If you reach your hand back into the mythscapes of history, you will find, over and over, the story of the sacred other. The lover. The Twin. The Sister. The Brother. The Sacred Adversary. The Mirror. The Queen and her King. You will find a story of a divide. A separation. A rift. A searching. A reunion. Isis and Osiris. Mary Magdalene and Jesus. Ariadne and Dionysus. Ixchel And Itzamná. One can not exists without the balancing force of the other.

It is said that Apollo, the Sun god, was the father of beekeeping, while his twin sister, Artemis, the Moon goddess, was the protector of the wild bees. The Master beekeeper was tempered by the Mistress of the wild ones. One governed civilization, while the other protected the wilderness. We over-civilized, wild souls sit at a turning point. We can not reject civilization, but we can also no longer allow civilization to reject the wilderness. We are being stalked by the wild. It is hunting us through our dreams, our water, our longings, our delusions. After all, Artemis is the swift and decisive huntress, is she not?

As a beekeeper, I am always asking how to balance the beauty of cultivated beekeeping with the rewilding necessary for species survival. In the modern era, the Father of Beekeeping has taken center stage, while the Mistress of the Wild bees has been systematically erased and forgotten. Her fierce wisdom pushed aside. Her moon-tipped arrow ignored. Her animal-speak hushed. The living myth continues on and we find ourselves netted by all we have forgotten. We can not survive off the wisdom of Apollo’s Sunlight alone. The bees know this, and so they have cried out with the only language that can truly grasp our adolescent attention span: Death.

Every myth is a journey. Every epic a story of light and dark, balance and ambiguity. Separation and reunion. Make room in your heart for the Huntress. For she who speaks the language of the wild. That heart chamber is not created by hatred of the God who slew the serpent, but rather, by acknowledging his role in the sacred arc of story, and stepping into your place in the continued telling. Apollo is not the enemy. He is not complete without his twin. The moon has no light without the Sun. There is a place for the beekeeper and the tender of the wild bees. Make room for your own paradox. Traverse betwixt and between. The bees are showing you how, so get your ear low to the ground and become the myth-weaver.