I read an article today about antisocial bees (posted By Silvia Golumbeanu on Jun 25, 2018 on Nautilus online). This speaks to something I have felt on my land the past four years... the balance of social and individual bees is what feels best.
At one point, I had too many hives of honey bees. Not technically, for the amount of forage was plenty for the three hives I had, but something felt off. Then, I had a year of no honey bees and I paid more attention to the individual bees. It felt better, yet still off somehow.
The following year, honey bees moved into one hive on my land and the number of individual bees still grew. This felt the best. It felt like a balance was met and every being felt more alive because of it, including myself.
I had not thought of it as social and "introverted" as the article states, yet I like that description. Perhaps it is good advice for humans... a balance of all "types" is best for the land. If one "type" begins to claim too much of the land, the balance is lost and things just feel off.
What do you think?
#bees #beeingtogether #beesasguides #beesasteachers #whispersfromthebee #wisdomofbees #balance #beelove
I was visited today by a confident female
in the most fashionable black and gold skirt.
She was far from home, hungry and tired,
but still had time for dessert.
She made my heart flutter and caused quite a stir,
talking of comb, tomb and womb.
Better send her away before my husband gets home,
and finds us sharing time in the bedroom. - Melissa Bee (The beautiful issue of small window hives, means we get more than average glimpses into each other's lives.) đ
#bees #beeingtogether #beekind #imbolc #honeybees
My dream actually started with a debate on the three mysteries of life. I have always thought them to be birth, life, and death and of course the cycle continues so birth is also labeled as rebirth. I am wondering if this dream was about the life part of the mystery and how to live life. Live as if I am the land. I do this already as I believe each decision I make for my own body and for my own few acres on this earth ripples out into the larger world and makes a difference. So, again, I ask my dream what is the real meaning of this dream? I do believe that Cailleach has the answer. As she is close to putting down her staff until next cold season, I must ask her quickly!
The cycle continues. Perhaps that is the message?
#bees #dreamingwithbees
#earthisalive #iamearth #cailleach #listeningtobees #neith #artemis
humans in the the ancient areas of South Africa. Neith was also present for those at death, dressing their bodies and leading to the afterlife, just as bees have been known as guides of souls to the otherworld.
Even with this knowledge in my head, I am still unsure of what the comment meant in my dream, comparing either myself or the church to the Cailleach. The woman in my dream was a nun, a veiled woman, yet, the mystery seems deeper still and I am not sure. Maybe there is a clue in the name Cailleach that I have not found yet. This leads me to the Gaelic poem, Lament of an Old Woman, written about 800AD. There are so many interpretations of this poem and I find it best if I donât get too much into my right brain and let my left brain lead with poetry. These three stanzas remain most in my mind:
I do not pour out sweet speech
rams are not killed for my wedding
it is sparse, my hair is grey
a poor veil over it is no cause for sorrow
It is not bad with me
although there may be a white veil on my head
there was a great many-coloured covering
on my head at drinking good ale
Nothing old do I envy
but Feminâs wide plains.
Storms rage â yet they
spring goldenhaired once again.
This poem was written as if the author was the Cailleach herself. These three versus speak of not only the veil, the covering of the land, but also as if the Cailleach is the land herself. She was sweet as honey as a maiden and had golden locks of hair in her youth, like the plains of Femin, but now her veil is white/grey and sparse. Nature has often been linked to be a goddess. For one example, Isis was sometimes compared with Artemis, and the Roman writer Macrobius, in the fourth century CE, wrote, âIsis is the earth or nature that is under the sun. That is why the goddessâs entire body bristles with a multitude of breasts placed close to one another (as the statue of Artemis), because all things are nourished by earth or by nature.â Of course, there is Gaia as mother nature as well.
So far, my wandering thoughts have me through the church, to birth and death and now I am perhaps back to the âwildernessâ of the land.
None of this is new to me and so what is the real message? (con't)
Three Mysteries of Life: She came to me through a dream, like much of the bits of pollen the universe has shared with me over the years has come into my being. I was just about to walk to an ancient church in what felt like a European city, when I was told âAh, just like the Cailleach. Enjoy the wilderness.â
I walked off to the church, pondering what those words meant. I know the Cailleach as a celtic crone, a hag, a witch, an ancient goddess, but I went to the church still not understanding. At the church, I just made it in as a nun was closing the door for a service. I walked up stairs and noticed a sort of standing stone as a memorial to indigenous people of the land. It felt fake and the energy was not good, yet people were standing around it and talking about how wonderful it was. I continued up the stairs and passed a mouse running down the stairs being chased by a cat. The mouse was caught and as much as the compassionate side of me wanted to help the mouse, it was balanced by the nourishing meal the cat would receive and I left them alone. A woman was singing from the front of the church and I continued to explore, eventually making it out and drove away on an extremely curvy road, another car in front of me, just out of sight around each bend.
Upon waking up, I looked up Cailleach. Cailleach âold womanâ or âhagâ in modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic comes from the Old Gaelic Caillech âveiled one.â Right away, my brain's synapses brought back the concepts of bee âhymenopteraâ which means veil-winged and the ancient veiled goddesses, beginning with the Egyptian goddess Neith. The inscription on Neithâs temple in Sais, the House of the Bee, reads, âI Am All That Has Been, That Is, and That Will Be. No Mortal Has Yet Been Able to Lift the Veil that Covers Meâ.
This leads me to the thought that both Neith and bees have been associated with both birth and death.
Neith was the Egyptian mother goddess of all and birthed Ra and the other gods and goddesses into being, thereafter, inventing birth. Bees also have been known to a part of many creation stories, including the creation of humans in the the ancient areas (con't)
"I know where the bees have gone, they've all come to my yard. I stopped cutting grass you know, I stopped being so hard. Stopped trying to control the world, learned to steer myself. Now the bees and butterflies became a source of wealth." - The Grand Slambovians
While I wish the song did not mention honey as a source of wealth (money) at all , it does seem to go on to expand the source of wealth to more than just monetary gain, especially once taken into context with what the birds say in the later verse about how we humans are getting it wrong.
Bees offer priceless wealth to us humans and honey is but one small offering. The chance to understand the medicine of honey; how taking too much shows an illness of a closed heart, how offering gratitude to the makers of such divine medicine and understanding the full life effort that went into making 1/12 of a teaspoon expands your heart.
It is these lessons around honey that are even more priceless than the golden elixer of sunlight made physical. Think of the value of an open heart, full of love and compassion. Priceless. đđđđ I know where the bees have gone, they've all come to my heart. I've wept, and mourned and cried some more, now I'm fueled to start, living in compassion for all of life on earth. Learning, loving, in awe of beings, all divine from birth.
#bees #beelove #honeyasmedicine #openhearts #listeningtobees #whispersfromthebee #compassion
