Of Bees and a Bucket of Water

I recently remembered an encounter I had with a bee when I was five years old, which resulted in my first inkling that I wanted to be a writer. Like most children growing up in warm climates, I walked around barefoot most of the time. I was mildly allergic to bees, so when I stepped on one, I couldn’t walk due to the pain and swelling. My mum’s remedy was to soak my foot in a bucket of ice cold water.

Photo by sebastien rosset on Unsplash

I still remember the scene – it was in my parents’ bedroom in the home where we lived just before they got divorced. I was feeling confined and rather sorry for myself, hoping the cold water would do its job so I could again move around. I can’t remember feeling much else, but like all children I must have been subconsciously aware of all the emotional undercurrents, the tears that were not being shed and the fears surrounding the end of a chapter. A thought popped into my head that I wanted to write a story about a bucket of water one day. I didn’t know the plot, but the emotional thread had something to do with a little girl who lost her way and found it back home again.

I dismissed the idea as silly almost immediately, but the thought stayed with me for a few more years even though I felt embarrassed at the mere memory. In my immediate reality, the world around me crumbled and was rebuilt as two separate worlds, both of which still formed part of my life. It wasn’t perfect (when is anything ever), but everyone involved got on with their lives and found some sort of resilience.

A few years down the line I was forced to deal with my personal darkness, because my subconscious mind urged me to do so. It is impossible to say how much of my anxiety was linked with wounds from childhood, but the road to better well-being was long, arduous and intermittent.
Although I expected the healing journey to help me return to “normal”, or rather, help turn me into a normal person, it wasn’t the case. Instead, I opened Pandora’s box and a plethora of monsters attacked me, but they eventually turned into allies. I discovered pieces of myself I had forgotten existed, or perhaps had never been aware of. Along with the archetypal realm of vivid, confusing and sometimes terrifying images, I also re-discovered my ability to love, something I felt I had lost. My dreams had been hiding in the same closet as my monsters. Through my fear of unleashing my shadows in the world, I had also been suppressing my gifts.

It may not be obvious what bees and a bucket of water have to do with healing and it wasn’t obvious to my five-year-old self either. But now that I have an understanding of symbols, I think it was the universe’s genius way of showing me something about my path in life. Time and again, whenever I was incapacitated due to physical illness, injury or emotional turmoil, creative expression was my great saviour. Water is symbolic of the unconscious, and through plunging into this realm and turning the archetypal images into stories, the poison in my system lost its potency. Through turning to the healing waters of my soul, also known as tears, my pain gained a purpose.

The incident came to mind again only recently, about three decades later, when I was reading about an encounter with bees of another author whose work I admire. The book is Supernatural and the author is Graham Hancock, who was born in Edinburgh where I currently live and the incident coincidentally happened in South Africa, where I was born. Hancock ventured into the Drakensberg mountains to find and examine ancient rock art. The hypothesis he puts forward in the book is that encounters with supernatural beings inspired the oldest forms of creative expression and indeed brought about the origins of civilisation and religious thought. While he was studying the ancient art, he became aware of a beehive, which was very dangerous considering he had had severe allergic reactions to bee stings in the past. When he was stung, he had no serious reaction, but he remembered that bees had spiritual significance in the mythology of the San people of Southern Africa. To him the experience was meaningful and may have led to insight into the inhabitants of other non-physical realms and our relationship to them.

Hancock’s story encouraged me to again look at the experience of inspiration my bee sting brought about when I was five years old. My journey to mend the wounds in my soul brought me in touch with the wounded healer archetype, a phenomenon that occurs across cultures where healers find their calling through an experience of physical or mental illness. Through plunging into the depths of their soul, they meet helpers in other realms, who assist them in healing others. My efforts to heal certainly opened doors to other realms and led me to learn about shamanic healing. In my case, healing and creativity go hand in hand.

As little as bees are, if the San people had it right, they could be the soul’s messengers even when they are threatening. At such a significant time in my young life, these tiny helpers came to whisper in my ear how I could move beyond pain to claim the power in my soul. When I had all but forgotten about my aspirations, they reminded me, through literature, what my original dreams were.

The universe is teeming with life and intelligence, expressed in the smallest and largest of ways. My story about a bucket of water is maybe not the original one I had in mind, but thirty years later I am writing it to honour the little girl’s dreams. Because regardless of how small and insignificant she felt, and often still does, the universe was in her as much as in everything else. Although she didn’t know it at the time, she was capable of wisdom.

