In 2016, I was interviewed by Mia Saenz the Editor in chief at BellaMia Magazine. BellaMia magazine “is a leading on-line Woman's content providers of holistic wellness, transformation, woman's issues and personal empowerment.”  We had a wonderful Skype conversation with lots of laughter.  Enjoy our interview by clicking on the link below.  Mia also works with individuals, visit her website at miasaenz.com.

It was such a great experience being part of Queen of the Sun film. My understanding is that the bee dance was the first footage filmed for the movie. Taggart and Jon were amazing to work with. Check out the website and If you haven't seen the film here is a link to order it.

In 2012, this is the first video we made after the movie Queen of the Sun came out.  Video footage by Taggart Siegel and editing by Theodore Holdt. Sound and vocals by Theodore Holdt and Jaime Lee Christiana Jones and myself.   We collected sentences about bees from a post I put on facebook and then created the score from that.  We had 40 people contribute text and it was so fun to puzzle it together.  Thank you to everyone who participated in this video. This video now has 832,321 views. Yippbeeee.... It was a pleasure to work with all of you.

 This is my third bee dance, dancing with 12,000 honeybees. In this dance I invited friends to improvise with the Bee Queen. It was amazing how many emotions buzzed up and around during the dance, how much magic was presented. The video took its own turns and twists as it was edited down to create a surprising unfolding. I wrote the text after editing a sort of story out of the video improvisations. It gathered a momentum of a fierce intention to awaken a call to action. Seize this precious moment of beauty and glory by noticing what’s happening around us each day, each year. Things are changing so fast globally and locally that we are having a hard time catching our breaths and double-checking our impact. At first my intention was to show the gorgeous clarity and subtlest of nature, but by the end of editing I felt the message clear. We need to step back, examine what we are doing to the planet and its species for the safe survival of us all. Beauty is inherent in our ability to let nature fruit, to nurture it, and to support it, not destroy it. Please take a look around and see how you can help us all by just doing simple things such as recycling, buy whole foods and conserving natural resources. Please plant gardens and flowers for the bees, buy local foods when you can and support your local natural beekeepers. Bees also love a bowl of water with large rocks that act as islands during the hot summer months. So go outside and plant your surroundings for the future of us all. I think of Bee Dance as a duet and communion between species. The bees push with their powerful wings from each side of my body, I resist and then I let go and flow and move with them. It is a deep meditation and I feel the hive mind surround me, hold me, and expand my body on a cellular level. The bottom "row" of bees pinches my skin to stay on my body, which at first feels like sting. They are mighty strong and sensitive creatures. I am a healer, dancer, artist, builder of structures and beekeeper. As a beekeeper my partner and I hope to help the bees of the northwest by encouraging them to swarm and become hardy to the ever changing environment and we leave them be. Insects can evolve much faster than slow breading humans if we let them swarm and divide and encourage the stronger hives to populate our ecosystem. If we keep medicating and treating them with insecticide and stealing all the honey and then feeding them sugar or corn syrup and/or artificially inseminating the queen we will continue to degrade the genetics of the bee population. Find grace and gentleness with each other. Use the idea of the hive mind to create links between cultures and groups. Dance more. Enjoy the sweetness that is our world. The bees give us more than honey and we can give back to them in equal partnership.

Let's start with a couple  "questions and answers" from an article in
Bella Mia Magazine, 2016 .
Pages 40-46

Why did you start working with bees?
 
I surrendered to an image I saw in my head, which was myself covered in bees standing in the middle of a pristine cul-de-sac. I followed the making of the image into a 6,000 piece puzzle.  The artwork when finished was  7.5 long by 43" tall.  After the first bee dance, bees followed me and I them.  Now many branches of purposes are unfurling in front of us. Some of the purposes are listening to everyone’s stories of bees--- how they were stung and now afraid, how they themselves commune with the bee nation, how their relatives were beekeepers (I prefer the word bee•tender) and most importantly how people can help the bees right now.  Together the Honey bees and I have an opportunity to provide inspiration and phantasmagorical ceremonies and celebrations to help educate people about how important the honeybee is in order to sustain a healthy continuation on this planet.  We have a lot to celebrate about the honey bee.  Bees pollinate one out of 3 bites of food we eat.  Not only is their honey sweet but it is full of healing properties, as well as other medicines that come from the hive such as propolis, and wax.  
 
Did you always have a love of them, or was it more so to bring awareness to the mass bee die-offs that have been occurring in recent years?
 
I grew up on a little farm.  I was never scared of insects, the forest or the dark.  Nature was safe.  As child I don’t think I ever thought one part of nature was better than another.  I was aware that it was all interconnected and that even an inanimate object had feelings just as much as a goat.  I started dancing with honey bees before the big decline was obvious.  Now that we are in trouble my dance with bees is a great way for me to get people to see the magic and beauty of the great communal life of the bee.  To encompass the bigger picture and become part of the solution instead of the problem. The more of us who provide protected environments for things to grow organically for pollinators to pollinate, the better.  Those hard working people are adding time to our planet.  Many are creating spaces for healing and rebirth by creating organic sanctuary’s for bees, and safe haven for the future of plant, animals and humanity,

'This artwork is 7'x 43", 6,000 piece puzzle.  It's framed and for sale, $2,700.00, contact me here if you're interested.