The Shamanic Way of the Bee: Ancient Wisdom and Healing Practices of the Bee Masters by Simon Buxton. Destiny Books, Rochester, VT, 2004.
Somehow Simon Buxton manages, with his lyrical writing, to bring the reader into the magical, powerful world of the bees. Let Simon take you by the hand and lead you into this world, and you will forever after view the world around you with a new luminosity.
Simon shares with us the tale of his own journey to becoming a Bee Master, his early introduction to bee magic as a boy in the Vienna woods, and his later being called to the bee garden of his tutor, Bridge, the Bee Master. Bridge shows him a very precise and very demanding pathway, which includes the Bee Mistress and her teachings as well.
The teaching includes spiritual and ecological wisdom, as well as the personal transformation which allows the entrance of shamanic states.
Bee shamanism is very ancient. Buxton says that acupuncture can be traced back to the bees. The tradition is oral only, so we don’t have written records. It has been kept alive in the British Isles, where Simon lives.
This book is beautifully, clearly, and tenderly written. Reading it will change your life, and immeasurably enhance your daily world. A bee will not be just an insect, nor a flower just a flower. They will become part of your soul knowledge.
Simon’s book paves the way for the deep ecological knowing which can be part of our new earth paradigm.
