At this moment I sit within a cave. When I left the house, I thought I would be going to a nearby coffee shop to write, but on my way I had a strong pull to go a different way than I normally do; then I missed a turn and kept going. After I realized I missed my turn I wondered if going to the nearby cave would be more suitable for these writings, and it felt so good to keep heading towards it.
In the car I was listening to the Earthkeepers podcast, interviewing beekeeper Ariella Daly. As I was debating whether I should head to the coffee shop or continue onto the cave, she said,
“In many ancient cultures, Earth was seen as the womb. Earth was seen as the Mother. Bees came out of the mother, out of the darkness. Out of that birth canal. Whether that’s a cave, which is often associated with the feminine and the feminine mysteries, or out of a tree. Out of these life giving places came the bees.”
Taking this cue, I continued en route to the cave.
It’s been a while since I’ve been to this local cave, so I had to sniff out the trail, so to speak. I found the path and as I approached the cave, I introduced myself, offered my intentions and made an offering. When I asked if I may enter, she seemed to say, “Well of course, I called you here.”
Over the years, I’ve grown to appreciate the darkness, yet as I walked into the cave, I became nervous, and fearful.
The cave sloped downwards and so the light reached within the cave about fifty feet or so. At the end of the light there was a formation that drew my attention. I strangely felt scared to approach it. I walked a bit and then sat, waited, watched, walked a bit more, sat, waited, and watched.
As I moved forward to meet with this formation, she reminded me of the Mother Mary. Above her was another formation that appeared to be a snake head coming down from the ceiling and from the angle I sit here to write, it reminds me of a bee hive. The bees and the Serpent, both with the parthenogenesis ability to birth male offspring. Just as Mother Mary.
As I reached the Mother Mary formation within the cave, it appeared that she had been vandalized with spray painted initials. This saddened me. And reminded me how the whole of the Earth had been vandalized in so many ways.
Since being within the cave, I’ve been wondering what the symbolism is between Mother Mary birthing a son and how the unfertilized eggs of bees also become males. This symbolism reminds us that we must consult the deep feminine principles before the sacred masculine is ready to take action.
The female is receptive, and all of creation begins within a dream, within the darkness. One must not take action from an outward push, but rather from an inner one. Perhaps it is the outward pressures - action without inner contemplation - that has caused so much pain on the Earth at this time.
As I stood there in front of this vandalized formation, all I intuited to do was face her, and then circle her while singing the ho'oponopono prayer.
I am sorry. Please Forgive me. I love you. Thank You.
Then I touched her lovingly.
Although this formation is a good fifty feet from the entrance, it is lit up by the entrance of the cave. And here I sit, still a bit terrified to be here as well as intrigued to investigate the mysteries of the deep feminine—how to heal, repair that which has been twisted, vandalized, and broken.
I am not sure what will be found as I embark on this journey of reclaiming the feminine principles, but the symbolism I have come up against within this cave have brought up fear.
In the cave there is stillness. There is silence. There are no distractions away from myself and relating intimately with this cave. Is this why it is so scary?
Before bed, I’ve recently began co-creating stories with our two year-old daughter Aurora.
Last week she wanted to hear a story about monkeys and eggs. So I began.
There was a young monkey who was just beginning to leave her mother’s side. One day, the monkey saw something shiny on the forest floor, and so she left her mother and ran down to it. It was round, egg shaped, and golden. It was moving. The monkey poked at it gently and soon it disappeared into a hole. The monkey reached into the hole to try and grab it but the more she reached, the more it would move further back. Finally the monkey couldn’t see it anymore, and so she backed up and sat, and waited, and watched.
Soon, the golden egg was carried out again. It had been the ants who had carried it in, and they realized it was too big to carry on with so they brought it back out and left it outside the entrance of their home. The monkey was ecstatic to see this bright shiny object and carefully lifted it with her hands. She held the egg in her left hand and she held onto the deep thick vines with her right hand, walking up the tree to go show her mother.
When she showed her mother, her mother gasped. This was the egg of the great snake of the forest, she who protects and kills. She is to be honored and feared. The mother monkey told her child. “We must bring her back her egg.”
And so they protected the egg, and the mother carried her daughter with her, until they reached the cave of the great serpent of the forest. They didn’t see her, and so they left the egg right outside the cave and turned to walk away. Just then the Serpent slithered and made her presence known. The mother monkey was scared and had the option to either run—but she realized she would be chased not only within her lifetime, but also her daughters—or face the Serpent.
She decided to face the serpent. She told the story about her little monkey finding the golden egg with the ant kingdom. And that when her daughter brought the golden egg to show her, she knew immediately that they must return it.
The Serpent, wise and all-knowing, could discern if they were telling the truth or lying for there was a light right above their eyes that would shine golden if they were speaking truth, or red if they were lying. The lights were golden.
The Serpent smiled, and said, “Thank you. And for your courage, bravery, honor, and truthfulness, you and your kin will receive my protection for all the generations yet to come.”
And so it was, mother monkey and baby monkey walked peacefully back into the forest.
While on the subjects of the mouths of caves and ancestral influences, we brought our daughter Aurora to the dentist yesterday to face why there were dark spots on her front two teeth. Yes, the dentist claims they are cavities forming. I cry. And I also know that my maternal lineage has had trouble with their teeth. So besides everything else that perhaps we didn’t do right, this is also a genetic issue that we must face. This is ancestral.
I felt it was connected to a meditation I did where I saw a woman on my Polish maternal lineage running away and hiding down in a hole.
While in the cave I asked how to heal this ancestral wound. Within me came the phrase: “Know your truth. Speak your truth.” I felt a strong resonance with this, and as I said it aloud in the cave I felt chills with the vibration of this coming through. I now know I must support Aurora to do so as well.
As I exited the cave, and was looking in at the mouth of the cave, I asked, “How do I know what my truth is?” I was shown how I got to the cave. It was first an intuition, subconsciously missing my turn, and then the synchronicity while listening to the podcast.
Right before the cave, were signs posted that said Private Property, No Trespassing. (However it is still a well visited cave by locals).
So the question comes down to whose guidelines and rules you follow—the human rules that are often misguided by the ego, or the rules of Mother Earth the Divine, and our personal truth?
Right next to this dentist office was where they had just cleared the Earth. The trees that once lived there were laid in a pile as tall as the dentist office. This reminded me of my childhood, and the clearcutting that took place on my family’s land. I was reminded of this also while I was listening to The Medicine Stories podcast with a dentist named, Rupam.
Rupam grew up in Germany and holds a lineage of herbalists that can be traced back for thirteen generations. She shared how when she was a girl, a pharmacist was what the herbal medicine makers were called, and her grandfather would be downstairs in his pharmacy cooking and creating medicines from plants that the doctors would call for from their office upstairs. At one point in her youth they modernized everything, and the apothecary was turned into white walls and the doctors called others for prescriptions. She cried when this all changed.
As I was listening, I cried feeling my own childhood trauma of losing our forest. As I cried I held onto the Maitake that I was breaking up to dry out in makes
hift drying cloths, to then turn to powder and add to our winter soups. I held this Maitake as a savior, pouring my love into this incredibly powerful medicinal being, and feeling the deep gratitude in my bones that I was returning, regenerating, and rebirthing a life that is connected to the Earth and Spirit again.
But I find that in order to reclaim all we have lost or forgotten, we must face the serpent, the scary formation of the Mother Mary, our own wombs, and wounds.
As for tonight, we face Aurora as we begin to night wean with this Scorpion New Moon. So wish us luck!
With love,
Louise and the Bees