Smoke, Bees and Beltane Magic

This month, the the month of Beltane is also known at the Collage of the Melissae as the “Queen Moon”, which is the moon of fertility, of potent life force, and the shedding of the old and the welcoming of new things into our lives. As a Melissae and sacred beekeeper, I have been incorporating ancient traditions into my contemporary learning of how to keep bees and changing my beekeeping practices away from what I was taught to a more holistic way. This includes the changing of the seasonal wheel and Beltane is a beautiful place to start as the bees have been awakening from their winter slumber.

In her book Sacred Celebrations Glennie Kindred–of of my all time favorite writers on the subject of pagan and earth based celebrations says this about Beltane:

“Beltain is a celebration of fertility and rampant potency of life-force.  It is one of the four great Cross Quarter Fire Festivals on the Celtic wheel of the year. A bel-tene literally means a goodly fire.  On the eve of Beltain which which generally falls around the 1st of May a special fire was kindled after all the other fires in the community had been put out.  This was the Tein-eigin, the need fire. People jumped the fire to purify, cleanse, and to bring fertility. Couples jumped the fire together to pledge themselves to each other. Cattle and other animals were driven through the smoke as a protection from disease and to bring fertility.”

Art by Autumn Skye Morrison

This quote was used by Nao and I in our lesson for the collage this month, and as we mused on it, the more we realized how deeply we were able to take these sacred celebrations outside and into our bee yards, and why not-our bees are a deep part of our spiritual lives, and practice.

As we mused more and more on how our ancestors may have driven their cattle through the fire smoke at Beltane to purify and cleanse them, we too wanted to bring the fire and of course the smoke to our sacred work in the bee yard for Beltane.

And so it was that we worked on creating a simple recipe of safe herbs for smoking our bees with, and using our bee smokers we too would smudge ourselves with fire and smoke to celebrate the new season.

Smoke has been used by beekeepers since ancient times, allowing the beekeeper to go into the hive easily, as once the bees sense the smoke they go down deep into the hive to begin eating in case there is a fire and they need to leave. This is partly why as natural beekeepers we only go into the hive when absolutely necessary.

I have not been into my hive for about 3 weeks and so it is time for me to go in and see if i need to do a split, and Beltaine felt like the perfect time!

With my sweet daughter in hand we first “sussied” up our outdoor altar with the bees favorite spring flowers, bright yellow Dandelions, and then prepared the smoker{seen below} with lavender buds, sage and  small bits of propolis.

Zahra and I then suited up, smudged ourselves first and then offered purifying smoke to the bees, letting them know why we were invading their space and allowing the sweet burning smoke to wash over them as a Beltain offering. We also offered them small pieces of pollen patties and well wishes to the queen who we have  named Boudica after the Celtic Queen who led her British Iceni tribe to an uprising against the Romans. This queen lasted through the winter and we are sure that she will see us through the summer as well!

 

 

 

 

 

Cherry Blossoms, Mud, Bees, Beads and more….

Today the winds have picked up and although it is sunny, it is cold and it is snowing the softest pink cherry blossoms everywhere! It reminds me of that scene in the movie Princess Bride where she is walking alone through the forest and it is all snowy with falling pink blossoms–so beautiful! This is my sidewalk today!

Last week I worked on a big drum order for the local collage–these drums will be going to students who eventually will be working with kids–it makes me super happy to think of these little drums going into classrooms all over the city!

I have also been designing a new style of necklace that I am in love with. These beauties are super long {23-17″ Long} and are made to be doubled up, creating two strings around the neck. it is always a dilemma with me if I should list them in the shop first or blog about them first–and today blogging won out, so if you look for them up at the shop they will not be there for a few hours yet!

 

Over the past few weeks I have been playing with mud, getting my hands mucky and learning to make pottery! Here are some images of my efforts–The first one is  some beads I made and then added Gilders paste to, creating a beautiful iridescent effect.

This one was a fun bowl I made using lace pressed inside while it was still wet–my goddess the things one can do with mud!!!

I could not resits making a few offering bowls too of course!

And lastly a Honey Bee offering bowl for sacred work with the bees and the Collage of the Melissae.

Throughout all of this though, I have been musing and writing for my presentation next week at the shamanic conference entitled “Following the Bees Back to the Forest”.  There has been some fun projects such as Encaustic painting with leaves and cardboard to create the hex-shaped bowls and small honey scented hex pieces on my bee altar. Of course this amazing red honeycomb spread was found my my sweet friend Sarah to let me know about it right away so I could go and  snatch it up and I am so glad I did, because I love it!

