The Spirituality of Bees

I’ve been giving considerable thought to ancestral wisdom that sustained them in times of war, plague, and famine. Wisdom and sacred practices for healing and spiritual sustenance that may benefit us in this dark time.

The current unsettling season that pulls us from our centers, causing anxiety and distraction from our souls’ purpose, is a call for ancient practices and modalities to nourish our spirits and fortify our bodies and minds.

My attempt to bring balance and perhaps a glimmer of hope to this chaotic era, is currently centered on the exploration of ancient healing practices to discover what may hold resonance for the here and now.  

I’m experiencing a renewed passion for the honeybees, their hives and the blessed amber elixir they magically create. Bees are mystical creatures and they are also paramount to the survival of life on our planet. In recent days with the arrival of Spring, I have once again turned my attention to the bees.

I recall my visit, some years ago, to Israel and the ancient ruins at Masada in the Judean desert, on a high plateau overlooking the Dead Sea. One of the archaeological objects in the Tel Aviv museum found at Masada, included several vessels of unspoiled honey. There is an intrinsic mystery to the viability of honey even after centuries of storage. The vessels had been carefully sealed with beeswax and the honey and it was said, the honey could be eaten today.

In my recent reading of Rudolf Steiner’s early 20th century talks about “Bees,” he shared that the bees gather love from the flowers.  

I have been re-captivated by the bees. My new spiritual, emotional and physical prescription during the ensuing chaos of this time on earth, includes ingesting a large dollop of honey each day in a cup of tea. I’m currently researching local beekeepers to find honey from my geographic region. Honey’s properties have always felt sacred to me, but in light of current events, the bees and their honey feel ever more so. 

I reflect on Steiner’s words... 

“They (the bees) have indeed carried into the hive that which lives in the flowers. When you begin to think through all of this properly, you will have unlocked the whole secret of the beehive. The living element of this thriving, germinating love that is spread out over the flowers is also contained in the honey the bees make. 

You can study this matter further by eating the honey. What does the honey do?…Honey creates sensual pleasure, at the most, on the tongue. At the moment when you eat honey, it creates the proper connection and relationship between the airy and fluid elements in the human being. There is nothing better for a human being than to add a little honey in the right quantity to food. In a very wonderful way, the bees see to it that a person learns to work on the internal organs by means of this soul element. By means of the honey, the bee colony returns to humans the amount of effort the soul needs to expend in their bodies…Whenever someone adds honey to food, that person wants to prepare the soul element for properly working upon the body, for breathing, as it were. 

You see, when you consider that bees are influenced most of all by cosmic forces, then you will also see that bees provide the detour for humans to take into their beings what is right and necessary.”  

From the book, Bees: Lectures by Rudolf Steiner (1923).

All this reminds me of the sacredness of the bees. May they be revered and protected for their gifts of pollination, beeswax and sweet honey. May their honey, imbued with the love from the flowers and the mystery of the hive, bless us with healing and numinous illumination for our lives.