Pollinating the Healing Story
For those of you who are not familiar with the Sacred Trust and the ongoing controversy surrounding Simon Buxton's book and the origin stories of the Path of Pollen/Lyceum, this may not be worth reading (until you get to the bit about the larger lessons to be learned). But for anyone who's read The Shamanic Way of the Bee or who's worked with the Sacred Trust and been torn apart by what's been going on, this is for you...
It's not a sex scandal, there's been no money laundering, fleet of Bentleys or psychedelic drugs involved, nobody's been kidnapped or held against their will, but WOW. What a crazy shit show, drama-filled, heartbreaking controversy this whole thing has become.
For the last many months, I’ve had more discussions about this topic with colleagues and students (both in individual sessions and group settings) than I can count. I’d been awaiting more information from Naomi that finally came in part last week (and also today) before putting out a statement.
There are still questions I have for Simon, but I’m more than ready to shake free from this tattered snare of illusion and move beyond the toxicity surrounding, so I’m choosing, at this point, to share my views (and information with my broader community) regardless of what more is revealed or clarified. Whatever other information arrives, I'm coming to peace with the fact that, as much effort that has been put into research, meetings, interviews, and emails from staff, as a community we might not ever know all the facts, but we can still seek and hold fast to the deeper Truths that are being revealed through all of this.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with what I’m addressing here, it is around the plagiarism in Simon Buxton’s book, The Shamanic Way of the Bee, his appropriation of practices, deceit around those practices being passed down through his mentors in the Path of Pollen and the origin story of the Path of Pollen/Lyceum work as taught at the Sacred Trust. There are over 60 accounts of plagiarism in Simon’s book and it has also come out that much more of his book was based on non-ordinary experience (ie. It didn’t happen in this reality). Most of this has been outlined here in a blog formed by past students (with whom I am not affiliated and by in large do not share the same sentiments with).
The teachers who had been teaching Path of Pollen/Lyceum at the Sacred Trust have been taking this matter very seriously and in fact left their positions at the Sacred Trust upon finding out they’d been misled by Simon about the origins of this work and some of the practices therein.
I still feel a bit in the dark about what exactly was revealed at a staff wide meeting on the 5th of November 2023, but it was enough to cause Path of Pollen teachers to cancel courses and remove all mention of the Path of Pollen from the Sacred Trust website and their own. Naomi also sent out an email stating she is now in process of questioning the veracity of her own experiences with what she had been led to believe was a long-standing tradition. All of the people who have loved and taught this work, including myself, are in a major process of reassessment of how to best move forward given what has been revealed.
In my first steps in moving forward and finding repair, I want to start by saying I’m sorry. Regardless of my prior not-knowing, I do want to offer a deep apology to anyone who I have inadvertently misled due to the misinformation I had been fed. I have done my best through the years to speak openly about what I had known about the few accounts of plagiarism in Simon’s book that had been revealed early on, but in terms of lineage and origin story, I’d never imagined we’d all have the wool pulled over in such major ways.
Regardless of the broken origin story and the harsh claims going around about anyone associated with this work, I still (and forever will) hold Naomi Lewis and Kate Shela as well as Alison and Deborah in respect as some of the most brilliant facilitators and ceremonialists I’ve ever come across. While there are many voices expressing their disdain, mistrust and extremely harsh judgement of our teachers, that’s not where my heart is taking me. Like many, sure, there were times along the way in this process that I felt confused and even a bit misled, but I’m taking personal responsibility for where I’d filled in the blanks and where I’d drawn conclusions that I wanted to be true. And, ultimately, all I can feel is gratitude for the experiences I’ve had with this work and women who have taught it and even Simon himself who orchestrated a beautiful illusion that, as a community, we were able to breath life into and make very real.
I don’t feel ready to throw the baby out with the bath water as the conditions these facilitators created for me to experience deep transformative healing and Spirit running through was more real than anything I know. My work with them (even Simon) has been a long and committed journey that has deepened at my own accord, through my own connections to Spirit, my own body’s wisdom unfurling - all of which can never be taken from me or others who’ve also experienced this.
I’d like to offer a bit more about my story and journey with all of this in hopes that it might be helpful for some to read about.
When I first went to study at the Sacred Trust in 2008, it was Simon Buxton's book The Shamanic Way of the Bee (and a series of magical events involving my early days of beekeeping and acupuncture study) that drew me.