I am really excited to share my perspective on working shamanically with the bees and to guide participants into three journeys using smell, taste and sound, it will be a very sacred and powerful time for all I hope!

One of the most exciting things that has come to be over the past few weeks is a hive that I will be care-taking that is sponsored by The Sacred Circle of the Great Mystery Shamanic Society. The society will help me with the honey harvest if there is one, once we have made sure the bees have enough for the winter. Any honey harvested will then used in sacred ceremony, given as gifts, or sold with the proceeds going back into the community as charitable donations. Below is a photo of the newly painted hive waiting for the bees to arrive, which will be any day now!

Beltaine is only a few short days away as well, which is exciting. I myself have some simple family oriented plans, but I have to admit I long for the maypole days with small children running around! What are your plans? I would love to hear!

Peeking just around the corner…is that you spring?

It is hard to believe that it was already a few week-ends ago that we had our big Ostara brunch,  this year we had close to 60 friends with their children and it was quite the hullabaloo over here! I cooked for days and loved every moment of it, rejoicing in the amazing and unusual summer type weather that lasted close to a week before the rains came back.

We decorated our outdoor altar with a new bright fuchsia cloth and adorned her with dyed eggs and nests to represent the spring time that we have been waiting so patiently for….

The garden also got some bright new colors, as I added a new set of lotus prayer flags to the back fence, and I have to say it really brightens up the post winter garden, as most of it is still pretty mucky and muddy…

There has been a flurry of activity in the bee garden, as I have been out doing my spring checks, and sadly once again we lost one of the two hives over the winter months. I am pretty sure that it was due to the viscous wasp attacks that happened in the fall causing the hive to be so weak, it simply did not last. But the hive that is still here is lively and doing well!

Right now I am working on big plans for a new fence in the back yard, and some changes to the medicine wheel garden  that I hope will solve our problems of the stones sinking which they do every year, causing loads of weeds to grow between them and making it look a mess by the fall. Today I am working on a few new necklaces and some more smudge wands that I am excited to share–so much that I will probably dedicate a whole photo laden post to them sometime next week!

In the meantime though as promised, here are some spring themed photos to inspire!

Moon in the apple tree

Mushroom in the garden

I found this one on-line and have no idea who to credit, but it inspired me so much I may have to visit Value Village for some colorful and cheap boots!

March Madness

Somehow March managed to sneak up on me, and gave me a great big tickle, and have been grinning and smiling to myself ever since!

Yes I know march has brought leagues of snow to many parts of the world cold snaps, storms and all, but here on the west coast things are ticking along bringing with it the first of spring sunshine mixed with torrential rain and even some hail thrown in for good measure!

It also brought with it my birthday, another year and another chance to reflect on the positive side of all my life has brought me, for this I am truly grateful each day.

On Ostara I was off to get a new tattoo, one that represents my spiritual path as a bee priestess and Melissae, the images came to me in a shamanic journey and represents the divine feminine and of course the ancient tradition of being a bee priestess.

 I also came to the conclusion that due to my time becoming more and more busy with drums, weddings, jewelry and so on and so on, I was not here as much as I wanted to be, and then it hit me–often when I am busy or looking for inspiration I go to some favorite blogs and {true confession here} scroll through their images filling myself up with juicy inspiration. I feel that  images carry so much weight, and often so much beauty that I have decided that while I am so busy I shall come here and post the most inspirational images I have of what is happening in this priestess’s life–which is kind of why I started this blog in the first place–to inspire and feel more of a connection with community.

So here it goes……

This month I had the great honor of writing the most fun and unique wedding to date- a circus wedding with  the ceremony based around the Dr Seuss quote: “We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutual weirdness—and call it love!”

Smudge wands have been taking over my studio–feathers flying everywhere!

And then finally two new smudge wands listed up at the shop.

Of course there have been a few new necklaces added to the shop as well….

This is a new line  I have been working on that allows me to include more then one feature piece. pendant, and I have been having so much fun making them.

All this and march is not even over yet!

I am happily planning the Ostara brunch I host every year and enjoying some time off with the kids for march break.

It is a full life, and a busy life, but I would not trade it for the world!

The last vestiges of Febuary

As we near the end of February I have to fess up and admit that it is is relief to me that February is the shortest month of the year. Although February never did anything to me, well other then bring the last of the heavy rains and the last of the dark days, I am always relived to see it go….be gone blues, be gone dark days, bring on spring!! By the end of February I am ready for it, I can smell it in the air, and even the bees and chickens {who are laying again after a six week winter hiatus} are laying once again, we can all feel it!

