Why The Bee?

When I grew up it was common knowledge that bees shouldn’t be able to fly.  The trouble with being ten years old is that because an adult said it, you believe it.  Yes, bullshit. But like LOTS of bullshit from childhood, you believe it.  For years I watched bees and wondered what would happen if they suddenly became aware that they couldn’t fly.  Would they all just drop to the earth, fail to pollinate the world’s food sources and we’d all die a slow and agonizing death?

 It was classic cognitive dissonance… there were all the bees, working their stinger-equipped asses off - with not a thought as to what some physicist was saying to other 10 year olds. 

 There’s a lot to unpack here.

To jump to the end of the story-- yes, bees certainly can fly. Like they’ve been doing since the dawn of time.  And yes, finally, some humans figured out their very specific methods for flying.

If you think about the hubris, the unmitigated gall of science - rather than pointing out its own weakness - science would blame the bee for not paying attention - it reminds me of what we do to our autistic children.  Because WE don’t understand the science (yet), WE come up with a lot of theories about autism, people with autism, people who parent people with autism, people who educate people with autism, and on and on.  

The first reason I chose the bee for my branding was because that story reminds me that what seems infallible now (bees can’t fly), especially in the face of science (they certainly can and do fly), is probably just a lot of dookey.  A lot of what we think about autism now is going to be challenged as we learn more.  Antiquated approaches to educating, employing and hanging out with autistic people will someday be viewed with the same tut-tut (incredulity) as telling a 10 year old in 1966 that bees can’t fly.

The second reason that I chose the bee for my branding is the way that they DO fly. Bees fly by producing little hurricanes under their wings. Yeah, that’s cool.  These puffs of hurricanes keep those little bodies up in the air, moving from flower to flower. When I reflect on the autistic children and students that I have known, it seems totally fitting that they are moving through this world with little hurricanes under their wings.