Bountiful Bee

My Bee Story

Before Spring Equinox last year, I experienced yet another sexual assault. I had been fighting for years to regain my agency from previous experiences. This third time was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I was done feeling victimised and powerless, I was done with having righteous rage be my only defence against implosion. I had been eaten up inside by hatred and anger and I wanted more. I wanted freedom. I no longer wanted to be defined by how others treated me, nor by expectations for how to respond to that treatment. I wanted to decide how to interpret those experiences for myself, to make them into something meaningful. I wanted to live. It was then that Bee came to me.

One day walking in a cemetery I turned around to see a magnificent Bumblebee lying frozen on the ground. This Bee stayed with me, perched proudly on my altar almost solidly for the next year. She moved with me as I moved from house to house, dislocated and unsettled. I was trying to write a reflection on the years I’d spent involved in a rape community accountability process. This experience taught me the depth of the limitations which can prevent well-meaning people from ‘doing the right thing’ and the gulf of misunderstanding between people. My reactivity, anger, and aggression had decimated many relationships dear to me, and prevented me from bridging this gap in communication. Bee showed me there was another way.

My Bee Story

Before Spring Equinox last year, I experienced yet another sexual assault. I had been fighting for years to regain my agency from previous experiences. This third time was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I was done feeling victimised and powerless, I was done with having righteous rage be my only defence against implosion. I had been eaten up inside by hatred and anger and I wanted more. I wanted freedom. I no longer wanted to be defined by how others treated me, nor by expectations for how to respond to that treatment. I wanted to decide how to interpret those experiences for myself, to make them into something meaningful. I wanted to live. It was then that Bee came to me.

One day walking in a cemetery I turned around to see a magnificent Bumblebee lying frozen on the ground. This Bee stayed with me, perched proudly on my altar almost solidly for the next year. She moved with me as I moved from house to house, dislocated and unsettled. I was trying to write a reflection on the years I’d spent involved in a rape community accountability process. This experience taught me the depth of the limitations which can prevent well-meaning people from ‘doing the right thing’ and the gulf of misunderstanding between people. My reactivity, anger, and aggression had decimated many relationships dear to me, and prevented me from bridging this gap in communication. Bee showed me there was another way.

My Bee Story

Bee appeared vividly in my dreamtime again and again nudging me forwards on the new path unfolding before me, showing me what was needed to change these dynamics. I desperately wanted to reconfigure my relationship with men in my life and with masculinity, to reclaim parts of myself and my relationships which I’d disowned. Bee has been a steadfast companion throughout this process, teaching me to lighten my load, appreciate the sweetness of life, and share in it with others.

Just a couple of weeks ago on my first date in a while, my date and I came across a Bee laying on the ground, barely breathing. Fittingly and unwittingly, my date named him Alexander (aka Defender of Men). I fetched a blossom from the nearest plant and tried to revive him. Normally, a Bee will cock a leg up, drink up and be off on their merry way. Alas, Alex was too far gone and died cradled in my palm. To share these final moments with someone is an intimacy and an honour and it is in his name I write this piece.

The Hive

Bee bumbles along in Hekate’s garden from blossom to blossom searching for sources of sustenance to carry back home. Always, Bee keeps its goal in mind, never wavering, never deviating. Always Bee’s journey ends at the same place it started: the Hive. Bee returns to the hive like the soul returns to the womb of the Great Mother.

As a potent pollinator Bee is an integral part of our ecosystem. Bee is a symbol of the abundance and fertility of the natural world and the pleasure our soul takes in this fecundity. There is a long history of Bee worship as a form of the Great Mother goddess. If you want to know more about this aspect of Bee (and much more besides), I highly recommend this fantastic lecture by Andrew Gough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Hh_kViI9tc&t=0s

On solitary pollen pilgrimages, Bee collects the raw materials needed to make honey, working reciprocally with plants to feed and fertilize. Bee is a deeply communal creature and knows it can’t make this magic alone. Bee is always working together for the benefit of the whole and it is within the hive that Bees return to each other and themselves. Without coordinating and cooperating with their hive-mates, plants, and the seasons, there would be no honey. Bee can show you how to move with nature, and the flaws of others, trusting in the process of life to produce sweetness in time.

The Mysteries

Bee appeared vividly in my dreamtime again and again nudging me forwards on the new path unfolding before me, showing me what was needed to change these dynamics. I desperately wanted to reconfigure my relationship with men in my life and with masculinity, to reclaim parts of myself and my relationships which I’d disowned. Bee has been a steadfast companion throughout this process, teaching me to lighten my load, appreciate the sweetness of life, and share in it with others.

Just a couple of weeks ago on my first date in a while, my date and I came across a Bee laying on the ground, barely breathing. Fittingly and unwittingly, my date named him Alexander (aka Defender of Men). I fetched a blossom from the nearest plant and tried to revive him. Normally, a Bee will cock a leg up, drink up and be off on their merry way. Alas, Alex was too far gone and died cradled in my palm. To share these final moments with someone is an intimacy and an honour and it is in his name I write this piece.

The Mysteries

Around the same time Bee came to me, I unearthed a postcard of Persephone. Without any idea who she was, I knew she needed to be on my altar to Hekate. Bee is deeply connected with Persephone through the Eleusinian Mysteries. One of her epithets is Melitodes, The Honeyed One. In some versions of the myth, the pomegranate seeds she eats in Hades realm are doused in honey. Unknown to me, I was making a pact with the universe to enter into these mysteries and retrieve the honey from the darkness. Bee is not afraid of the dark because Bee knows that sweetness is often found in the darkest of places. The Bee’s sting wakes us from our slumber so we can find the answers which cannot be found through any other means. Bee reminds us that it’s necessary to feel pain in order to feel fully alive and shows us how to make music flow out from the depths.