A few weeks ago in true spring fashion I was blessed to be asked to do a blessingway for a mama in our community, the day was pregnant” with possibilities and bursting with the newness of life and the feeling was that spring was ever  so, so close!!

Today I am delighted to have less of a busy day as I have been wanting to sit down to write here for ages now but I have been writing elsewhere for weeks now, as the first of the weddings will begin next week-end, to my great excitement! Of course Nao and I have been writing the curriculum that will go out to students at the Collage of the Melissae next month which has been very inspiring and getting us ready for the bees that will soon be out and about enjoying the first of the spring flowers. These I know are two noble places to direct my creative writing energy, but I do miss the creative pause that this place allows me, so I am happy to be back, and of course I have a back-log of posts I am looking forward to finishing and getting up!

February has become busier then I ever could have imagined, and it feels like I have been making drums nonstop–oh wait I have! Elk, Moose, Bear and Deer drums have been coming alive and finding their homes to my delight each week.

My Red Moon Designs web-site was updated as an early birthday gift from one of my my bestest friends, and now the images are clearer and bigger, and I finally added a new category called Sacred Beekeeping so that this part of who I am am has a place within it all.

There has also been a new direction in terms of the spirit jewelry that I make, and I have put many pieces on deep sales to make way for the new! Here are some of the new inspired pieces up at the shop these days:

 And what else can I say–Today, the last day of February, I am working on a big order of red drums heading out to a small store in Nova Scotia. The owner and I became fast friends as soon as we got on the phone with each other and I am delighted and honored to have my drums in her store as I know she has as much respect and love for the animals to whom they came from as I do.

Spring Blessings

Nikiah

 

 

 

Working with medicine of Moose

Close to 20 years ago now while canoeing with a close friend I had the rare opportunity to witness a mother moose and her two calves swimming between islands. At first we were shocked to see moose swimming and at what looked like such a long distance, but we quickly realized that these moose were clearly equipped to swim and in fact were pretty good at it!

Before long we watched the mama moose climb up on the shore, noticing how gigantic she was, and then ushering her two calves with her and quickly they disappearing into the trees.

This event has stuck with me all these years and although since then I have only been fortunate enough to spot a moose once, they will always remain majestic and very resourceful.

In my personal shamanic work, moose is not one of the animals that I  work much with, however the few times that moose has come into my journeys, it was very powerful and held great meaning.

As drum maker I also only work with only a small number of animals, usually deer and elk and once raw buffalo. In the past few months though I have had the honor of working with several pieces of reindeer hide from Finland given to me by a Tuvan shaman, the bear hide that I mentioned in a recent blog and as of last week raw Moosehide!

Now I have only worked with raw hide once before, and that was many years ago when a piece of buffalo came my way. That buffalo is now the bee drum in the image above which is sitting beside my reindeer drum. Both of these drums are used for different work.

So it was once again a new adventure when the moose came my way! The thing to know about working with raw hide is that if you cant work with it right away it either must be soaked immediately, which will give you a week at most, or you must freeze it!

For myself I feel that it is important to begin right away as I like to let the spirit of the animal know what is happening and how I am honoring it as best I can by making a sacred drum. I like to pull out some smudge and ground myself and then begin working, as the process can take several hours.

The final result was three drums the first two of which are now all finished and listed up at the shop.  These drums hold the deep resonant sound of the forest within them and of course are heavy with the medicine gifts of the moose.

Moose Medicine is said to be one of the most ancient and unique of the animal medicines as many of the first nations peoples revered this gentle and yet very powerful animal. The size and appearance of ungainliness of the moose is deceptive, as these animals not only have the ability to hide themselves despite their size, but their depth perception allows them to move quietly and easily through the bush. it is because if these qualities that the moose has been associated with shape shifting and magic.

Because of the time that moose love to spend in marshes and near water {even swimming long distances} they are also deeply associated with the watery maternal forces of the world, the primal feminine energies, rich in creativity, intuition and illumination.

From a shamanic perspective, it is said that moose have the ability to move back and forth between the outer world and the inner world between life and death, and it is said that those who are shamanistic and work deeply with their moose medicine  are also strong in soul retrievals.

If you are drawn to moose and have always loved them, it is good to do some research on these creatures, discover their cycles and patterns and if you are serious begin working with their medicine. A drum is a good starting place for that.