lineage, inheritance & integration
The lineage of a Queen in a honeybee hive can be very important, breeding queens from different countries can result in strange colony behaviours. I’ve sat in many a beekeepers meeting where queen behaviour has been discussed. Although most honeybees kept in Europe are Apis Mellifera - there is a general understanding that colouring and markings can change and locally you hear keepers describing their bees as ‘Welsh Blacks’ as they are a darker bee and they are renounced for not mixing well with other bee DNA - most notably the lighter coloured mild natured Italian bee. This combination seems to turn nasty and colonies will often have to be re-queened.
In the Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd, 2002) the bees leave messages in the wax comb. I found myself wanting to write names - almost in celebrancy on the wax frames I had spare. It was mom’s name I wanted to write and then I realised I wanted to sketch out her female line of ancestors. We never heard the stories that could have been passed down, mom didn’t know her Grandmother’s name - my grandmother never spoke of her, too wounded by her early departure.
I find myself feeling an emergence of both my mother and father in me - now they are both in spirit - it is as if this is potentised, like it’s time for their inherent skills to be inherited fully by me. I think of the makers that they both were. Puppets have entered the arena, I’m starting to think they were always there when I think of how I played with my toys as a child. The idea of breathing life in to something or seeing the consciousness that exists where many others would suggest it wasn’t feels pertinent right now remembering mom taking her last breaths. I recorded her breath the night before she passed, it was very laboured I could tell it wouldn’t be long. On listening it was as if I could hear my own voice in that breath - the voice I hear when I guide meditations. I can’t explain this but it feels like an inbetween space - not of this world and not fully of another. A liminal space. I put this recording here - it sounded like art to me at the time - something about it needed to be acknowledged - I also put a trigger warning here too as it may not be for everyone - just the reader of this should they wish to listen.