Within the first year of my training in the Path of Pollen, I learned that Simon had included some plagiarized passages in his book. This didn't stop me from continuing on with a fifteen year relationship (including friendships and teaching alongside) with the faculty at the Sacred Trust. Like Naomi and other teachers had been with me, I have always tried to be forthright about what I know about the book whenever anyone has brought it up. I’ve also offered this information freely at the start of Path of Pollen inspired courses I’ve taught in the past.
Given Simon had stopped teaching Path of Pollen work after my first two classes at the Trust in 2008, paired with the openness with which the teachers at ST spoke of his errors in the book and the mind blowing experiences I'd already had there, I honestly didn't care too much about those early (and very minor in comparison to what’s out now) reports of plagiarism. Inspiration from mentors, I thought, and an oversight to not give credit - something that could be corrected. I went along my merry way learning for the next three years with Naomi Lewis and Kate Shela before taking a five year hiatus. I returned to the work in 2015 for LLM and, in 2017, for the practitioner training of Pythoness (where I engaged with practices akin to much of where my personal exploration had already taken me outside of my studies there - to me, another proof this work being Spirit-led and held in the hive of our knowing). I also engaged with the off-the-map work of Serpent Fool and Performing Shaman (almost entirely decontextualized from bee lore).
The worlds this work has opened for me are infinite. I spent years integrating the level of catharsis and deep transformation I experienced whilst under the guidance of Naomi and Kate in those early years. It was no walk in the park back in the day. We got our asses served to us, old school apprenticeship style and, given my background in Aikido and traditional Japanese medicine training, I loved how hardcore it all was. I mention this because of how much softer things became over the years and because of some of the allegations going around about those early days. I was there. My experience of it was awesome and I’ve been saddened and confounded to find out it felt quite the opposite for others.
I went to England and returned time and again because the conditions were right (including how full on it was!) for me to commune deeply with Spirit. And while the lore of the book Simon wrote was spellbinding, for me, the work I experienced there was never about Simon and his experience, nor feeding into some fairytale or carrying forward a myth of an unbroken anything. It was about my very real experience and connection to Spirit and the impeccable holding and facilitation that helped make that possible.
I've heard the Path of Pollen/Lyceum be called an unbroken lineage - and I've used those words too in the past - but I've come to understand it's all broken. Humanity itself is broken. In this day in age, where the context of healing and oracular arts are all but scattered like the dust of an ancient temple destroyed, the only effort worth making, the only thing real, is in putting the pieces back together or digging down deeper where true connection can be found and never destroyed.
During this time of breakdown of (the Sacred) Trust, I can only speculate about what Simon was trying to do with his book. One such speculation is that perhaps he was trying to piece something back together, to make it come alive again. It saddens me that this had to come through deception. I know my own experience of intense magic, healing and home coming that resulted from reading his book and also the upset (and disgust) of finding out how much was stolen from other sources.
And to be honest, the level of deception that’s been uncovered has been infuriating, confounding, and heartbreaking for myself and many who came to this work through his book. I can only imagine how hard it’s been for Naomi to find out she too had been lied to by someone so close to her. I don't condone what Simon did with his book nor the appropriation of practices for one second and I believe that if he had taken responsibility and been forthright from the beginning, we could have been saved from years of "disease in the hive" (a dream I had) and the patterns of mistruth and human drama that ensued. I do however believe there is still a body of work that can be excavated from the confusion - one that is well worth passing along (with proper credit given when known, of course).
This, perhaps, is the hardest part. Honoring the origin of the practices themselves. I am a person with a diverse cultural background and believe in celebrating the spiritual technologies and the different paths from which they came. I've come to a place of realizing I might never get to properly honor much of what was passed down under the umbrella/guise of Path of Pollen work and I am still sitting with how to move forward with that. Also, my experience of receiving practices through dreams and journey gives me the sense much was taught in the room was also brought forth through direct, personal revelation and the gnosis of those who have dedicated themselves to and taught on this path. A path that perhaps started as a facade but became very real through the ways we called in and met with Spirit.
My approach, as of now, is to continue to stay informed and to share what I know with my students regarding any factual information that is being revealed around this work and its history. I will continue to name origins as I know them and name what is still not known while being as forthright and transparent about the controversy surrounding. I should also say that my work is informed by more than just my experience at ST, I have two decades of working with various teachers and mentors from other schools of thought and (actual) lineage. How I practice has evolved so much through the years that much of what I'm passing along to students is no longer in the original form that I learned at ST but centered around my personal relationship to Spirit and where my personal gnosis has led me.
