Ode to Chaos

Abstract

Dawn is close. A thick layer of mist lingers a few inches above the ground in a patch of dense tropical forest near Hopelchén, the place of the five sinkholes. The air is humid and fat with dew; it smells of cold ashes and smoke, rotting leaves, mushrooms, moss, mud. A thin ray of light starts to make its way through the lush foliage of a gigantic ya’axche, the sacred ceiba (or kapok) tree. Its solid bark has the texture of grey elephant skin. It marks the center of the cosmos, the axis of life and death. Next to it lean the remains of a lifeless tree. A shiny black centipede crawls down and disappears in the ground into the bowels of Xibalbá, the underworld. Rustling sounds of biped footsteps approach, then stop. Two fingers, a thumb and an index, are inserted into a small hole in the trunk; they wiggle around like blind pigeons and then pinch. A blob of syrupy substance starts oozing out, leaving a trail of golden stickiness along its downward path. A buzzing sound fills the air and intensifies rapidly around the hole: the angry protest of a six-legged, stingless sentinel. The jícara is full of honey. Footsteps recede into the background. Silence returns to the forest. The sun is out, bathing the treetops and the creatures that dawdle and play on them. Bright red bromelias, white orchids and cobalt blue morning glories growing in all sorts of height-defying postures soak in the sunrays while a few xunan-kaab, stingless honeybees also known as Melipona beecheii Bennett, dance on their pistils brimming with pollen and nectar. The buzz of their flightpaths pierces the atmosphere of the forest, crisscrossing it like invisible spiderwebs. Inside the hollow tree trunk, in the xjobón che, an intraworld of exquisite spatial patterns, fractal recesses, cavities and chambers filled with pungent fragrances and substances is being generated with the incessant batting of delicate wings and biochemical reactions. The hive, a sort of entelechy or superorganism, is the interior of an insect matriarchy, a “queendom,” that has perfected the reproductive technologies necessary for the continuation of its own gene pool and its expansion in future colonies. It produces legions and swarms of specialized courtesan subjects: consorts, soldiers, drones, builders, workers, foragers, harvesters, caretakers, nannies. They provide the energetic conditions that make possible the perpetual production of a territory, and the surplus nutrients upon which their existence rests. Kaab is the word that encapsulates this palynivore world; in its patterned arrangements and rich, waxy modulations the flows of energy and matter are articulated across time and space.