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.

Dear Baby Girl

Dear Baby Girl,

Exactly one month ago yesterday it snowed. The moon was waxing, lilac blooming and somewhere, the world's oldest man was preparing to die. It was also the day you left my body. April 13, 2011 we went into surgery together. I was bleeding. They were afraid you might be in my tubes. They said there was no baby. There was no heartbeat. But we went into surgery together anyway. You, like a blanket of white light, covering me. Me, a mama, holding her baby. I heard you then, as I was wheeled down the hall toward the OR. I heard you say, "Everything is exactly right." I heard you remind me, "Everything is in Divine Timing. Trust Your Source."

Daughter, you gifted me with transcendence. You and I filled my being with so much trust and so much love, that I no longer felt the loss of you, simply the wholeness of you. I was standing within the stillness of Creation and Creation was Love.

When I woke I cried. You were still there. You showed me things. The way it used to be. The way you want to be born. We spoke. I went home, surrounded by women and family, your papa and good hearts. We put me in the downstairs guest room so I wouldn't have to walk up stairs. I was so pale. There were flowers everywhere. I slept. I couldn't feel you anymore. I felt hollow, confused. Every time I woke, I had to rediscover you were no longer inside me. Cole held me. I cried. I was getting smaller.

We slept with your jacket. The tiny blue down jacket Katy bought for our camping-with-baby adventures. We watched Lord of the Rings. Seren left. Nick and Nick made us breakfast. Cole helped me walk. Joanna made me laugh. I still couldn't feel you. The day Mistery and Maroo stopped by, it started to warm up. Through the window, little bee after little bee went flying by. Maroo exclaimed, "It looks like the bees are flying out of your heart!" I was sitting propped against the same wall of the house where the wild bees made their home in the wall of my house almost a year ago. I realized, every night, I had been sleeping with my head less than 4 feet away for a vibrating hive. And there it was. The story weaving me back into its folds. The simple thread connecting each moment to the next. The bees, the heart, the womb. I could feel you.

Exactly one month ago yesterday, I had a miscarriage and you left. You did not leave me. You left my body. And when it is time, you will come back to finish the work we started. "Do not be confused by the physical aspect," you said. "This is not a death." So it is, that yesterday, May 13, 2011, my moon cycle began again. Blood to mark the passing. Blood to mark the beginning. Completion.

Daughter, thank you for the time shared. Thank you for choosing my womb to do your sacred work, for however brief that time may have been. Thank you for chosing your Papa and trusting the Love we share. Thank you for gifting me with a level of wisdom that encompasses such depths of grief and joy. Thank you for bringing me the bee swarm. Today they have completed drawing out their comb. Eleven perfect white honeycombs, vibrating with the essence of unity and love. Somewhere in the heart of the hive is a brood nest, where baby bees emerge into that sacred darkness.

You are a part of this world, baby girl. There is a yogic practice called Bhamari, which facilitates opening of the heart chakra through a vibrational humming. The Sanskrit name for the heart chakra is Anahata, meaning "The Unstruck Sound", or the sound of creation/the cosmic realms. It is a sound that can not be heard with the human ear, but is considered most akin to the hum of the bee. Bhramari Pranayam is the yogic bee humming practice developed to access this sound and is used by pregnant women to vibrate the brain, reduce anxiety, regulate hormones and the nervous system, shorten labor, connect to ecstatic states and help prevent miscarriage. It is the hum behind all reality. So, sweet one, on dark nights and the brightest of days, I hum for you. I hum our song. Listen, and I will hum you into being.

Love,

Mama

Me at 9 weeks, just starting to show.

Pollen!

Spring is trying its best to invoke the sunlight. Rain, snow, clouds and wind have blown through March and April with little respite. Now, it seems, every morning the birds band togetherin their multilingual choirs to ask the sun to please, please come out.

I'm banking on tomorrow because it's my birthday weekend!

Yesterday, during a sunny patch of the afternoon, I went out to watch the bees. For 4 days they have been busy making comb and becoming familiar with nearby forage. I've walked from pear blossom to apple blossom,

lilac to rosemary, tulip to daffodil and not a single bee. Every day I checked the hive, but no bees came back carrying pollen. The wild bees living in wall of my house (yes there are two hive here) continued to land their plump little bodies down on the hive entrance, laden with yellow and orange flower dust, but nothing from my bees...until yesterday!

Wild bees making home in my wall last July.
They survived the winter in fine shape even though they were a late swarm.

Pollen is what bees need to feed the brood. They store it in comb and made something called "bee bread" for everyone to eat. Yesterday the new bees started bringing in pollen for the first time, which means some comb is built and bees are gearing up for reproduction!

Also....did you know pollen isn't just yellow? I watched bees return home with bundles of yellow, orange, purple, green and white! Oh how I wish I could crawl in there myself.

I will not be inspecting my bees regularly like most modern beekeepers do. Instead, I told them I am giving them freedom to live as they please, without their home being ripped apart by my curious hands every week or two. So for now, no peeking; just listening, humming and watching.