In Ancient Greece, one of the (many) reasons bees were associated with the Underworld was because they could often be found inhabiting cracks and crevices in rocks. These cracks and crevices were thought to lead into the Underworld: the domain of many chthonic gods and goddesses such as Persephone, Hekate, Rhea, Gaia and others. In fact, there is a story that the Delphic Bee (the Oracle) sent a party of questions to find another oracle in another land. When they arrived, they couldn’t find the Oracle she had spoken of anywhere. The Delphic Bee then sent them a swarm of bees who led the questioners into a hole in the ground and down into the oracular subterranean temple where the Oracle and two snakes lived.
The Underworld is the place of ancestral memory, deep earth-womb mysteries, renewal, transformation, regeneration, mother, darkness. We go to the underworld to be nourished, to be remade, to die into ourselves and be reborn like a swarm of bees in spring.
The serpents greet us because they too are self-renewal made manifest.

If you’re in the underworld of your life right now, while in the underworld of our global rite of passage, leave honey for the bees and milk for the snakes. They just might know the labyrinthine way through.

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