Bugonia: Maraṇasati in the Dead of Winter
Bugonia: Maraṇasati in the Dead of Winter
Bugonia: Maraṇasati in the Dead of Winter
Once more a virgin snow, unsullied, white,
Clings to the frozen flesh of winter-fall.
It sighs dark, needled kisses of frosty night
And nips the seeded land in its bright caul.
The midnight sky, still hermitage of cloud,
Wraps me in its soft, mauve vestiture.
A plum phelonion, half circled shroud
Of quiet, overhanging sepulture
Invites me to a solitary view
Of myself in folds of smooth cerecloth.
That final gift of the hive's chaste residue
Will polish me in apiary gloss,
And, as my clay grows rare, striped honeybees
Will colonize my fertile cavities.
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Bugonia is the cryptozoological process by which honeybees are spontaneously generated out of a decaying corpse. Famous examples from antiquity are the Bees of Aristaeus and Samson's Riddle in Judges 14:14, posed to the Philistines after Samson, who had killed a lion, returned to its corpse and found it heavy with bees. "And he said unto them, Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness. And they could not in three days expound the riddle" (Judges 14:14).
Maraṇasati is an ancient practise of mindfulness of death. There are many forms of it, including contemplation of corpses. These exercises generally recognize nine stages of decay, starting with discoloration of the flesh and concluding with bones bare of all meat. Though it may sound gruesome, its goal is desensitization toward death and dying, especially towards one's own. I was fortunate to stay at a monastery where this exercise was still available. Regrettably on my last visit this was no longer the case. The skulls and bones of elephants and humans were gone, as was the shade garden that used to shelter them. It had been a peaceful place to look out on the lake and observe the flowers, birds and fishermen in their little boats.
...phelonion...: In the East it is a cloak or cope corresponding to the Western chasuble or paenula. Here it is conflated with a burial shroud.
...cerecloth...: This is the waxed burial cloth or funeral shroud that was used to wrap corpses in days gone by.
...chaste residue...: Bees were considered chaste because they were thought to reproduce by parthenogenesis. The residue, of course, is bee's wax, exuded from tiny glands along the worker bee's body, and which has been highly valued for candles used in religious ritual. The large paschal candle, still used in Roman and Orthodox liturgy, is a fine example of bee's wax's durability as a symbol of cleanliness and purity.
...as my clay grows rare...: An early stage of human decay, during which the corpse begins to become malodorous. Where I stayed the saying was that to smell the dead signalled good fortune.
...will colonize my body's cavities...: My corpse will be the host for the bugonia.