Letters to My Daughter: The Blessing

 

Dear Daughter,

Before we disturbed a single branch or mound of dirt, we asked permission.

It was December 2024, just weeks after we closed on the land. The paperwork had settled. The contractor had been chosen. The vision had begun to take shape. But before we laid a foundation, before we carved paths or planted roots, I knew we needed to begin with reverence.

The land was raw. Virgin. It had never been worked before. No house. No utilities. No driveway. Just creosote, ironwood, and the kind of silence that listens.

There were no arch druids nearby. I searched. I asked. I waited. But the land kept whispering: Begin with what is true. Begin with what is near.

So I reached out to a local shaman—a woman who practiced Native American ceremony with humility and grace. We spoke a week before the blessing, and in that conversation, I mentioned the bees. I told her I was a beekeeper. That I rescue feral colonies. That the bees had guided us here.

She remembered.

The day before the ceremony, she called me. Her voice was calm but curious. “You won’t believe this,” she said. “There’s a ball of bees on one of my Christmas ornaments.” She had hung oversized ornaments on a tree in her front yard, and there—clinging to the glittering surface—was a swarm. A golden knot of wings and hum, waiting.

I drove out immediately.

The rescue was gentle. The bees were slow, deliberate, almost ceremonial themselves. I coaxed them into a box, whispering thanks as I worked. And then I brought them home—to the land we were about to bless. I placed them on site, tucked into the quiet corner where the creosote grows thick and the wind moves like breath. It felt like a gift. A prelude. A sign.

The next morning, we met on the land just after sunrise. The air was cool, the soil still damp from a rare winter rain. The shaman arrived with herbs, feathers, and a small drum. I came with offerings. And I didn’t come alone.

Your father and you were there too—quiet, present, walking beside me.

From our final corn harvest that year, we had picked the last stalk and shaped it into a wolf—guardian of spirit, protector of passage. We buried it in the northwest corner of the property, anchoring the ceremony with strength and watchfulness.

In the other corners, I placed pieces of our past:

• Flowers from our old garden, still fragrant with memory.

• A river stone from a family trip, laid gently to honor Elen—the goddess of paths and wild places.

• A black raven feather, dropped at our last home, buried to honor Morrígan—the goddess of sovereignty and transformation.

The shaman had asked for colored sand, so I brought it—earth tones and ochres, poured slowly into the wind. And I brought five pounds of cornmeal—golden, fine, ancestral. Together, the three of us—your father, you, and I—walked the outer perimeter of the land, scattering it in a slow, deliberate line. The shaman walked with us, singing and striking her drum. Her voice rose and fell like wind through canyon walls. The rhythm of the drum echoed like a heartbeat beneath the sky.

We moved like ceremony. We listened like kin.

And then, near the end of the blessing, it happened.

A single bee—golden, slow, deliberate—landed on my shoulder.

She stayed there through the final invocation. The shaman noticed, smiled, and said nothing. I didn’t move. I didn’t flinch. I just stood there, heart open, shoulder warm, feeling the hum of something ancient and affirming.

It felt like the land had answered.

We didn’t ask for ownership. We asked for relationship. We didn’t come to conquer. We came to listen. And the bee, in her quiet arrival, made it clear: You are welcome here.

With the blessing complete, we could now begin. The clearing of land. The building of our home. The shaping of a life rooted in reciprocity.

Lesson for you, my daughter: When you begin something sacred, begin with a gift. Let your offerings be real—cornmeal, feathers, stones, memory. Let your presence be humble. Let your listening be whole. The land will know the difference. And if you’re lucky, the bees will come to bless it too.

Love, 

Your Mother 

The Desert Druid