Why Bees?

People have been asking me, why bees? What's my plan? Why do I want to become a beekeeper? Let's start there. I don't want to become a beekeeper. While frequent slips of the tongue may be misleading, I am not interested in keeping bees. Nor am I interested, at this time, in selling honey, propolis, pollen, tinctures, candles or any other bee product, no matter how yummy the prospects. I am interested in Living with Bees. Or, to sound all the more professional, Apiculture.

Apiculture is derived from the Latin word for bee, apis. For some, it may just seem like a fancy name for beekeeping, but I see a subtle, yet significant difference. There is a great deal of power held in a word. Words carry a resonance, a history, an intention, a charge. Words spoken from one pair of lips, can easily be received with a completely different meaning by another pair of ears. If everything I do must be done with intention, then I need to set the record straight on this whole Beekeeper concept. As so many beekeepers are apt to say, I don't keep bees, the bees keep me.



My path to bees was such a strange, labyrinthian unfolding. It began with a broken heart and a book. I was living in San Francisco in December of 2007, miserable. Unbenounced to my sorry self, I had just dovetailed into a good old-fashioned Dark Night of the Soul. I hated the city. Don't get me wrong, San Francisco is an incredible city. It's my city. Most of the time I love it. However, as a broken-hearted, job-hunting, rent-paying, tree-climbing, river-swimming nature girl, I was drowning in concrete. I cursed the number 27 bus that e-braked outside my widow all night long. I cursed the pink, starless skies. I cursed my inability to embrace the city and just get over myself. I aliviated this daily horror with three things: self-toucher via romantic comedies, self-care via solo dates at the wine and dessert bar, and escapism via the golden gate bridge toward the eternal hills of mystic Middle-Earth (what regular folk know as West Marin).

At some hazy point in January, a dear friend gave me the book The Shamanic Way of the Bee by Simon Buxton. I knew very little about bees. Most of my life (this is a serious confession) I didn't even like honey. But my spirit was hurting, so I opened the pages to see what they might reveal. I devoured the book. I got lost in the apiaries of Britain, Vitamin Pan, the Serpent Flight, Nightshade Isle, the honey liquor of Lithuaian, and of course, The Melissae. The book was feeding me like fresh sap to a brittle tree. It spoke to me. It actually spooked me out. On the day I heard the exact words the author would write before even turning the page, I took the book and chucked it across the room. Seriously, a full on Bastien moment from the end of "The Never Ending Story". I left the book crumpled on the floor and drove straight to Marin. I parked on Bolinas ridge and walked out to a cold, rocky perch to watch dusk sea-mist crawl inland over the hills. My breathing calmed, my mind began to slow. A herd of white deer grazed in the distance and everything was rose-colored. In that moment, with the words of the bee shaman reverberating through my mind, I came to a stillness. I became a part of the rose light, the mist path, the mother sea. I felt a radiant beauty descend over me. In the growing night, I drove back to the city, stopping at the Fairfax market for dinner. A well-dressed and unimposing man ran after me as I left the store. "Sorry to disturb you," he said. "I'm not usually like this, but I saw you in the store. Don't worry, I don't need anything from you. I just wanted you to know you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, and I wanted to give you this." He handed me a red tulip and walked away before I could even say thank you.

What on earth does any of this have to do with bees? It was the beginning. Not because a man said I was beautiful, but because in that moment, I knew I WAS the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. The book had opened something inside me and I was literally vibrating with Goddess essence. I picked up the thread of my life and was following it out of the labyrinth. I had to know more.

Lucky for me, Simon Buxton had opened the The Sacred Trust, a school teaching courses in Shamanism and the Path of Pollen (an ancient lineage of Bee Shamans). Unlucky for me, the Sacred Trust is in England. Lucky for me, I happened to be going to Italy the next summer (2009). Unlucky for me, the class was already full.

