses this word is veering from the truth. We are living through a Crisis of Attribution; that is, we have no secular theory to explain why a follows b, only that they are associated more often that expected by chance. Our theories are not built to answer the question: "Why?" or "How?" only to make predictions and test for associations.
Suggested alternative: avoid altogether

2. "Scientific" 

Scientists are aware of what we don't know which enables them to ask a discriminant question: ie one that can be tested in our present state of knowledge. The adjective 'scientific' conveys nothing more than: 'I want you to believe this.'
Suggested alternative: "doubtful"

3. "Facts"

In the Words of Friedrich Nietsche: "Es gibt keine Tatsachen, nur Interpretationen" 
'There are no facts, only interpretations.' 
Human perception is notoriously susceptible to error, blue sky is grey to some people and my 'blue' is almost certainly completely different to yours.

Suggested alternative: avoid altogether

4. "Proved" and "Validated" when combined with the 'S' word.

Suggested alternative: "suggested"

5. "Brain chemicals" and "Neuroscientists" and "raises the level of"

In science, theories are contested, try finding two 'neuroscientists' from varying fields who agree with each other; the neuro-anatomists barely talk to the neuro-chemists and as for the neuro-electrophysiologists and the brain scanners, they rarely even see each other.

It's a tough life being a populiser of science, though I can't fault Brian Cox, particularly as I don't understand astrophysics.

Mindful use of failure

An article on Life-affirming imperfection yesterday reminded me of the importance of failure in creative work.

That sounds counterintuitive but all artists have more or less success in creating some visions. A lot of people are put off by failure in their early attempts. 

How do artists and designers use failure?

Laura Snoad [@laurasnoad] writes about how success is often followed by failure, using the same approach may not work a second time; it may feel stale. 
But failure in a career could be serious; we need to know how to fail fast ; how to pinpoint the obstacles that prevent a piece of work from succeeding. 

Creative writers have critique groups; artists have muses, people who recognise the artist's intent and who can say what works and what needs to change.. It is up to the artists to find a way to respond.

Giving your self time to experiment before launching into a project is vital. 

A new character for an animation will require several iterations before the best materials and design are found.

In my work in hospitals I was interested in the rescue curve. How was a mistake such as the wrong patient, wrong dose, wrong treatment, recognised before it led to disastrous consequences? 

Atul Gawande devoted the 2014 Reith lectures to this question Why do doctors fail?

We need a blame free culture, an understanding that adverse events happen often and are worth studying in order to identify high risk places. In short, mindfulness.

As in life: breaking an arm abroad is not a tragedy; it's how we minimise the risk and deal with it when it happens.
It's something I should apply in life a bit more: experimenting more, altering, trying something different.

Cameras, paintings and original art

Do cameras help or hinder original art?

I'm considering leaving my camera at home and just being present

maybe having a handy sketchbook with me at times

I have often wondered if amateur artists are too reliant on photographs. Some subjects I see in exhibitions, such as sunrises 

 

are better as photos than paintings or drawings.

I've certainly benefitted from comparing a photo with an oil painting sketch I've done directly from life, only checking with a photo afterwards.

but it makes me wonder what's special about a painting: how does it convey emotion unconsciously?

A couple of months ago I bought an entry level DSLR camera but I've found that it's too large to fit in my pocket as the compact 'point and shoot' camera used to. 

I have to carry a camera bag and so it's harder to take quick pictures like this:

Then a short time ago, I misplaced my compact camera, 
so in an effort to apply mindfulness,I'ver decided to leave a camera behind. This will be a big change for me in 2016. I can't capture the colourful landscapes that I took photos of in 2015. 

On the other hand I'm not constantly experiencing life through a lens. A camera distances me from the raw experience; I'm constantly moving around to find the best angle. Maybe I can store the subjective experience better by being alert, storing as much as I can of what I can see, feel and hear.

If I draw in a sketch book I won't be able to capture whole landscapes in beautiful colours; I'll have to concentrate on more distinct subjects like buildings, trees and interiors, but is people that interest me most. 

 As you can see, sketching people in my local coffee shop is causing a drift in my drawings towards cartoon-like characterisation, which may be closer to what I need in order to create models for animation.

I will still use photographs. I'll talk about how useful photographs can be in a future blog.

Natural Mindfulness

What is natural mindfulness? 

I like the phrase: 'Letting nature in'. For me, there is always something which the natural world can show us that is immediately valuable in our lives. Our unconscious is able to present that to us through our mind, body or feelings. But we need somehow to practise stepping back from everyday concerns: regrets about the past or anxiety over the future, in order to be open to this message.

How can a guide facilitate natural mindfulness? 

  [my personal view]

• By slowing down. there's no hurry in mindfulness. There is something about moving slowly through the countryside that renews our connection to the natural world. Way back in time, moving through the landscape was vital to our survival. If we spend too long indoors we miss out on this experience.
• By being in a calm, timely state of mind, body and feelings. Mental, physical and emotional pains can seem overwhelming but on a wintry day in the Cotswold countryside you have to pay attention to where you're putting your feet. But it's more than distraction: it is listening for the underlying message.
• By being curious. Curiosity, asking questions takes us to new learning. It's been said: 'Beginner's mind, Zen mind'. 
• So is a guide an expert? No. The most naive questions that a beginner could ask, such as: 'Why is the sky blue?' experts struggle to answer. A guide is not an expert, he or she is a facilitator, encouraging the conditions for natural insights to come for every person on a walk.
• Do I need to study nature in order to benefit? No. Use your favourite way of 'being in the present' going beyond overthinking, customary body sensations and well-worn emotional paths: meditation, centring, relaxation or creative visualisation and [I believe] you will find that you are more than your mind, body and feelings. Some people call this disidentifying
• Does mindfulness take a lot of effort? If you discover that this state of mind is useful, your unconscious will practise it often and enable you to use it when you need it most.
• Is it like a nature walk? It's what you make it. Maybe a wilderness experience is part of it, maybe noticing the particular season, time of day and seeing, hearing or feeling something special to that particular time and place.