Albus Dumbledore, whose name literally translates to white Bumblebee, is a figure I connect strongly with Bee. His role in Half-Blood Prince, as an elusive educator dipping in and out of memories, trusting in scant information to get them to their goal, is particularly evocative of Bee. His sage-like qualities remind me of Daeira, Teacher or Knowing One, in whose guise Bee is deeply intwined with the Eleusinian Mysteries. Bee helps us face our personal transformation with grace by reorienting our relationship with death; as in the immortal words of Dumbledore, “To the well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure”.

The Mysteries

Around the same time Bee came to me, I unearthed a postcard of Persephone. Without any idea who she was, I knew she needed to be on my altar to Hekate. Bee is deeply connected with Persephone through the Eleusinian Mysteries. One of her epithets is Melitodes, The Honeyed One. In some versions of the myth, the pomegranate seeds she eats in Hades realm are doused in honey. Unknown to me, I was making a pact with the universe to enter into these mysteries and retrieve the honey from the darkness. Bee is not afraid of the dark because Bee knows that sweetness is often found in the darkest of places. The Bee’s sting wakes us from our slumber so we can find the answers which cannot be found through any other means. Bee reminds us that it’s necessary to feel pain in order to feel fully alive and shows us how to make music flow out from the depths.

Liquid GOld

Nectar, ambrosia, amrit, elixir of life, honey. It goes by many names in many cultures, but its properties are always the same. A mysterious substance which holds the keys to immortality. Honey has the power to nourish and resource those who can learn its secrets. Bee is the only being on earth who can make it. Alchemists used to poison themselves trying.

Bees’ energy has always felt somehow unattainable to me, an ideal I could never hope to meet. So, I didn’t answer the call to lean into her energy fully until our Kore Talisman came into being. The time was finally right for Bee to make its way down from my altar and into my witchery to hold me through this transformation. Our journey together from that point was not smooth, such are the teachings of Bee. On a long walk, my talisman dismembered the Bee within it, and I came face-to-face with my own dismemberment and ego dissolution necessary for me to step into Bee’s power. This article has gone through the same process of dissolution, and bears little resemblance to the original, all needed to be shed to be reborn from the ashes.

Meli, meaning ‘sweet’, derives from the Greek word for honey and is the root of several epithets. Melissa, meaning Bee, is a name given to Artemis and priestesses of Demeter, Artemis, and Persephone. Melinoe is both an epithet of Hekate and a goddess in her own right (daughter of Persephone and Zeus), their Hordes were often depicted roaming the night together. As Melinoe, Hekate offers us a balm, or salve, to soothe our souls in the darkness and builds bridges over troubled waters. She is the synthesis between Soteria and Nykhia, saviour and protector against the darkness. Bee has a long association with both the Sun and the Moon and can guide us on how to make the most of these fluctuating energies. Bees’ yellow and black colouring is reflective of this dual nature and evocative of Bees association with both the light of the Sun and the lunar Holy Darkness. Like Melinoe, Bee brings together this duality.

As Ameibousa, Bee is an alchemist guiding us through transformation, abiding in time until things fall into place for the pollen of our experiences to become honey. In its shadow aspect, Bee can get stuck on a problem or become obsessed with finding the hidden keys, forgetting that it’s only through a variety of experiences that these truths can bleed through in Kairos time. Unlike Dylan Thomas, Bee says: ‘do go gentle into that good night; it’s no use kicking and screaming against the winds of fate’.

This poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, The Winds of Fate, speaks to me of Bee’s approach to life:

One ship drives east and another drives west
With the self-same winds that blow;
'Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales
That tells them the way to go.

Like the winds of the sea are the winds of fate
As we voyage along through life;
'Tis the set of the soul
That decides its goal
And not the calm or the strife.

Queen Bee

Queen Bey is the ultimate Queen Bee. Her album Lemonade perfectly illustrates Bee’s ability to take the darkest corners of our experience, Hekate’s lemons, and make it rain lemonade. Brought together in that mystical cauldron known as the hive, each morsel of pollen combines to produce transcendent artwork, far greater than the sum of its parts. The Queen raises up the deliciously sweet nectar of her subjects’ labours for all to share in, so we can learn and grow. Lemonade is a deep interrogation of her inner world and its reflection around her. Beyoncé unapologetically shows us the enormous strength, conviction, and resilience required for transformation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM89Q5Eng_M

Ecological Crisis

It would be remiss to write an article about Bees without mentioning the current ecological issues affecting them. Thanks to the climate crisis, Bee numbers are dwindling rapidly, and they are in serious danger. Bees play a pivotal and unique role in our ecosystem. There are some great documentaries out there on the environmental Bee crisis. You can do your bit for our beloved friends, by getting a Bee Hotel, or making one for yourself out of bamboo sticks!

References

Gough, Andrew. (2012). The Hidden Hive of History: The Forgotten God of the Ancients. Megalithonia: The Ultimate Conference on the megalithic Arts and Sciences, UK. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Hh_kViI9tc&t=0s

Liz Greene, (1984). Chapter 5 Fate and Transformation, The Astrology of Fate.

Hughes, Ted. (1993). Animal Speak.

Orpheus. Orphic Hymn To Melinoe. Translated by Thomas Taylor. https://www.theoi.com/Text/OrphicHymns2.html#70

Porphyry. On the Cave of the Nymphs. Translated by Thomas Taylor. https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/porphyry_cave_of_nymphs_02_translation.htm

Sanchez- Parodi, Julie, (2012). The Eleusinian Mysteries and the Bee https://ce399fascism.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/08_sanchez-parodi.pdf