I went to England anyway, to visit Glastonbury for three days before heading to Tuscany. This was my third visit to Glastonbury, home of sacred springs, Glatonbury Tor, thousand year oaks, The Holy Thorn Tree, and a host of other powerful sites. It is the legendary home of the mythic Isle of Avalon (Isle of Apples), and remains one of the places where the veil between this world and the Otherworld remains thinnest. It resonates with the Heart Chakra and is imbued with Goddess energy.

Glastonbury Tor crowned with Michael's Tower.

On the second day, I paid homage to Wearyall Hill and ancient The Holy Thorn Tree. The Holy Thorn is a pilgrimage site for Pagans and Christians alike. It is a direct decedent of a 2,000 non-native Hawthorne tree from the Middle East, which blooms (unusually) twice a year, at Christmas and Easter. The tree is said to have sprouted from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea (Jesus' uncle) upon his arrival to Glastonbury after the Cruxification. It is even rumored that Joseph bore the Holy Grail to England and buried it beneath the sacred springs of Chalice Well. The Divine Feminine aspect of the Holy Grail brought me to Avalon with the intention of paying homage to the land. I gave the tree an ribbon offering and a prayer for the arrival of my future child. When I turned, there sat a tiny cottontail rabbit, not ten feet away, watching me in the evening light.

The ancient oak Magog, over 1000 years old.

Chalice Well

On the last day of my visit, I took an afternoon nap in the low arms of a British Hawthorn tree on the side of Glastonbury Tor, a dominating hill with a 7 circuit earthen labyrinth winding up to a central tower. The Tor is a powerful site where the Michael and Mary Ley Lines cross on their intertwining journey across Europe. You feel a strange pull from these two earth energy lines as you ascend the slope to its visit of the Summer Country. As I slept, I traveled into the Tor and visited the inner labyrinth and underground spring. Each interior level presented a message or vision until I reached the crown and woke with a start into a strange, thick mist. In the half-light, I felt my heart drained of all grief and heartache, and refilled with an overflowing, all-present Love. The energy was deeply feminine; I felt as if the Goddess of the land had restored my heart to fullness and gifted me with the awareness of true Self-Love.

In the morning, as I drove away in the pre-dawn light, Glastonbury Tor rose in my rear-view window and I was filled with a sudden and sure knowing: I would be back within the year. Sacred places do that. They tell you things, if you listen, and The Isle of Avalon told me I would be back next summer. I agreed, but my bank account indicated otherwise.

Fast forward to February 2010. I had recovered from my time in the Shadow Cave and was focusing on the release of my first Album, Waterkeeper. My pilgrimage in 2009 brought me to new heights of spiritual awareness and self-renewal. I had trust again. Trust in the exact and divine timing of all things. I was living back home in the Sierra Foothills and trying to decipher the music industry. One day, out of the blue, I got a call from my close friend, Cheyanna. She was planning a pilgrimage to Europe in the summer and needed advice on pilgrimage sites. Since Cheyanna and I share much of our spiritual work and ritual together, I had passed her The Shamanic Way of The Bee months before, knowing my Mead mistress would love a glimpse into the world of the honey-makers.

Over the phone, I rattled on about Avebury, Avalon, Chartres Cathedral, Stonehenge, Scotland, Ireland and the like, until Cheyanna became quiet and giggly and said "Ari, Ben and I have a proposition for you." ???? "We would like to invite you to join me on part of my trip to Europe and help plan a pilgrimage." Confused, I barked out a strange laugh and began blubbering until she explained. Her husband couldn't go, but he wanted her to have company and a friend who understand the spiritual significance of the trip. He would pay my part in exchange for my help with planning and logistics, as well as some dedicated girlfriend galavanting. And, then they dropped the question that made me set down the phone. Would I also be interested in taking The Way of the Melissa workshop at the Sacred Trust?

