Hoshindo: The Way of The Bee®
Ancient Roots
Our Sacred Body Art of Apian Anointing stands upon the shoulders of Giants, dating back at least 5000 years in China to Taoist Tribal roots. As a clinical Hoshindo Japanese Meridian Apitherapy Ryoho in Japan, Andrew trained in Hoshin, a light tapping technique in the Japanese lineage.
We are not practicing “Hoshin” bio-tapping technique or a therapeutic method, nor are we seeking for a pattern of disharmony, instead the light touch on the skin is likened to the tender touch of the Mother Goddess, which is Love.
“Maya temples and ceremonial centers were built in Mexico and Central America to honor the Honey Bee for its many gifts to humanity, known as the Diving Bee Spirit. Maya DayKeepers, still follow their practice of astronomy now thousands of years old. The earlier Maya rulers and priesthood observed that without the honey bee to cross-pollinate, the fruit, vegetable, and nut crops failed. They also innately and experientially understood the life-giving treasures the bee brought to our planet. In the Americas there are only a small number of tribal Bee priests among one or two First Nations in Mexico and Latin America who still use Bee Venom in addition to their other healing remedies.”
Tadako Endo and Voyce Sensei during her HoShinDo study (right side).
“The profoundly spiritual feminine principles of Hoshindo intertwined with the medicinal techniques enfolded within its ancient matrix, hold a sublime concept of the oneness of all consciousness and a unique potential of health for ‘mother` earth and her children. HoShin weaves together a rich and colorful tapestry of energetic quantum fields theory combined with ancient systems of healing with the Medicines of the Bee and the traditional practices of East Asian healing arts.”
Tadako Endo and Voyce Sensei at her HoShinDo Graduation in Japan
Voyce Sensei, Master Beekeeper Les Crowder, and Hoshindo Ryohos
The Way of The Bee®
Medium Interview by Ariel Cianfarano
Andrew Crawford’s garden, which includes lettuce, catnip and rosemary.
Off the main street, into a tiny neighborhood and along a dirt road is a pesticide-free garden in Sedona. The garden is located in the front of a house hidden among trees. Within the garden grows rosemary, catnip, lettuce and other various plants attractive to a specific pollinator: The Bee.
This biodynamic garden that houses a multitude of different plants has a caretaker, a young man named Andrew Crawford. “For myself, how can I continue to work in the garden so that I can become more close to who I truly am and remember what I need to focus on — planting flowers and shrubs and trees and herbs that the bees require,” Crawford said.
Andrew Crawford tends to his lettuce plants.
Crawford sinks his bare feet into the damp soil as he walks around his garden that is a habitat for many insects, but especially for the bee. This is important because, according to the Bee Informed Partnership, from 2017– 2018 in Arizona alone, there has been a bee colony loss of 77.9 percent.
Among the plants, his cat Roxie darts between his legs and mingles in the bushes around the property. The soft hum of bees can be heard beyond the wooden gate.
“Hoshindo” is a Japanese word that is composed of ideograms, or symbols that mean words, according to the Hoshindo Healing Arts Institute, a nonprofit organization that teaches people about Hoshindo and other practices. Ho means the law or method, shin is the core, heart and spirit, shindo is bee vibration, Hoshin is the stinger of the bee and do is the way or path, which all comes together to make: Hoshindo or the way of the bee. Meridian is the set of pathways that energy flows through the body. There are 12 pathways that represent major organs, like the stomach meridian or heart meridian. Apitherapy is an alternative medicine practice that Hoshindo falls under as its main method is bee venom.
Hoshindo is the tapping of a bee’s stinger on a specific area of the body to alleviate pain, stress or anxiety by releasing bee venom to those areas.
Andrew Crawford’s top-bar beehive, which houses bees that he received in November.
According to the Hoshindo Healing Arts Institute, original bee venom therapy was founded in China about 5,000 years ago. However, it was the Japanese who refined the practice and used it in conjunction with other East Asian medicine that utilized all parts of the bee — honey, royal jelly, pollen and bee venom — for healing the body.
Beyond the garden and the house is a top-bar beehive. Crawford started using top-bar beehives in 2012 because they are nontoxic and are easy to use for beekeepers unlike the Langstroth Hive, or the box hive, that was developed in the 1800s. The top-bar beehive doesn’t disturb the whole hive because a beekeeper can just lift one wooden bar to inspect a part of the hive, which is less stressful and intrusive to the bees. With Crawford’s top-bar beehives, he makes sure to use sustainably harvested wood, some even coming from Flagstaff.
The bees that are housed in the top-bar beehive are from rescues, like rescuing an endangered species and bringing them to an animal sanctuary. Instead of calling an exterminator to kill bees infesting someone’s house, Crawford encourages people to call him so that he can rescue the bees and bring them to a new home. He does rescues and removals all over Northern Arizona, including Flagstaff, Sedona and Cottonwood. Around the beehive is a bunch of plants that contribute to the bees’ food and health.
