The Shamanic Way of the Bee: Ancient Wisdom and Healing Practices of the Bee Masters by Simon Buxton

Author:Simon Buxton [Buxton, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Shamanism/Self-Help
ISBN: 9781594779107
Publisher: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Published: 2006-01-06T08:00:00+00:00

Just over a month later I was formally summoned to meet with the Bee Mistress, this time in her private rooms within the thick bulging walls of the house and with none of her Melissae present. Bridge had mentioned that I should make every effort to be on time, for the Bee Mistress kept time as punctiliously as an atomic clock and expected others to do so also. Her room was dominated by a huge loom—we were more or less in its shadow—and as with the inscription carved on the Gate of Transition, so a simple word was carved on her door: audmi, Lithuanian for weave.

Upon entering, I was aware of the scent of cedar, which I surmised emanated from the loom. I also noticed six chairs set in a hexagonal pattern, facing inward toward an oversized bee skep*20 that stood about two and a half feet in height and perhaps a little less in diameter. Embroidered cushions lay on every side of the room, and from the rafters hung seven masks, which I began to admire and inspect. (“Worn not to conceal the human, but rather to reveal the god,” the Bee Mistress stated quietly.) A huge earthenware oven stood in the far corner, rising from floor to ceiling like a gigantic olive jar, with strings of onions and fat hams hanging in glorious torture from twisted hooks in the ceiling.

She guided me to a conventional and quite comfortable chair, and from a modest blackened cauldron I was offered a glass of krupnikas, which she explained was a prized Lithuanian honey liqueur, akin to a mead but with notes of ginger, clove, and nutmeg. Before me I noticed a small collection of cakes on a tray, food to quell my intoxication. They were a curious shape and I could not help but think they were vulval in form, and that perhaps they held some distant link between the Mellisae and those who carried the genital-shaped cakes at the Greek thesmophoria festival that Bridge had described to me, a festival of thanksgiving to honor the goddess Demeter for teaching mankind to tend the soil. The Bee Mistress indicated that they were to be sampled. They smelled of burning peat and tasted of midnight. They were delicious. She then sat herself in a rocking chair and allowed the gentle to and fro to move her as would a boat hewn of English walnut.

Slowly, as if adrift on a rhythmic sea of time and tide, these waves of hers became endless to me, and rocked me into a world of neverness, all the while keeping me anchored in the present. As if I were not intoxicated enough already, I supped from the glass she had handed me—and then the looking glass through which I peered became holographic, complete; I was entirely within it, all my senses consumed. The intricate flavors of the liqueur exposed themselves to me; ginger, clove, and nutmeg washed into me, precise in their target. Every note of this drink had a place to go, though I was lost as to their destination.

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