A Little About Me, or Why the Hell Am I On the Internet?

Hello! My name is Terra Phoenix, pleasure to meet you. (That picture is me, at BioSphere 2, photo credit to the lovely and talented Kat Heatherington. A sizable portion of the pictures on this blog will probably be hers.)

Since this is a free blog, and created in part to be a journal for my Certificate in Beekeeping with the New Mexico Beekeepers Association, it will focus primarily on how my venture into keeping bees goes. But, considering it'll probably become a habit for me over the course of the next several months, and may end up being my long-term bee journal for myself, I will probably be adding personal stuff, too. I'll try to figure out how to tag them so you can avoid my other ramblings, but you probably can't avoid it. I'm a bit long-winded.

First, a little about me. Originally from Western Washington (grew up small-town, moved to Seattle for college and more-or-less stayed there for 20 years), I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico a little over a year ago. I am a queer, genderqueer Witch, as far as labels go, and so that makes me a little between-the-margins. That keeps extending into what I do in the world; by trade, I'm a somatic therapist and sacred intimate/sex and intimacy coach. How I see it, I get to be a Priestess helping folks heal and transform their lives. It's a hoot.

In fact, this blog is named after both bees and priestesses. In Ancient Greek, melissa is the word for bee (meli- meaning honey) and in several Mediterranean cults and religions, the bee was considered psychopomps, insects that spanned our world and the underworld. Priestesses of Artemis and Demeter were called Melissas, or simply, bees. And while this is a lovely synchronicity, this isn't how I got interested in them.

I have always been fascinated with bees. Unfortunately, like most other bugs, they scared the crap out of me. I mean, the worst were spiders, and I still struggle to keep my fear response in check when I see even teenie tiny ones. But as a kid, most bugs would get me taking a huge step back. As I got older and, perhaps, a little smarter, I realized that they were important and I ought to be nicer to them because without most bugs, we wouldn't exist. But bees were kind of the exception (and probably the reason I got over my fear). They were pretty, they made honey, and their buzz was simply intoxicating, and so I screwed up my courage and got as close as I could to them when I was younger. Considering I started out life as an academic, studying mythology and folklore, I couldn't avoid things like knowing what a Melissa was, and so bees have always had a kind of...sacred place in my heart. Didn't mean I wanted to keep them, though.

But rewind to about four years ago or so. I was in a relationship with a couple of people (oh, I'm polyamorous, as well) who decided to become farmers. Well, as someone who also kind of hates getting dirty (I'm getting over it) I wanted to be able to plug in. So I was their administrator for the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and decided that I would keep their bees. So I read books, took a couple classes, got a fancy new white jacket with a veil, and was ready to have bees...and then the farm dissolved. I cancelled the package and continued my urban existence where I couldn't keep bees easily enough. Still, I continued to read about them, hoping at some point to have a place to keep a couple hives.

Now I live in Albuquerque, and part of my conditions of moving here (as I see it) is that I would keep bees for some folks. Sunflower River, to be precise. I was in a long-distance relationship and we figured that was a bad idea, so I moved here for love. (Queue the "awws.") But she's one of the stewards of a farm, and I said, "Well, I could keep your bees...?" Turns out most of the stewards were pretty excited for that, so before I even moved across the country, I joined the NMBKS Certificate Program and got re-oriented toward being a beekeeper. Sunflower River had an old Langstroth hive sitting around waiting for bees. In addition to that, I live and work and practice at The Source, a community of health care and wholeness practitioners, and they had a beehive there that needed some love. It's a top bar. So I get to learn both common hive types, in parallel, in two different micro-climates. How's that for a good time?

In any event, here's my blog. Be prepared for a lot of technical things (May 1, Sunflower River, 5 bars of brood, 4 bars of honey...) as well as some of the more ephemeral stuff that buzzes around in my brain around beekeeping. That is, more ancient bee facts and folklore, stuff about apitherapy (so interested in that) and maybe even dreams that I have. I mean, I'm woo, so you'll have to forgive me. Anyway, my hope is you'll find some fun, maybe some laughs, and generally just enjoy yourself. Feel free to contact me by e-mail (terrakitty at googlemail-period-com) if you have questions. Thanks!