According to the “Honey Bee Health Coalition,” an organization that includes beekeepers, government agencies and conservation groups to collaborate on ways to improve bee health, suggest that creating a garden that has a diverse amount of plants not only can help the bees’ forage opportunities, but also help other conservation practices that increases crop and honey yields, captures carbon, protects soil health and creates a wildlife habitat.
These bees are also used for his Hoshindo clinic.
Bees fly around a rosemary plant that is in Andrew Crawford’s garden. Rosemary is an optimal pollinator plant because it grows almost all year.
Crawford sits cross-legged on one of the cement paths in his garden. The sun goes in and out from behind the clouds shrouding him in shadows and sunlight every couple of minutes. Roxie lays beside him. Bees wiz past after getting necessary food from the nearby rosemary plant — this is an optimal environment for life, healing and finding one’s self Crawford believes.
The bees have shown Crawford purpose in his life and have also introduced three principles to him: heal thyself, know thyself and do no harm. Heal thyself because the bees show Crawford ways to heal our bodies through bee venom, honey and pollen, which Crawford has seen in action through his practice. Know thyself because bees have taught Crawford to understand himself and the world better. And do no harm, which Crawford has been practicing by tending to his own pesticide-free garden, rescuing bees and helping people heal themselves through Apitherapy.
“The bees are like teachers. They are like the professor at NAU, except on a whole other level,” Crawford said.
Crawford graduated from the Hoshindo Healing Arts Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2017. On and off for a year and a half, Crawford was trained in traditional and ceremonial practices, like Japanese calligraphy, fanning and crystalline energy techniques.
“I do what I do and I perform this community service to help educate the community that bees are our friends and they can help us,” Crawford said. “They are profound healers in the sense of helping our body heal itself.”
According to the Hoshindo Healing Arts Institute, Hoshin can help lessen or heal many aliments like, allergies, chronic pain, Lyme disease, stress, anxiety, arthritis, depression, Parkinson’s and shingles.
Bee venom contains a variety of peptides, including melittin and non-peptide components, which have a variety of pharmaceutical properties, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Melittin itself has anti-inflammatory and anti-arthritis properties. Once bee venom enters the body, it triggers an immune response to that area and can help or eliminate the pain that person is experiencing.
A massage table stands in the middle of Andrew Crawford’s Hoshindo clinic. On the back wall, diagrams of the meridian energy flows hang, and below the diagrams is a white table with Crawford’s tools…
Crawford’s studio is in a room at the front of his house. A massage table stands in the middle of the room and diagrams of meridian energy flows throughout the body hangs on the wall. When Crawford is doing a session with a client, he takes account their medical history, symptoms and concerns before starting the treatment. After Crawford determines the energy flows within the person’s body, he is then able to administer bee venom to those areas. Crawford is sure to emphasize that bee venom is only administered where it is needed, not wanted.
Some might think getting stung by bees sounds like a nightmare, but to others, it has been an effective way to heal oneself. Crawford himself has had back pain from bumping his back into a car bumper and used bee venom to eliminate his pain.
“It’s not that bees heal me. It’s that the bees helped my body to heal itself,” Crawford said.
After this therapy is done, there could be several bees that have died. Crawford gives the bees to his members after the session is over and encourages them to give them back to nature so that the bees can continue on through the circle of life.
Bees fly in and out of Andrew Crawford’s top-bar beehive, which is situated in the backyard. The top-bar beehive is a less stressful home for bees instead of traditional box hives.
Apitherapy also includes using honey to reap the healing benefits for a person’s body. According to the Journal of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research, honey can be used to destroy free radicals within the body, make someone feel more energized and is a multivitamin tonic with anti-bacterial properties. These properties can help with the common cold or even be used to dress a wound…
“We’ve been eating honey as a species for a very long time. At one time, it was one of the only sweet things that we had in our diets. Now, we have all of these other empty sugars that kind of taken the place of honey in many ways,” Pynes said. “I think that there is evidence that eating honey everyday is a good thing. It’s good for your health for sure.”
The bees are helping the ecosystems remain healthy by mixing everything together and creating life-giving food, like honey, fruit and other vegetables, for people Crawford said. People like Crawford and Pynes are also helping the bees by providing healthy environments through their beekeeping and education for the pollinator to thrive.
“Some people just see it as a sweetener, but I see [honey] as a profound healing gift, profound for wounds and cleaning from the inside out,” Crawford said.
“Heal thyself. Know thyself. Do no harm. The Way of the Bee.”
“It’s all about relationships and love. That’s what it’s about,” Crawford said. “How am I in relation to all that is? What are my relationships? How am I nourishing my relationships in my life? Because the bees are continuously nourishing our relationships with the plants, with the bacteria that are associated with those plants, with the very subtle high spiritual qualities — the pollen, the nectar, the propolis — they are helping mix everything together.”