Beeing Found
“The bee is domesticated, but not tamed” -William Longgood
Growing up in Missouri I was introduced to nature at an early age. I quickly realized that honey bees and pollinators were an integral part of the network in which we all participate. I had always been fascinated by honey bees and those who attempted to "keep" them. After returning from active duty in the US Marines I found myself angry and alone. Now a single father of 2; I also learned that the things I had enlisted in the Marine Corps to escape were with me the entire time.
As I attempted to rid myself of toxic thinking, habits, and behavior I found myself neck deep in it. The more I struggled the deeper I sank. Anger, depression, legal and social conflicts, the more I tried to force the wheel the farther into the darkness I travelled. One day in September just after my 35th birthday and the day my youngest son was born, I was struck head on by an incapacitated driver on a state highway. Something inside me snapped and I realized my way of being in the world was never my way of being in the world. My journey began.
I made drastic changes in my life, relationships, career, and thinking. This did not happen overnight and I continue every day to learn to let go - not hang on, have empathy - not anger, and become a steward of my environment - not a surveyor.
Three years after that collision I began building hives in my woodshop and collecting wild swarms in the spring. My philosophy is, and was, very simple. Do no harm. Let the bees guide you - but you must be willing to listen.
The project for me started as a way to help myself and others who have suffered a myriad of trauma, find peace. Learn to let go, calm your breathing, calm your heart, move deliberately but calmly. And the bees are very good at correcting me when I make a mistake. They let me know when my energy or actions are not in balance.
I began by sponsoring other beekeepers. Survivors of various traumas and those for whom beekeeping was an important teacher. I built hives and taught classes. However I quickly realized that I was ignoring my own growth and healing by trying to unburden myself with other’s burdens. It was about the same time that another local organization, BEEFOUND https://www.beefound.org/, was founded by an Iraqi war veteran. He had an identical mission, and a great deal more organization.
But I was trying to heal myself, and my focus on others, not myself was slowing my progress. Having always been a "fixer" I thought the road back was by helping others. Then I thought about that airline safety protocol “Please attach your mask before you attempt to help others”. I knew that I would be better equipped to help others if I first helped myself.
I moved to Spain.
I spent the first 2 years in Andalucía, off and on, traveling back to the states for the holidays and to see my parents and oldest kids, who were in college at the time. The remaining 2 years beginning in Jan of 2020, were spent in complete isolation with Erica, my high school sweetheart, and my youngest son Giovanni.
We did not get to travel as much as I would have liked due to the pandemic. But spending these years on an isolated olive farm a mile from the closest neighbor and 3 miles from town gave me the space I needed to breathe.
In that space, we were surrounded by sunflowers, olive trees, orange trees and wildflowers. There is no "winter", only a rainy season, the temps may become cool but never below freezing.
In the springtime we were surrounded by blooms and blossoms and aromas of all sorts. The Iberian honeybee was a constant reminder of life, nature, and the flow of light needed to breathe it and live among it.
One day in late 2021 Erica came to me and said she wanted to come home to St. Louis. The kids had finished college; Our parents were retiring for real this time, and truthfully, it was time to go home.
We bought a house next door to my parents on a few quiet acres that backed to trees and a creek. When I flew home and I opened up the hives and started processing honey, the boys helped, Erica created a plan, and we realized that despite all the goings on in the world, the bees, the hives, and the honey that was in them was still untouched, untamed, unharmed and as natural and beautiful and wild as it ever was. Just waiting for us to come home.
The bees know what to do. They did not require chemicals, controlling, or really any intervention. After 4 years of being completely undisturbed, except for replacing some weather worn wooden ware, the bees were in control. Nature was in control. It was doing just fine on its own.
We may not like how the bees build their comb, or where they choose to roam. But they are perfectly in control. We can try and point them to where we want them to go. But the truth is we must live in symbiosis with the natural world. The more we try to tame it, control it, or use it for our own purposes the more we begin to veer off the road and right into the path of oncoming traffic. The irresistible force and the immovable object... and us... right in the middle.
We do not use artificial or chemical methods in my stewarding of the bees, We do not use genetically modified queens, nor do we artificially manipulate the colonies to try and maximize production. We extract once or at most twice per year and any honey that is not readily able to flow into a jar and onto your table is immediately returned to the hive.
We are not here to control nature. We are here to learn from it.
