Plant Life & Gardening, Spirituality, Volume Three, Issue No. 1: Jan through March 2022

Bee medicine came as April listened to the divine whispers that came as a buzz. Coming into resonance with the bees, they arrived teaching her about unity consciousness, resonance, coherence and attunement with nature. She shares with us the Alchemy of Bees and how the bees came to occupy the sacred backdrop of her garden – a wall where she placed tiles in a spiral. This is where she met her calling to be a protector and teacher.

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Nestled in the petals a bee

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The Alchemy of Bees

They came at the Summer Solstice.

I was sitting in my sacred garden, looking at the wall I had begun tiling the previous year. The tiles began to form a spiral on the backdrop to my Holy Space. The space where Kuan Yin sits with sacred objects and totems surrounding her. I often place offerings of flowers, prayers, and other cherished items around her. Sacred words get buried in the ground, with rose bushes planted all over the garden, including one I lovingly placed next to Kuan Yin. This particular part of the yard had been consecrated over time.
I had been told many times that I carried bee medicine and even had fleeting thoughts of owning them, but never took these thoughts seriously. All that changed on June 20th, 2017.
The spiral tiled holy wall in the garden
I was sitting outside in the garden, enjoying a beautiful Solstice Day while communing with the Holy Wall I was creating. As my gaze went deep into the spiral that was growing each day, I noticed what looked like bees poking into the side of the wall. “What are they doing?” I thought to myself and went to investigate. As I walked over, I was met with a group of scout bees flying in and out of the four holes that were open in the side of the wall. A shot of panic burst through me as the realization hit:
The wall the bees moved into
They were moving in.
Bees at the entrance of a wall

Bees at the entrance of the holes in the wall

The next day the swarm came. 
Through the kitchen window, I watched with my children as thousands of bees flew around a concentrated area of the garden. Their buzzing was so deeply familiar and, at the same time alarming. My body and spirit were struggling with this recent turn of events, and within minutes, the bees were inside my Holy Wall.

Claiming the wall.

A short video of the day the scout bees claimed my Holy Wall as their home.
It was several days of intense fretting and one prominent sign before I settled into the idea of keeping the bees. Two swarm catchers declared it would be difficult to get the bees out safely without destroying the wall. That was not an option! I also could not fathom cohabitating with bees. My angst over the bees was so high I could hear their buzzing flowing through my blood and ringing in my ears.
The final act of surrender came when I began cleaning out a storage bin in our foyer, full of random items from our family. My nervous hands frantically began sifting through a deep well of papers and other items that had accumulated over the years. Suddenly, I found myself holding a drawing my younger son had made 18 months before this moment.
April's son's drawing of bees before the bees came
Photo Credits: Bees, flowers, drawing and tile wall images as well as the video were provided by the author, © April Aronoff.
Again, a burst of emotion soared through my body. Although this time, the energy was quite different.
As my entire being took in the image before me, a knowing from deep within began to surface as my angst melted away. 

The bees came to the garden to find me. We were meant to be together.

At that moment, the buzzing in my body went from frantic to calm and my relationship with bees was born.
Each morning I would go outside in my robe and sit underneath the opening in my Holy wall that was now their home. It was nothing short of miraculous, as I experienced their sound, vibration, and frequency moving through my body.
Bees in the roses
From the moment of surrender, my life with bees began. Weaving into its own creation and changing me from the inside out, states of being and images began to reveal themselves the longer I sat with their symphony. As they circled above my head, I could feel the bees combing my crown chakra with their vibration and movement. Joy and rapture would permeate my body during these moments, as whatever was out of alignment would fall into harmony in their presence.
The Flower of Life, a universal geometrical pattern representing the Unity of all things, began to appear in the air and ethers as the bees sailed around the garden. The magic was palpable in this sacred space. I enrolled in bee-keeping classes, purchased another hive, and learned how bees lived and moved in the world. 
Flower of Life diagram
Bees are a superorganism, living as a collective consciousness, where each bee functions within the larger organism of the hive. There are no individuals, as each bee's role is essential to the functioning of the hive. When bees are sick or near death, they leave the inner hive, and new bees assume those roles. Bees communicate simultaneously with the entire hive through touch, pheromones, and movement. They gain knowledge and experience about life through each other's bodies and senses and communicate this information almost instantly when together.
I came to understand that bees are Unity Consciousness — a state of existence that goes beyond the individual self— connecting all living things to a state of oneness, connection, and love. When I sit with the bees, I experience this too. 
Sitting under the hive in the wall, or across from the new hive, I enter their Unity field through the sounds and vibrations they generate as a hive. Their buzzing and flying patterns in the air weave an energetic and simply exhilarating frequency.
A healthy beehive contains near-perfect coherence — the degree of unity, health, and wholeness within a system. When healthy bees go out and interact with nature through foraging and pollination, they spread this coherence to the living world around them.
Bee nestled in a flower
When I sit with the bees, the coherence of my system elevates and blends with theirs, creating a third field known as resonance. Resonance is the blending and amplification of two or more systems that come into contact with each other, to create a new energetic field. These systems are typically in phase with one another, like musical notes that when blended create a beautiful new harmony. 
The bees and I become part of each other, my body and spirit becoming larger than anything I could be on my own. As I surrender to the unity of the bees, I begin to merge with the Earth and all living things on this planet. If I go deeper, I feel a connection with the Cosmos and beyond. 
Nestled in the petals a bee
There is much to learn from bees.
The human body is also a superorganism, with each system part of a larger whole that must contain coherence in order to be healthy. This idea can be expanded outward; where our individual selves must harmonize and become part of a community in order to thrive, and even farther out; that humanity must be in right relationship with the planet, to have coherence as a living ecology on Earth.
Yet our western way of viewing life is cut off from this. In this model, humans are a set of systems only, with each system viewed and treated as separate from the whole. The Earth is nothing more than a commodity. A resource to be harvested and stripped for our comfort and use.
Our systems are separate from our bodies. Our bodies are separate from the Earth. It is through this separation that we lose our coherence. We also lose the wholeness, and health that is found when a system is connected and intertwined with the larger system around it.
image10 Mindful Soul Center Magazine
A healthy hive of bees naturally contains a Unity field. Humans must strive to experience this state. There must be desire, will, and intention to cross the threshold of individuality to that of community. To experience the Oneness that is found in the village or tribe. We are seeing the repercussions of this separation around the world today. Illness, isolation, and climate change are all symptoms of our disconnection from ourselves, each other, and the Earth.
When I sit with the bees, I experience the Oneness of life where all living things are connected and matter to each other. The Oneness does not stop here. It's the alchemy I experience in my body that becomes a set of instructions insisting that when I leave this space, I share this Oneness with the world.
I become that forager bee, a creature programmed to spread Coherence through my intentions, actions, and work in the world. I pollinate my loved ones and environment with this field of love and wholeness. This programming becomes dominant within me; we all must experience community, village, and tribe. And while I fumble to create that field of Belonging, that place, where family, village, and humanity intersect, I will not stop until my mission is complete.
All of this is cultivated from simply sitting with the bees.
Thank you bees.




"The bees came to the garden to find me. We were meant to be together." #bees #earth #beemedicine Read April's story of the alchemy of bees.


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About the Author

April Aronoff is Priestess of the Sacred Garden, Rose, & Bee. Fiercely devoted to healing our Mother Earth and connecting to our Divine Nature, she helps guide others towards their highest path of healing and spiritual evolution through one to one sessions, sacred classes, and circles. She is a beekeeper and caretaker of My Temple Garden, a large sacred garden.

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