The key question to ask yourself when a book comes your way is do I have an appointment with this book, what it contains and what it may hold for me? Such is the question that may arise when this book enters your life, for Simon Buxton's The Shamanic Way of the Bee is a beautifully written multi-dimensional work in the esteemed genre of esoteric spiritual autobiography that details the many layers of reality and experience that are often found on the path of initiation. The book is part of a long lineage of stories of spiritual experience from both ancient and contemporary cultures. If we allow ourselves to re-view (literally, to 'see again') Buxton's book, we re-member that the awe-infused tales of shamans are in themselves healing stories, stories that heal, and by that function they open doorways for us to find our own way toward whatever healing we too might need. They also allow us to begin to imagine how we too might be changed should we dare to believe in our true heart-desires and, using our will, step through the open doorway into our own sacred story. The Shamanic Way of the Bee is an exquisite telling of one man's sacred story.
As a female practitioner in training with teachers from the distaff or female side of the Path of Pollen, I have been taught practices that Buxton writes of in his book, such as working with the lemniscate or figure of 8; meditation upon the Hexagramma Mysticum, the divine hexagon; oneiric or dreaming work; and many others. Body practices, meditations and disciplines such as these have been taught from ancient times to the present in many spiritual traditions throughout the world. The Path of Pollen is one such tradition and is a path of inner and outer psycho-spiritual, alchemical work requiring an open heart, a willingness to engage in deep self-examination and the passionate desire to meet one's appointments while alive. The teachings from this path that Buxton shares with his readers are filled with all the beauty, wildness and intelligence that are the particular gifts of the honeybee and the hive. And like the hive with its stores of honey, pollen, propolis and bees, the book is also a repository of ever-unfolding knowledge and wisdom.
As Buxton tells us, his teacher Bridge, "believed strongly in a principle he called 'spiritual osmosis,' in which proximity to the sacred will itself provide answers. There are no fixed rules, or, rather, the rules and the truths you find will be personal to you. Truth must always be individual, and you will find it from your own experiences and your interpretation of these" (11).
Read on. Decide for yourself. Who knows? You may be meeting an appointment.
