The Path of Pollen

	Book review on The Shamanic Way of the Bee by Simon Buxton Reviewed by David Lorimer, 2009 published in Network Review No 100
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The key feature of initiation is death and rebirth. In this extraordinary epic, Simon Buxton takes us through the various ordeals through which he passed. The story begins in Austria when a neighbouring bee shaman cured him of a serious bout of encephalitis, encouraging him to embrace life rather than to fear it. The experiences he describes do have the effect of what he calls spiritual osmosis in which one comes to appreciate the underlying truth of what he says. His teacher was a beekeeper appropriately named Bridge, who calls his student Twig, and his first encounter dates back to 1986, when he strays into an orchard alive with bees and receives his first initiatory sting on the hand and on top of the head, like an acupuncture needle. The Bee Master observes this and so his initiation into the world of the bee begins, and the reader also starts to appreciate the extraordinary nature and contribution of the bee. They offer a model of community and a powerful example of alchemy in producing honey with its many curative and nourishing qualities. Knowledge of the bee is one thing, but interacting with them is another, yet these aspects are closely intertwined.

The gate of transition links the visible and invisible worlds, creating a space of  bridging between-ness. With this insight, the training begins, in which the rational mind is transcended and counterintuitive tasks performed, such as the insistence on doing everything with the left hand over a period of time. In the first journey, he moves in and out of time and space, shamanically entering the life of the bee and the hive, which culminates in merging with the Queen and subsequent rebirth. This prefigures later episodes embodying the feminine mystery of sacred sexuality. Melissa is the goddess of intoxication and sexual passion, which represent the communion with the whole of life; in this sense the bee is intoxicated with the flower as its lover. Melissa is also the Bee Mistress, whom we encounter later in the book, and who knows the mysticism of the hexagram, representing as it does perfection of fit using the Golden proportion. The other characteristic shape of the bee is the symbol for Infinity, representing its dance. For 23 days, Buxton is cooked and incubated until he emerges free from his past but not as yet established in a new identity.

The next chapter introduces the veiled Bee Mistress and the Melissae, who are her six apprentices; together they represent the feminine potency of nature, and the bee itself is the copula between the male and female elements in a flower. This meeting leads to symbolic dreams where Simon as candidate suckles on her breasts, with milk coming from one and honey from the other. It also leads to a deeper understanding of the power of giving birth and sensual sweetness of honey, through which we are told that we can potentially enter into communion with the forces of the cosmos that have already passed through the bee. Later, this is enacted in a ritual dance of sacred sexuality in a heightened state of consciousness. Next comes a searing account of the candidate killing a stag with his bare hands. Again, dreams prefigure reality, and the act is recounted dramatically as life and death, struggle and surrender intertwine and the candidate confronts the violence upon which much of our civilisation has been based; in addition, we are reminded that life is nourished by death in the form of dung and even dead bodies. The following episode describes a journey to Nightshade Isle and a further ritual where the bees and Melissae come to witness the candidate's dance. Stripped naked, he is covered in honey by the Melissae, which includes covering his genitals. When Vivienne reaches this point, she remarks that he will ride his broomstick tonight, a cryptic reference evoking Halloween rituals. She then sprinkles him in pollen, and the bees arrived to lick it all off. It is an extraordinary scene, right at the frontiers of the reader's reality. Meanwhile, Simon has to stay awake and hears the profound song of creation affirming the oneness of life, of which we are sparks.

One more ordeal remains, being buried alive in a sacred place in Cornwall. This represents a descent into the darkness corresponding to an ascent towards the light, life confronted with death. The lesson is that life should be lived as if each day is one's last, which will one day be the case. Our body will be embraced by the Earth. Simon digs his own grave, then Bridge shovels soil on top of him and he is left with a breathing bone as his only contact with the air above. He drops into the womb of the Earth and confronts what is at times a terrifying vision. The outcome reaffirms the lessons of near-death experiences that we should not waste our precious time and put things off to tomorrow. If we fulfil our purpose, he writes, 'we will leave this world and return to the pure essence of ourselves.' Death will then be a sacred moment of ultimate achievement. At the end of the book, Bridge dies, and his body is found lying next to the hives. He then sees Bridge in his subtle form, moving from hive to hive, blessing the bees and saying his farewells.

In her, dare I say it, seminal book Sacred Pleasure, Riane Eisler explains the consequences of repressing sexuality in Western culture. Religion has effectively accomplished this for the last 2000 years, but in the last 40 years since the 1960s, sexuality has been unleashed in the West, but we have been culturally unable to appreciate its sacred dimension (the same applies to drugs). Instead, there has been a vast expansion of pornographic material available on paper and on the web (sex is in fact the largest component of e-commerce, but this is never officially recorded). Not only did we cut ourselves off from sexuality, but also from Nature herself, becoming objective observers and economic manipulators while repressing the feminine and subjugating women. All this is changing, but much remains below the radar. This book is at one level an important contribution to the reinstatement of sacred sexuality, as well as an ethic of initiation leading to a deeper understanding of the dynamics of life and death. If we are able to evolve to an understanding of sacred sexuality, we may at the same time resolve corresponding patterns of violence embedded in our culture and bring together head and heart, outer and inner, masculine and feminine into a new level of integration.

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