England called me back. Just as promised, against all financial obstacles, the land said Yes. We began making plans, pouring over maps of France and England, discussing cream tea, french cafes and driving on the left. Cheyanna signed us up for the Way of the Melissae, but came back with bad news. We were 13th and 14th on the waiting list. I told her, plan our trip as if we were going to the Sacred Trust for a week and have faith that it would happen. I contemplated what to do about this problem and it hit me: go to the bees. I typed in "Melissa California" hoping for some sign in the right direction, and up popped The Melissa Garden, in Healdsberg, CA, just north of Marin. It's a honeybee sactuary full of happy bees and flowers, and they just so happened to be teaching an upcoming Rudolf Steiner inspired class on Connecting to Bees through the Heart.

Photo from the Melissa Garden website

The Melissa Garden is a true jewel. It is one of the most progressive, forward thinking, earth-centered places I've been. They teach from the heart, with great reverence and understanding of the hive. The garden is prolific and filled with bee forage that changes from season to season. The class was held on a warm April day. Michael and Barbara taught using a combination of discussion-based and experiential learning. At the end of class, Michael opened the HangerKorb, or Hanging Basket Hive.

Photo from the Melissa Garden website.

We sat in silence while the bees buzzed all around us, encompassing us within their vibratory field. Then Michael said, "lets make the bees rain" and took the bowl-shaped lid of the hive off the ground and tossed it into the air. All the bees lining the inside of the basket lifted as a clump into the air and started to fall to the ground. At that moment a gust of wind came up and blew the bees two feet to the left where they fell, as one giant clump, all over my body. For 15 minutes I was covered from head to toe in drones and females. I held my arms out so I wouldn't crush them and moved in slow arcs as repeatedly alighted on my skin. I had no concerns. Simply an ecstatic grace, filling my being, erasing all sense of fear.

Photo from the Melissa Garden website.

When I returned home I called Cheyanna and told her we were going to get into the course. I just knew it. Two weeks later she phoned me with the news, the volcanic eruptions in Iceland had effected travel plans for most of the women signed up for the class, and there was suddenly two slots open. It seems the Queen of Synchronicity was a work. The Bees were sending us to England! Not only that, we were going to prepare for the workshop by visiting Glastonbury and the Avebury Henge. We were beside ourselves with joy.



After all the build up around the Sacred Trust and the Way of the Melissa, it would be nice if I could delve into an in-depth description of the course, but the workshop doesn't unfold that way. If you go to the website you will find a vague, enchanting description of the week-long workshop that leaves most asking, "but what is it really about?" Cheyanna and I did not know. Couldn't even guess. We were simply compelled like little honeybees Bee-Lining it home to the hive. The Path of Pollen is a Mystery Tradition. It's work is individual, communal and deeply rewarding. It is not my position to describe the workshop, but I can describe it's effect on me. If you are still curious when you are done, read The Shamanic Way of the Bee, and hopefully my vague references may come into a more refined focus.

The Way of the Melissae was less a workshop and more an introduction and resounding yes to life's calling. I remember having the profound sense that everything I had done in my life had led me to this moment, these women, this land, this lineage. In the same sense that one longs for a soulmate, I had longed for my spiritual home. I did not even know how deeply I longed for it, until I felt those introductory words pour into my ready ears on a cool July day in Devon, England. Within the first three minutes of the course, tears were streaming down my face. The Sacred Trust provided me with a homecoming to a tradition that reside both within and without. Even if I never set another step on the grounds of The Sacred Trust again, I will not have lost my place on Path of Pollen. I wept tears of grief and joy for finding a tradition that spoke to the very core of my being. It was not a religious awakening, but more an embodiment, a return, a discovery of a self long in the making.

We left England for the wine, eclairs and legends of France. We journeyed through late night Paris, the heart of Chartres Labyrinth, enigmatic Rennes-le-Chateau, the burning heat of Carcassonne, and the sanctuary of Rennes-le-Bains. More wonderous experiences unfolded along the way, opening us further to the realm of Mary Magdalene, Divine Union and Self Love. I experienced memory of past lives in the Languedoc region, a complete surrender to the inner beloved in Chartres and a self-knowing that surpassed all other personal awakenings to date.