The Hero’s Journey and the Collective Unconscious

I started writing my first novel, In Search of the Golden City, when I was ill with hepatitis. I had wanted to write an actual full book of fiction (as opposed to poetry, essays or academic writing) for more than a decade, but I didn’t have inspiration, or I was busy, or afraid although I didn’t know it back then. Being spiritually oriented, I asked for an idea and I received one, and still I postponed the actual writing. I set a deadline, or rather a starting line, for myself, but the day came and went and still I hadn’t done anything. Two weeks later I fell ill and was booked off work for three weeks. I still believe that it was the Universe’s way of nudging me forward.

The story took shape as I continued, and I finished the book by being committed to writing a certain number of hours a week. During the process of writing I let myself go and allowed whatever wanted to emerge. The end product was a very symbolic tale filled with mythical elements. I was fascinated to discover similar themes in myths or stories written by others. As an example, a friend with whom I share an interest in mysticism, spirituality and healing introduced me to her friend who is also a writer, Eva Lara. I learned that she had written a book in Spanish called El Guardián del Umbral, English translation The Guardian of the Threshold. I have not read her book because I do not understand Spanish, but just going on the title, the book I had already written contained the same theme verbatim. I also read about the concept of the Hero's Journey as identified by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Although I had no knowledge of the concept prior to finishing my book, I found that there were many parallels in my novel.

The fool in the Tarot can be a symbol
of embarking on a personal journey.

When I studied psychology at university, I was introduced to the work of Carl Jung and the theory of the collective unconscious, a realm of archetypes that take expression in myths, connected to the human psyche. When I learned about shamanism, I could equate it to the spirit world. I believe that this aspect of our being is universal to humanity, and even though we have become profoundly disconnected from it in our modern society, it still shows up in our art, religion and even science. From this perspective, the Hero's Journey perhaps tells us something about being human that we all know deep down although we are not always aware of it.

For the purpose of this article I will focus on my understanding of the Hero’s Journey as it features in my own writing. Broadly speaking, the Hero's Journey is one of personal transformation. The hero receives a call to go on an adventure, much like Bilbo in Tolkien’s work The Hobbit. He receives supernatural help or guidance and at some point crosses a boundary between the known and the unknown, where he enters a magical landscape. Here he faces challenges and finds wisdom, sometimes through dying and being reborn. He can then return to the known world or material reality to apply what he has learned. (Source: Wikipedia.)

The protagonist in my book is a healer called Akim, who goes in search of a legendary Golden City because he wants to be with the woman he loves. There are no directions to the Golden City, and his clues are stories of others who have made it there by remaining true to themselves:

“… what they had in common was an almost desperate desire to reach the Golden City. Some of them had it easier than others; some were courageous, but most of them were far from perfect. A few were rather bad, but they were redeemed through introspection and love for something or someone outside themselves.”

As individuals we vary in our goals and ideas, but the similarities between the stories we come up with lead me to the idea that perhaps collectively we have a common purpose that is mysterious and veiled, but without which life has little meaning. Could the Hero’s Journey be about the will to grow? Could it tell us something about a soul’s journey in a corporeal existence and the drive to know and create the self through transcending ordinary reality? I am reminded of the Biblical Paul’s words in his letter to the Corinthians: “For now we see in a mirror, dimly; but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then shall I know just as also I am known.” (Translation from Wikipedia.) I no longer go to church, but having grown up in a Christian environment I remember 1 Corinthians 13, about love, as one of my favourite passages in the Bible.

As a final note I will add that the experience of illness as a call to purpose or healing through engaging with the spiritual realms is a universal concept of shamanic initiation. In this case, I needed to keep my commitments and act on what I had been given. As soon as I did, I recovered faster and in the end went back to work after only a week and a half. The writing must have healed my body and soul.

Creativity and our Connection with the Universal Mind

Creativity is an interesting thing because nobody can really tell another person how to be creative. Many people have told me that they are not creative at all, but I don’t believe them. Some people express their creativity more than others, while many people prefer to think of themselves as analytical thinkers. But all of us have creative imagination as well as the ability to think logically. I think that creativity is intrinsically a part of every human being as much as the capacity to love.

