Michael Thiele
The Biodynamics Blog

Historically, living with bees was ritualized, ensuring harmony between bees and apiculturists. In our de-ritualized world, we face the challenge of finding the means to reconnect with core aspects of life and of finding guidance for being with the bees. In his bee lectures, the Austrian philosopher and spiritual scientist Rudolf Steiner describes the bien (a term defining the bee colony as one being) as being permeated with life based on love. To meet the bien on that level and be touched by it will bring forth a new way of living with bees. The bien can become a metaphor for our interconnectedness with the world and it can make the oneness of our life palpable. Infused by a radical different sense of self, it resonates within the depths of our own hearts. The bees can change our sense of who we think we are and instill in us a wish to serve.

In this pivotal time when life on earth is in transition on so many levels, the bees enter our awareness worldwide through their struggles. They can become an inspiration for a change in our cultural, emotional, and agricultural landscape.  Steiner emphasizes that “we need to study the life of bees from the standpoint of the soul”. In the end, the world shows us whenever the soul element is missing in our lives. The current plight of the bees shows us the repercussions of our limitations. As our life-long allies, the bees mirror our own struggle to live in this world. Their encouraging message is to wake up – to wake up to this fragile, wonderful and precious world, to wake up to a heart-centered reality. May we all wake up!