<------Chartres Cathedral and a Vienna Coffee


Bathing in The Fountain of Love, Renne-les-Bains

Three tiny weeks and I came back utterly changed. So different that I no longer even had the language to speak of it. This is the first time I've even attempted to write of it for others, and still it is only scratching the surface. To help my self reintegrate, I took six days at a beautiful property called The Hinterlands in Mendocino County, CA. There is nothing like the wilderness to bring one back to presence.

I returned to my home on July 22, the Feast Day of Mary Magdalene. In the morning, my mother took me into the backyard of my house. She said they had arrived 2 weeks ago, while I was still in England. She said they had made a home. A colony of honeybees. A swarm of wild bees living in a hole in the side of my house. My mouth fell open in sheer disbelief. Is it possible? Can the world be that synchronistic? That validating? Could they really have moved into my home WHILE I was in England taking my first steps down the Path of Pollen? A July swarm when bees shouldn't be swarming at all? A late swarm that shouldn't even have survived the winter?



So you see, I did not choose the bees, the bees chose me (a common phrase to be sure). I am not a Beekeeper. I am Living with Bees. I speak to them. I hum with them. I cry with them. I love with them. They are woven into my blood and teach me of ancient mystery traditions, deep wisdom, ecstatic joy and the essence of creation. They were there when I conceived my child. They were there when I miscarried. They came when I called. They answered my grief with abundance.

Why Bees? Because bees are living in my heart. Because bees are dying all over the world, and I am choosing to give them a home where they are free. A home where they tell me if and when I can take honey. I am here to watch and listen and be transformed by all the bees have to share. Perhaps they will give me honey, but that is not my goal. My hope is simply to exist with bees and watch the garden bloom around them.

To the ancient and living Bee Priestesses who walk an arcane path on this sacred earth, I honor you. Thank you for holding the thread of tradition alive through the dark times and the light times. I remember you. I remember us.

Here Comes the Sun

Lavender - a bee favorite

(photo by John Daly)

After a plunge back into the stormy depths of winter, the sun has re-emerged and so have the bees! I'm so happy to see the ladies out and about today. They seem busier than ever, reinvigorated by solar warmth and fresh nectar flow. I found this little lady (see below) crawling around the base of the hive and gave her a new surface to explore.

I live in the Sierra Foothills of California, where we are experiencing a particularly late spring. True, mountain weather is unpredictable, but usually by mid-May the grasses begin to hint of summer gold and river swimming appears somewhere on the distant horizon. This year, I will be surprised to see a safe and swimmer-friendly Yuba River before July. The rain has made everything green, green, green, sending an oddly nostalgic feeling of the Englsih Summer Country across my skin. Watching the weather out my back door, as well as the weather across the globe, has helped to illustrated on a physical level that we truly are living in a time of planetary change.

Good morning to me!

I am so glad the bees are coming back to help guide us through this time of uncertainty and opportunity. I know the buzz is all about Colony Collapse and the disappearance of the bees, as it should be, but I think bees are showing up in the mass human psyche for another reason as well. Bee are teaching us a lesson of stewardship, collective consciousness and love. Bees have been dying off at an alarming rate without much explanation or understanding. Scientists and beekeepers alike have jumped to the forefront to discover the cause and the remedy. Their conclusions are as diverse and varied as each honey source, but there are some very convincing arguments that the basic "back to nature" and "listen to the bees" methods are what we and these solar beings are in need of.

Commercial beekeeping is detrimental to the honeybee. The sudden decline in bee hives over the last ten years threatens not only the honeybee, but also 80% of our food source . The little creatures are showing us they can not withstand monocrop culture and pollination. Commercial practices are harsh and taxing on the species, but have become the accepted method for most modern beekeepers, both commercial and backyard. Bees are being carted across the country on semi-trucks, incessantly disturbed through home/hive inspection, forced to accept foreign artificially inseminated queens, forced to build off uniform pre-made plastic comb, made to live without drones (since drones are not profitable) and weakened through over-use of antibiotics and sugar feed.