Many people don’t develop their creative faculty, or they lose touch with it because they are not encouraged to use it. Although I have always written poetry and/or kept a journal, I put less effort into it in the time when my office job consumed most of my time and energy. The most useful advice I got to help me actually start writing fiction, something I had dreamed of doing for 14 years before I started, was from reading interviews with established authors like Neil Gaiman and Paulo Coelho. I learned that an author doesn’t need to have everything exactly worked out before starting to write, and that the unconscious is a valuable tool. Having gathered enough courage and filled to the brim with frustration with my circumstances, I started writing without really knowing what I was doing. What emerged was at times unexpected, and it intrigued me.

The creative process is fluid, and reflecting on it I cannot say that I truly know what the relationship between me, the story and the characters is. I used to think that an author invented a story, and for me the idea was a barrier as I felt that it was too difficult to think of something as brilliant as some of the stories I have read. Things changed when I asked for a story, and met the characters in another realm, and asked them to tell me their story. In that way, something sincere started to unfold. Rather than achieving something, I felt that my first novel, In Search of the Golden City, was a journey through which I learned a lot about myself and my personal path. The creative process is all the more spell-binding when I work with it even though I don’t understand it.

Through creativity I feel a connection with the universe, and this brings to mind the mysterious Source of everything we know. The idea of the universe as a creation has been in dispute by mainstream religion and mainstream science, as if our human minds could know the answers to something as profound and impenetrable as universal origins. I have at times felt that talking about “creation” is heretical in the eyes of supporters of the science paradigm, because it presupposes the idea of an intelligent force behind everything. To some people it smacks of religious dogma, and to combat it, they would rather embrace the idea of an accident without purpose. Religious and scientific dogma aside, I do feel that there is a Creative Source that I am sometimes more in touch with than others, and that magic and healing start happening through communion with this Source.

As an artist, when I create something, it doesn’t always come out as planned. What I create has a will of its own, and the process is most powerful when I allow that will to come through me. In that sense, I don’t feel like a creator at all, rather an instrument. Although my characters are sometimes in conflict with one another, they are part of the same story, and they learn from one another since each expresses an aspect of something that is buried within me.

Suppose then, we wove our own stories through the universe as a work of art, what would our relationship with the Creator be? I think that question is as open for interpretation as the one of what my relationship with the characters in the stories I write is. In my opinion, the conventional idea of intelligent design falls short when it advocates a creator that made the universe a long time ago but is essentially separate from it. The idea of accident without purpose doesn’t ring true either. Without pretending to know anything, I could imagine that we are all part of the same dream, and that each person or thing is an aspect of the dream. As we live, we could strive towards creating bright, powerful stories with the full magic of being a facet of a glorious and unfathomable dream. Or we could play a part in a dull story directed by those who deny the spectacular life force, if we believe in their power rather than our own.

Contemplating the Ocean

I find the ocean to be a curious reflection of our own make-up as humans. The largest proportion of the earth’s surface comprises oceans, much like our bodies predominantly consist of water. The ocean’s water is salty, and so is human blood. Tides are ruled by the moon, as is the female menstrual cycle. The ocean affects climate and weather cycles, which also impact our sources of food and shelter. Oceans can be a means of transport, but they aren’t free from danger. Despite the destructive power of the ocean, it has a calming effect on my mind.

One of the fascinating aspects of the ocean is its depth. Even those humans who venture into the ocean can barely skim the surface. The seas have shaped our collective history as humans and yet the average person knows little about it. When chunks of the ocean become frozen, only the tip of the iceberg is visible above water. At deep levels there is very little light, and the magnitude of life at those depths evades our understanding. Where land meets sea, the waves that crash on the shores have been travelling for miles on end.

In mystical and psychological terms the ocean is symbolic of the unconscious mind. To me this portrays how much of what we experience in our daily lives is influenced by a hidden realm where there are multitudes of unknown life forms. As humans we grow in the water of the womb before we are born as individuals. Our corporeal incubation in water cannot be remembered, and I think the same applies to our consciousness. The vastness of the ocean can only be felt through contemplation. The waters of the seas are all connected to one another. When we touch the waters we have access to, we interact with the depths and the life forms residing in them.

In astrology and Roman mythology two major archetypes are associated with the ocean: Venus and Neptune. In astrology both are linked with love and artistic inspiration. Water is also the realm of emotion, and to me this illustrates how inspiration springs from unknown places in ourselves, mediated by emotion. The uncontrollable aspect of water tells me something about the nature of love. Very little is known about the depths that move us, but few actions are worthwhile unless inspired by the power of love.