Collective Care: A Lesson From A Bee Sting

The venom poured over me slowly, like her sister, honey, dripping from the top of my skull into my ears and the folds of my eyelids where the pulsing caused my vision to blur. My hands began to swell and itch, my entire body trembled wildly. I became frightened: was I suddenly developing an allergy to bee stings? The sensations were much more extreme than any other sting I had encountered, and though my body had endured a lot of pain in the last few weeks, I didn’t know if I could handle more. 

“I need help.” I believe I muttered to the three women who had gathered with me in my garden to plan our Passover Seder. They quickly began tending to me; chamomile tea was brewed, benadryl was located, a pharmacist was called. No two stings are alike, I remembered as I asked my friends to hum and sing with me as I cried and shook in terror. My entire being taken over by one tiny sting. It was then, with them holding me, I could let go and trust the medicine this bee maiden had brought. It was no accident she stung me at the very crown of my head: the symbolic place where one connects to Spirit; the Capstone in Jewish mysticism, the meridian of 1000 convergences in Chinese medicine, the Door in Shamanic Bee wisdom. 

With the help of my friends, I relaxed into this bee sting; I could tell her medicine was different. I had spent the last few weeks in and out of the hospital for a mystery illness that emanated from my pelvis. After a primary care physician and the first ER doctor had misdiagnosed me, I ended up doubled over in pain wobbling into the intensive care unit, barely able to breathe from the pressure and pain on my abdomen. I had been shaking with chills, unable to sleep or eat. My partner shared: “you smelled like distress…the room smelled like tears,” he recalled when I woke him in the middle of the night to go to the hospital. I was treated with a flood of medications, both intravenously and orally. They helped me sleep but zapped me of my energy: for weeks I could do little beyond the bed or the sofa.   

During the onset of the acute pain, I had visualized a group of women gathered around me, praying over my body, tending to the pain, allowing me to release into the healing. I had remembered a few other experiences where others have ushered me through extreme pain. I can feel those moments as anchors, still with me, as memories of collective courage and care. 

So I knew this kind of care was possible, but it is not easy to ask for. In the two weeks I laid around wincing and crying in pain, I did not garner the courage to ask a group of friends to be with me in this way. I was vulnerable, not only in my pain, but in my fear and worry. The bees did for me what I could not do for myself. However, I did muster up the courage to ask a few loved ones to be with me one on one, and others to help with dog walks and food. My partner tended to me daily, and I received bodywork and acupuncture which all helped tremendously. It became sparkling clear to me when I was surrounded by the care of others, I got better. 

The bee sting seemed to act like a pressure release valve, and my body became like a wilted steamed vegetable, sunken into the couch and into the embrace of my beloved hive sisters. From there I could feel into what my body needed and what I needed from my support. I asked them to hum and sing with me as they laid hands on my body. I went into a fit of crying and shaking and being lost somewhere in my mind I can’t quite recall. After about 20 minutes the shaking calmed and my partner helped to draw a bath around which the sisters could sit and dream into our Passover Seder as I laid lucid in a mugwort bath. I slept the rest of the day and when I awoke in the evening I felt reborn: all of my symptoms were gone. The next day and the days to come were a waking dream. 

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This practice of collective care is one that is hard to come by in late-stage Capitalism, and is  especially hard when so many of us find ourselves in crisis moments. People have jobs, full lives, and their own stresses that often don't leave the capacity to stop and tend to a person in acute need. How many of us have extra time in our day for unplanned, spontaneous [insert something fun], let alone time to attend to someone in crisis? If we had an extra minute, we’d probably want to spend it resting or doing something that replenishes what we have lost in our day to day struggle to survive. 

This is not the fault of the individual. This is not because of our lack or our fullness. It is because we live under a complex system of not-enoughness that paints the illusion we do not have time, energy or money. This system says that if we give away our time, our resources for free, we will lose. This system says if I give away my time or money now, others will want more from me, or I won’t have enough for myself. This system says it won’t ever be enough. 

While I did not intend to be stung that day, I do believe the bee intended to sting me. Bees can pick up on the electro-magnetic frequency of flowers, they sense energy and vibration. While humans have been studying bees for 9,000 years we still know very little about them, and we can’t prove how that bee knew where and when to sting me. But we do know they work and live collectively, each member of the hive striving for the good of the whole. For over 120 million years, they have figured out how to survive, keep humans and many other species alive by pollinating our food source, and manage to make the sweetest substance to ever touch our lips. One honeybee did not manage that on her own. 

Bee venom is also used to treat ailments (apitherapy), from arthritis to cancer, and has proven miraculous results for those who are willing to get stung. Bees also die when they sting. Her body, her life, a sacrifice for our healing. 

While my symptoms after the bee sting did not go away completely in the coming weeks, my energy slowly increased, and most importantly, my hope for recovery grew. It had awakened my inner capacity to heal, to believe in the care I was receiving, and a vow to return the nurturing I was given to others. I have been re-initiated into a circle of collective care and awakened to how necessary it is to our survival. We need each other to heal. 

As I regained my strength I had the opportunity to support a friend grieving the death of her father. I felt into the other side of care: into the giving. I felt how, in some moments, I didn't feel I could do enough for her. Those moments almost led to doing nothing, to freezing up, but then I remembered I wasn’t responsible for healing her, changing her circumstances, or even making her feel better. My job, as a friend, as a community member in a circle of care was simply to show up. All I had to do was offer my loving attention and let her guide me into how she wanted to receive support.

Not coincidentally all of this occurred alongside Passover, a holiday all about survival. The three women and I had our Passover Seder the week after my sting, and even though I wasn't feeling my ideal (well) self, I felt my enoughness. 

Dayenu, we sang during the Seder, “It is enough.”