Some may say I am a neglectful beekeeper for refusing to feed my bees sugar water, but I believe in the rebounding strength of the species. I know what sugar does to my body, why weaken the bee through a sugar diet as well? I listen to my bees and ask them to tell me what they need. Perhaps they wont make it through the winter without antibiotics, sugar or regular hive inspection, but then again, they have already drawn out 11 panels of comb and are near bursting at the seems. I did not feed them when I first caught them, and they are abundantly reproducing, happy and strong.

Honeycomb seen through the window of my hive.

During the last warm spell they finished 3 combs in just 7 days.

It is a true joy to join the explosion of backyard and urban beekeepers across the globe who are choosing to live with bees again. From city rooftops to country gardens bees are humming through our days. What better teacher for Unity, Love and Community than the superorganism known as the honeybee hive? Just look at them!

Who knew a Honeybee had a heart over it's heart?

This is through the glass window viewer. It has a cover to keep in the dark.

When you open it it lets in a lot of light, so I don't open it too often.

Honeybees are completely dependent on one another. Each bee, through various life stages, performs a role. Each bee is needed. The comb becomes their tissue, the hivebox, their skeleton. One can not survive alone, and thus they are truly one being, many cells coming together to create a whole:

1) Queen - Goddess, mother and life source of the hive. She who chooses gender and brood size. She who serves and is served by her hive. There is never a moment that the bees in the hive do not know where the queen is. As the queen moves around the comb, she brushes up against other bees, passing on her scent. These bees in turn, brush up against other bees and within in minutes the entire hive knows not only the location of the queen, but also her health and well-being. She is a teacher of Divine Source, always giving, always protected, always loved.

2) Drones - Necessary for procreation with other queens from other hives. Drones do this amazing thing in the spring and early summer: they congregate. On warm days they fly out to some mysterious aerial location and congregate with other drones from all the nearby hives. They fly around in the sun waiting for a queen to fly by. When a queen bee flies through the congregation the drones take after her like a tiny comet. The queen mates with multiple drones in one afternoon, and after 1 -4 flights she permanently returns to the hive to lay and fertilize eggs for the rest of her life. Some drone congregation sites have been documented with returning drones for the last 200 years. There are many guesses as to why they choose these sites, but the one I resonate with, is the theory that drones congregate around hotspots in the earth's magnetic field.

Returning bee with pollen collected in little sacs on her legs.

3) Female Bee - Popularly known as the Worker Bee, the female has a multitude of tasks. Throughout her lifespan she will build comb, make bee bread, defend the hive, forage for pollen, forage for nectar, nurse the young, make propolis and make honey. Yes, she works hard, but it is not work as we see it, slaving away day in day out. She is a sister of joyful service to her body, her community. After taking classes with Michael Thiele at the Melissa Garden Honeybee Sanctuary, I am more aware than ever, that our language around bees much change. I will write of Michael Thiele and the Melissa Garden in a later blog, but for now, allow me to follow suit by choosing the label "female bee" over "worker bee". In the words of Michael Thiele, “Living with bees is such an opportunity to study our mind and our heart. Once we start down that path, we’ll discover the language we use is such a problem, such a limitation.”

Entrance to the Melissa Garden

Today I sat inches from the hive entrance and took photographs. (Well, just to the left really). The bees buzzed all around me, landing on my hand or head occasionally, but never stinging. For a moment, I took a break from the viewfinder and turned my face out to the bees coming home with pollen or new information to share. Each bee that approached the hive flew directly up to my face, within an inch, giving me a face to face flurry of wings before continuing inside. Perhaps they were assessing whether or not I was a threat. Perhaps that is the proper and scientific way to decipher their actions. But then again, bees can recognize the face of their "keeper". Maybe, just maybe, today, they were simply coming up to say hello.

Oh, how my heart does sing.