the Spider and the Bee

i watch the Bee get caught in the web

a predator becoming prey

struggling, buzzing

stuck

the Spider emerges, and approaches

a dance transpires

how can you love honey, and hate Bees. well, i did. as a child, i would get those little honey tubes at the farmer’s market on the weekends, relishing in the sweet honey i squirted into my mouth—a welcome distraction from the boredom of walking around a market with my moms, half the size of all the adults buying adult things like vegetables and stuff.
then i would go to school on monday and sit on the indoor steps of the building, watching the kids my age playing outside during recess, while eating my sandwich of white bread, deli turkey, lettuce and mustard. the teachers resignedly let me stay inside because I was paralyzingly terrified of Bees.
i got stung as a child the first five years of my life, and i have a phobia (a word i learned from my two psychologist moms), is the scripted explanation i recited for anyone who asked. i don’t know if the lore i told was accurate, but it was the story i stuck with for years. it made sense. it made adults stop asking questions.
kids wouldn’t stop though. they laughed at me when i saw a Bee (or was it technically a Yellowjacket? i didn’t really know the difference) on the playground, froze, and said “Bee bee bee bee bee is it on me? is it on me?” until it flew away. they made fun of my fearful (and evidently autistic—but i didn’t know this part yet) hand-flapping, my echolalia. they pried into why i couldn’t just play with them, why i couldn’t just have fun.
i finally grew out of this fear, mostly. Bees stopped bothering me. my moms taught me to imagine a bubble around me, protecting me from Them getting close. little did i know at the time, nor did my moms, that this was witchcraft. i don’t know if Yellowjackets, the supposed aggressive ones, just dropped in number, or if i did truly develop an aura that repelled Them energetically. probably some of both.
i stopped noticing Them much, until recently. the subject of working with animal spirits came up recently in a magical course i was taking. the instructors insisted that the animal we were meant to work with would make itself known to us. that it would choose us. i lamented that i didn’t seem to have an experience of spiritual communion with an animal like i was supposed to, like i would have if i was a real magician. i scrounged my brain and my memories for animal messages. what would an animal message look like? how would i recognize it as such? it should be apparent, an animal should show itself to me. i should feel a charged energy around this animal, and it should show up frequently in my life. i must have one! everyone has one. but what could it be?
it was then that i saw my first Bee get stuck in a spiderweb. i realized this was a sign.
i had been working with Medusa recently. She first presented herself to me as a white plaster statue, at a winter witchcamp in the wilderness of minnesota. She was in the raffle. i felt an inexorable desire to own Her, so i entered, putting all my tickets into Her one envelope. and i won! i packed Her carefully, wrapping Her in my dirty laundry and placing Her in my suitcase, hoping She would remain intact. She did. i kept Her in my bedroom for a while, set up an altar for Her. soon after sitting in front of Her altar, devoting myself to Her, my chronic illness began to intensify. new difficult symptoms began to emerge. i didn’t put it together at the time that this may have been coming from my new pact with this cthonic being. i didn’t really know what i was doing magically, and had not done my due diligence researching Her before beginning work. i learned later that this sickness after devotion to a spirit or deity was what one of my mentor’s calls “spiritual hazing.” it was to test me, to see if i was in fact committed to my pact with this being.
i dropped off in my work with Medusa, focusing on tending to my illness. i kept Her in my room, however, and She witnessed all that i did in that room. i brought Her with me to multiple houses, and misfortune followed me everywhere i went. i learned along the way from another mentor that especially when working with Medusa, one must be humble. She can sense pride and ego and will humble you Herself if you do not approach Her with substantial respect and humility.
i tried working with Her again one time at the beginning of the pandemic. i had a dream that She required to be rubbed with coconut oil, and to be presented with chocolate and roses. the next morning i did this. i felt the energy in my room become charged. i placed Her back in her altar in my closet, and the next morning i woke up ill. it was too synchronous, this time, to be coincidental. and so I left Her untended, alone, for months. i stayed quite sick. i read up on Medusa’s story, and consulted my mentor, noting from the research and conversation that She liked enclosed, dark places, like Her lair in hellenic days. i commissioned an outdoor wooden shrine to be built, to house Her. after moving Her out of my closet, into Her shrine in the backyard, the illness subsided. i left Her there for two years, feeling exhausted by the whole experience. She remained untouched in Her lair. She seemed comfortable there and i was too afraid to approach Her again, fearing illness, misfortune, even death.
two months ago, I read a book: “apocalyptic witchcraft” by peter grey. it theorized that the future of witchcraft is working with and welcoming the power and violence of the downtrodden in order to subvert oppressive authority. i began thinking about Medusa again, and Her story—of transgressive beauty turned beast, of righteous wrath. i felt called to work with Her again. one day i gathered the courage to check on Her shrine. i remembered humility. as I opened the doors to Her tomb-temple, a large back Spider scuttled out. the inside of Her lair was decorated with spiderwebs, and as i adjusted Her statue upon the colorful altarcloth i had diligently placed Her on two years ago before abandoning Her, another large Spider made itself known. i felt comfort knowing that She had not been left all alone during these years; that She had kin and company. and i prayed to Her, with humility, tenderness, and spiritual integrity—for protection, for justice, for fierceness. i implored Her to bring Her righteous destruction unto the world’s powerful systems of oppression. i entreated Her to allow illness to pass me over, this time. and the next morning, i did not get sick.
But i did see this Spider preying on a big black Bee. on my back deck. the first time, the Bee escaped, within an inch of Their life. and then i saw it happen again, in another web, with another Spider, and a Bee (maybe the same maybe another—i’ll never know). and i realized that i had not one but two reoccurring animals making Themselves strikingly apparent to me. Spider and Bee. predator and prey. the roles reversed. my childhood menace that had followed me for years, a being i viewed as fierce and fearsome, was not a predator, here, at all. They were in danger of being caught in a web, like any other number of insects. the Spider was predator, here, yet in another context could just as easily be crushed underneath my shoe.
the roles we assign beings are not fixed. predator and prey. animal spirit or lowly insect. fearful child or fierce witch. all are within all of us, whether we be human, animal, vegetable, mineral, or thoughtform. we are all capable of demonizing that which pesters us, and valorizing that which survives in numbers despite all odds that seek to crush it. Spider and Bee are a reminder for me of the non-duality of all. if Spider can befriend Medusa, then can i befriend Bee?
i am going to the farmer’s market tomorrow, to seek out a honey farm. fully-grown me will walk up to the booth, with the courage i learned from years of creating protective energy bubbles around me, and with the humility i learned from approaching Medusa again and again. i will walk up to the booth, express my passion for honey and Bees, and ask to volunteer on their farm. i want to learn the Bee’s ways, the mysteries of Bee, and apprenticeship on a honey farm seems to be the most sensible way to begin my journey.
thank you Bee, for accompanying me on my life journey, and continuing to present Yourself to me. thank you Spider, for illuminating complexity, and Medusa, for reminding me of the power, potency, and transformative potential, in destruction.
i enjoy honey, now, more than ever. i savor taking that substantial scoop of thick honey out of the jar with a small spoon, and mixing it into my morning coffee, clockwise like the shadow of the sun, infusing my hot beverage, chemically and alchemically, with sweetness. and this is how I begin my day.

originally published 2022