Further, Spirit has moved me in a way that has largely decontextualized the elements of practice from the story in which they were once wrapped. Yes, I still keep bees and have a deep personal relationship and many direct teachings that come through from the hives I’m relationship with, but I'm not trying to reconstruct the ways of the Melissae nor the temples of old. In fact, with nearly all of Simon's book (and origin stories) being debunked and found to be a plagiarized/ non-ordinary reality mashup, I'm sitting in the stark realities (that are no fairytale) and also seeking the places beyond these realities that I know to be truer than anything that has form. And I am understanding now, this is where the power is - in the formlessness.
In Japanese Zen principles, the notion of "shu-ha-ri" can describe a seeker's progression on their Spiritual or martial path. "Shu", is form, or the period when a seeker looks to their teacher and the forms they are being taught - they seek to emulate a master, and hold to tradition as it is taught to them. Next comes "Ha", when the seeker begins to make form their own through practice, inquiry, adaptation of technique/form in a way that more aptly reflects their own understanding. Finally "Ri" comes through transcendence of form. When the seeker moves through impulse, or rather allows themselves to be moved by a deeper wisdom as it is integrated and embodied - no longer separate. It moves beyond practice and into transmission, beyond the practitioner being centered and into feeding the whole of the practice that is contextualized within the All that Is.
When I zoom out from all of the human error and drama that has ensued around the lack of truth that's come up, I see there is a huge lesson in all of this.
I dreamt a couple years back of teaching a course called "Smoke and Mirrors: Undefining Perceptual Reality" - I feel now that it was foreshadowing for all that's surfaced within this community. When the story falls away, when the form falls away, when the trinket is lost, the story debunked, and yet, there is still a sense of power and Truth to be relied upon within the center of all of the "smoke and mirrors", that is where the gold lies. That is what's worth seeking and tending to.
We live in a world of illusion - we are forever being deceived by ourselves and by others, by the context in which we find ourselves, the forms we cling to. All deep traditions speak to this. There are many myths, parables, fables that are based on this exact learning. It is a hero's journey of sorts, a returning to Source that happens for every seeker of Truth.
It is quite human to be caught up in the swirl of drama, the lawsuits, the vilifying, the witch hunts, the Instagram show downs that have come up around it all. I too have lost sleep, been hooked by the trolling messages in my inbox and irritated to no end with it all, but that's not where I want to dwell nor do I want to see this community caught up in that destructive eddy.
I am taking a stark look here, I am not turning away. I am walking with my disappointment and range of emotions around it all, my wounds, but I am also seeking a way forward. A resolution. I am seeking freedom and clarity. I am seeking healing. I am interested in the deeper human lessons here and the sweetness we can carry forward from our lived experience regardless of all the shit show and the swirl of illusion and ego.
Another dream I had, around the start of the unraveling, was of a flat of honey jars falling to the ground and breaking. Glass and honey everywhere. I wanted to pick it up but the broken glass felt dangerous.
This mess has felt this way to me and for so many who've been involved with this work throughout the years. When the container is dismantled, smashed, no longer holding truth how can we carry forth the sweetness that had been held therein? How can we move past the shock and disappointment? How can we tread more carefully and with intention to give proper honor to these gifts?
Maybe we give it all back to the bees. Offer it up to Spirit. Let it be swallowed whole by Python and digested by the Universe only to come back in a new form more aligned with each of us who carry the relationships we've forged forward in an honest, life-giving way.
I wanted to offer this perspective to those who are seeking the healing story in all of this… Take with you the sweetness of what still sticks, what holds sustenance and life giving power regardless of origin stories or people's mistakes. That's what's worth keeping with us. Those aha moments, the power that has always been ours and blossomed in the conditions that it did. The friendships. The comrades in initiations. The miracles witnessed. The allies you journey and dream with. The deep knowing. The gnosis that erupted in moments when tears streamed down your cheeks and you literally knew God in every cell of your body.
Keep that. Tend that. Leave the rest.
I am turning the page and have so much adventure ahead and so many learning moments and beautiful memories behind.
I am moving forward in respect. In reverence. I am finding the crossroads of connection and pan-cultural, human celebration. I am moving deeper. With love. With truth. With room for all of it. And I hope you to do the same.
I am available to speak about this with anyone who’d like to reach out.
With love and in the Spirit of healing,
Nico
p.s. I’ve been blocked from the main IG accounts sharing information about this topic and denied access to the “Support and Discussion” Facebook group so I’m not always up on the latest info coming out, but I’ll do my best to keep informed.
p.p.s. Please feel free to share this essay with anyone you think might benefit from reading it. You can share this link if you’d like to do so: https://www.nicogoldenwolf.com/musings/broken-trust